This book presents a study of ten Mexican immigrant families, describing how such families go about the business of surviving and learning to succeed in a new world. Guadalupe Valdes examines what appears to be a disinterest in education by Mexican parents and shows, through extensive quotations from interview data, that these struggling families are both rich and strong in family values and bring with them clear views of what constitutes success and failure. The study's conclusion questions the merit of typical family intervention programs designed to promote school success and suggests that these interventions -- because they do not genuinely respect the values of diverse families -- may have long-term negative consequences for children.

Guadalupe Valdés is a Professor in the School of Education and in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Stanford University. She received the 2022 LRA Distinguished Scholar Lifetime Achievement Award.