August 4, 1999
I am a bi-lingual and bi-literate [English/Spanish] immigration attorney who deals
almost exclusively with low-income Hispanics who do not speak English and who typically do
not have much formal education. Recently, I have substitute taught as a bilingual teacher
in California public schools (k-12).
Although I am no expert in bi-lingual education, I have met many children and young
adults [of immigrants] whose English skills have much to be desired. All have received
bi-lingual education. Sadly enough, there are non-immigrant children coming out of these
same schools who are equally inept at communicating in English.
My father immigrated from Greece when he was a teenager and taught himself how to
speak, read, and write English perfectly and without the aid of any schooling or in-home
study. My mother's first language is Italian. Her first exposure to English was when she
was six years of age and thrown into an all-English first-grade class. She had no problem
learning English.
Peter Katson
July 15, 1999
While I agree with a great deal of the comments made here, I have to question the basic
assumption that immigrants are or should be assimilating TO something called
"American". Even leaving aside immigrants for the moment, could we really say
that everyone is in agreement as to what exactly being "American" means? If we
look at the immigrants of 100 years ago, we see a wide variety of assimilation strategies
and, quite often, active resistance against what was seen as and empty modern lifestyle.
What continuously emerged and re-emerged as "American" was very much a result of
the influence of the bodies of immgrants for whom room had to be made in America. For
instance, consider the East European Jewish immigrants who came to America between 1880
and WWI. They are often held up as an example of the "model" immigrant community
for the rapid entry of so many of its descendents into the American middle class, but it
bears remembering that the largest socialist paper in the country, the Forward, was
printed in Yiddish, a testimony to the strength of these immigrants in socialist,
communist, and anarchist political movements--considered by many to be wholly
"un-American". These immigrants, along with Italians, Poles, Scandinavians, and
other immigrants, were instrumental in building the unions and political machines that for
a while, especially in the 'teens and again in the '30s, contributed to the shaping of the
American political landscape. And let's not forget the role of Jewish immigrants in
entertainment, presenting through their roles as producers, drectors, actors, musicians,
and comics, the images--particularly through motion pictures--on which a generation of
Americans modeled themselves. By the '50's and '60's it seems as if this community had
become entirely "American", but being "American" meant something very
different than it had when their parents and grandparents arrived.
Dustin Wax, MA Candidate
New School for Social Research, Graduate Faculty
June 16, 1999
In California we just passed a voter initiative that got rid of bilingual education in
our public schools. In the information about this initiative, there was little discussion
of whether kids learn better in their native language or in an English immersion
situation. It seems to me that what is best for the students should determine education
policy, and it is a subject that is strangely missing from discussions of bilingual
education.
Rachel Leiterman, recent graduate of Santa Clara University law school, Santa Clara,
CA.
