Chancellor’s Fellow Jennifer Lee pens article on immigrant experience for Los Angeles magazine

Jennifer Lee,Chancellor’s Fellow and professor of sociology, joins two Pulitzer Prize winners in describing the immigrant experience for Los Angeles magazine’s October issue. In an article titled “What Defines a Successful Immigrant,” Lee compares how the starting points of various first-generation Asians and Latinos contribute to their ultimate success. Many of her first-generation students, she notes, are embarrassed to acknowledge that they’re the first in their families to go to college. (Nearly 60 percent of UCI undergraduates are first-generation college students.) “I look them in the eye and tell them not to feel ashamed,” Lee says. “They are real immigrant success stories because they started with less than the other half of their classmates, bucked the odds, and made it to a top university.”