Trying to excel in the Golden State: anti-immigrant sentiment and immigrant educational achievement in California.

Anti-immigrant hostility continues to rise throughout multicultural societies. Building on segmented assimilation theory, in this manuscript I examine whether anti-immigrant sentiment might decrease school performance of immigrant children using the case of California, the state with the largest population of immigrants in the United States. I find a negative association between an increase in anti-immigrant sentiment at the community level and academic performance of immigrant students. This finding has broad implications for our understanding of immigrant educational experiences. It is also especially relevant at a time when multicultural societies are struggling to incorporate immigrants successfully into their economic, social, and political spheres. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]