“Thus, because newcomer immigrant youth undergo profound shifts in their sense of self and are struggling to negotiate changing circumstances in relationships with parents and peers, positive school relationships can bridge the gap between home and school cultures and create important linguistic and cultural connections to the new society.” Page 63 of “Adolescents from Immigrant Families: Relationships and Adaptation in School” by Suarez-Orozco, Qin & Amthor.

As adolescents undergo immigration experiences they are divorced from aspects of the “predictable contexts” that defined their lives including, “community ties, jobs, customs, and (often) language,” as well as their many social relationships (p52). Immigrant students of adolescent age have begun the process of identity formation in response to these predictable contexts. Thus, the unpredictable contexts they experience in their receiving socio-cultural environment can be a jarring affront to the ongoing process of identity development. They become vulnerable to the many demands of these unpredictable contexts. Too often these demands center around assimilation, which is a subtractive approach to cultural adaptation demanding that an individual sacrifice important pieces of his identity. I see this manipulation of vulnerability toward assimilation as a social injustice and a crime against diversity.
In order to respond to this issue I offer the normative solution of implementing intercultural learning experiences at the high school level. Such intercultural learning experiences would bring together a group of students representing the diversity within a given school. This would include students from heritage backgrounds including second and third generation students as well as a range of individuals representing the wide range of lived experiences by first generation immigrants. This would also include students from African American, Hispanic American, and Caucasian ethno-cultural backgrounds. The participant demographics would change according to school context, but always represent a range of diversity in ethnicity, culture, perspective and experience. Activities would focus on providing intercultural competencies through cross-cultural engagement. For domestic students this would inculcate multicultural sensitivity and an authentic investment in diversity. For immigrant students this would provide intervention to ease transitions into new socio-cultural contexts, paying attention to identity development and key skills in navigating gaps in culture. While intercultural learning experiences have myriad benefits for a wide range of targeted student populations, the support and guidance of socio-cultural identity development and community integration for immigrant students is chief among them.
These intercultural learning experiences are predicated on a community trust and mutual respect. This environment must be created through community building activities. While the remainder of sessions and simulations in the intercultural learning experience depend on this community, the community is also an essential network of support that the students take back into the school setting after the experience has ended. Thus, intercultural learning experiences can foster relational engagement and integration into a positive social support system that values the culture and identity of the individual and encourages an additive approach to post-immigration identity development rather than a subtractive one. Research shows that these relational supports also improve learning outcomes for immigrant students, which has an impact on their future integration into and success in American society.
The implementation of such a program is not incredibly difficult. The program discussions, sessions and simulations are centered on the students. All that is needed is an engaged cohort acting as raw material for the experience itself. Because of the growing population of immigrant and heritage learners in urban contexts, finding such a group of students in a given school should not be especially challenging.