For four years I worked with the immigrant population at a charter school in Washington, DC that served the most vulnerable among that group.   Reading (Re)Constructing Home and School: Immigrant Parents, Agency, and the (Un)Desirability of Bridging Multiple Worlds, I was reminded of many of the struggles our immigrant families dealt with and also brought with them to school every day. Many students I worked with were hesitant to access services because they thought that either their immigration status would be revealed and ICE would be informed or that using government services would negatively affect future petitions for residency based on myths that exist within the immigrant community.

The most important things I learned working in that school was how to make immigrant families (or any family) feel comfortable in the school environment.  I had not heard of the term “bridging” before, but it was a practice that was integrated into our school philosophy.  My director made it clear, first through our mission statement that our families are not just people receiving services, rather they are important members of our community and interaction is as beneficial to our school as as it is to the participants.  This idea was made clear due to the fact that almost all staff were bilingual in Spanish-English, Amharic-English, French-English or Bengali-English (amongst others).  We hired current or former students whenever possible: meaning that staff were diverse and mirrored the population that we served.  Also, we had a student council made up of our adult students that was an important body within the school.  Additionally, several adult students with higher English levels sat on our board of directors.  All of these actions created an environment of inclusion, where immigrant students felt as though they had power over their own education.  I was taught to really listen to the needs of the individual and to do whatever in my power to help students, whether it was school-related or not.  What I am getting at, is there are ways to engage immigrant communities in the American school system, in fact, respectful integration is already taking place in some schools, although it does requires a change in mentality that many schools are not willing or aware enough to make.