This article examines how the introduction of a Mandarin Immersion Program (MIP) at Maple Apple Orchard School (MAOS), an underperforming elementary school in a stable, working-class, majority-Hispanic neighborhood, has led to school gentrification independent of neighborhood demographic change. Middle-class, predominantly white and Asian parents from outside the school attendance zone enrolled their children in the immersion program, gradually shifting the school’s racial and socioeconomic composition while assuming leadership roles in parental organizations. This shift created a divide between immersion and non-immersion families, with immersion parents driving institutional changes and envisioning a fully immersion school, potentially marginalizing the existing working-class, mostly Hispanic families. The study highlights how bilingual education programs can attract privileged families and resources but may also reinforce educational inequalities and social segregation within ostensibly diverse schools.
