Category Archives: Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

Fighting stereotypes

“Although schools play an active role in perpetuating these and other stereotypes, they also contain the seeds of potential change. Schools can curricular change that disrupt and challenge these stereotypes.” Stacey J. Lee

As educators we are in a a unique and powerful position to help fight social injustices such as stereotyping. As the reading suggests, one way to do this is through the curriculum. Though they may have improved a bit over the years, many, if not most, of school curricula are dominated by white European narratives. This functions to exclude or severely marginalize minority ethnic groups, their importance, and their contributions. The effects can be devastating, as the article explains. Ethnic groups, such as Asian Americans, get the message that their stories and contributions are not as important in our society. I found it extremely sad to learn many things in this article, one being that many Asian Americans don’t describe themselves as American because they know that others don’t see them that way. This sort of exclusion is unacceptable. This is a result of white domination that persists in our society in many forms. It is our job as teachers to remedy this injustice by working to include the stories of Asian Americans and other minority ethnic groups into our curriculum and by valuing and honoring the realities of all who make up our multicultural society.

 

How can we protect our immigrant youth?

“Poverty limits opportunities and frequently coexists with a variety of other factors that are associated with risk in adolescence, such as single-parenthood, residence in violent neighborhoods saturated with gang activity and drug trade, and segregated, overcrowded, and understaffed schools.” – Adolescents from immigrant families.

Immigrant youth face a myriad of difficulties following their migration to the United States: acquiring new language skills, adapting to new cultural norms and leaving behind friends and family members.  What this passage and the author attempts to shed light on is that as challenging as the aforementioned experiences are during assimilation, they are only the tip of the iceberg as to what immigrant youth face in this country.  Although entrance into the United States is seen by many immigrants and Americans as an arrival to a proverbial “promised land”, sadly, many of the factors that caused these people to migrate in the first place follow them to their new home.  I recently read an article about how MS13 (the powerful Salvadorian gang) was recruiting youth who had recently moved to the United States, capitalizing on the fact that they were vulnerable and looking for community.  All too common are stories of family members in the home country being kidnapped, with the kidnappers demanding money now that presumably their family in the United States will be able to provide it.   While it is impossible to be aware of all the conflicts and issues going on around the world, having knowledge about the countries that out students come from and the potential difficulties that they may face will help us be better equipped to offer support or services.

Education State of Mind

Linda Prieto

The Stings of Social Hierarchies: From the Central San Joaquin Valley Vineyards to the Ivy Walls  

which Delgado Bernal (2001) describes from a Chicana feminist perspective as focusing,

…on the ways Chicanas teach, learn, and live the foundations for balancing and resisting systems of oppression. In other words, the teaching and learning of the home allows Chicanas to draw upon their own cultures and sense of self to resist domination along the axes of race, class, gender, and sexual orientation. (p. 624)

We must highlight the promise within these communities as we rethink, redesign, and recreate schools as places that liberate the lives of all young people. Unlike me, perhaps hegemony deserves a cachetada to awaken itself, to keep alert, and to keep moving.

Reply:

Linda Prieto paints a beautiful picture about the necessary breaking down of current values and way of thought of the American Education system. In her writing she reminds readers of the history of the American nation. Looking back into history where foreign cultures, including languages, were imposed on the indigenous people of the Americas, shows us how whacky the state of mind is today within many of the present American school walls; where the benefit of speaking a second language is hidden. English is made to be the standard language of schools in a country where English is not the official primary language;  yet negative connotations are imposed on foreigners who come here to make an honest living. Year after year goes by since the ending of slavery, and since the death of Martin Luther King Jr., and still till this day women and men of color, or foreign decent, (everyone in America at this point besides the indigenous), have to leap through loops of fire to prove to White America that we are all the same, capable of putting out the same amount of work in all fields. The conversation as a people has yet to transition from “You are this, and you are that,” to “let’s get together and work towards the forward progression of our world.” Instead the people at the top of the food chain, the “one percent,” have managed to turn everything into a business, including education. The people at the top control what America needs, state of mind, and values; therefore the values, and state of mind of the people can only be changed by the people.

I end this reply with two questions, (some may think decent interview questions): What can you do? How many languages do you speak?

 

Nathaniel Jimenez

Teacher Modeling is one major cause of social bias

“As education scholars, we cannot continue to allow poor and working-class students and other underrepresented groups and our families to struggle alone against the hegemonic designs of U.S. public school.” Prieto, The sting of social hierarchies.

In this article, Prieto wrote about her personal experiences and feelings of being an immigrant kid, which are really touching to read. She is from minority group and working-class, who has to take the burden of sharing family responsibility at a young age. Plus, his family members are resisting American culture, and avoid her from getting involve in American society. All of these factors add up the difficulties for her to adjust to the US culture. The article was published 10 years ago, and right now the cognition of constructing multi-culture educational setting has been accepted by more and more schools and educators. But, we still couldn’t deny that there are still kids and family, especially the “poor and working-class”, are struggling to fight with social bias in and out of schools. In my opinion, schools and teachers could play important roles to redirect this trend. School is the primary environment for immigrant kids to contact American cultures. If teachers could form a classroom culture to appreciate the contributions of working-class, and foster a positive view toward the immigration groups, students can model their teachers and gradually redirect their previous bias on different social classes. Currently, especially during recent years, schools have put more attention on multi-culture learning environment. And, more and more educators are joining to fight against the “hegemonic designs of U.S. public schools”. Hopefully, more students from poor and working-class could find out a better way to define themselves and face future challenges positively.

Racial Identity Stratification

“Caribbean-origin individuals may distinguish themselves from African Americans in an attempt to ward off further disparagement (Waters 1999; Zéphir 1996). In conducting her research with second-generation Haitian youth, Zéphir (2001) found that those youth who had migrated at high school age and who thus retained their French accents bore these as a point of pride because they felt it distinguished them from African Americans.” – Doucet & Suarez-Orozco, “Ethnic Identity and Schooling”

The school I taught at before this year was the most racially diverse setting I’ve ever been in. Watching the students discuss racial distinctions and segregate themselves accordingly was astonishing. In one instance, I had one student (of Dominican origin) announce to the entire class that he “hated” his classmate in the desk beside him because that student was Puerto Rican. In another case, a young sixth grade girl (of Haitian origin) told another teacher, “I’m not black; I’m light-skinned.”  Continue reading Racial Identity Stratification