Category Archives: Newcomers & Perpetual Foreigners

What is an American, anyway?

“No matter the length of time South Asian American individuals and families have resided in the United States, they are perceived by many to be foreign, dangerous, and unaccepting of American values.”
Bajaj et al (2016) pg. 490

The term “American” can be a complicated one, especially when put into the perspective of the concept of the “perpetual foreigner.” What does it mean to be American, and when can a person consider herself American? Does being American have anything to do with length of residency, immigration status, race, ethnicity, religion, culture, or values? If the United States is truly the “melting pot” or “salad bowl” of the world, why are some people inherently barred from claiming this identity? Continue reading What is an American, anyway?

“I’m not from here, but neither are you”

This title corresponds to a translation from a line in song by Uruguayan song writer Jorge Drexler, an artist who has kept the absurd of the word “immigrant” floating swiftly on his marvelous and intelligent verses: “Yo no soy de aquí, pero tu tampoco”. I’m leaving the link to the video, hoping that you can find the subtitles in your native language and follow his inspiring music along with the poetry of his truthful words about the human nature to be nomads, far away from the undocumented veil they placed upon it. Continue reading “I’m not from here, but neither are you”

Translanguaging to stay true and connect (+ playlist)

“She asked us to work harder to build positive relationships with immigrant students in our classes, and to take time to listen to their stories and learn about what they have experienced. If we can bring a bilingual approach that taps into students’ home language and culture, we as teachers, school leaders, counselors, and school social work staff can more effectively partner with our students’ families to bridge the gap between school and family and community.”

– Goodman, It’s Not About Grit, chapter 3 p.79

I feel so happy to be teaching ENL in a time where translanguaging is embraced. Specifically at the middle school level that I’m working with in Spanish Harlem, these students have a lot of knowledge in their home/first language and even more extensive knowledge in the fields and subjects that interest them the most. For the “All About Me” activities we worked on as a class, I allowed them to “code switch” a bit and include some of their answers their first languages. Since the goal of that specific activity was to get them to focus on personal and possessive pronouns, answering “my favorite sport is arco y flecha” did not interfere with the language objective or learning target of the class.

Giving the students the space to talk about where they’re from, where I can find it on a map, their favorite food from home, or the many other parts of them that they can now bring into the classroom makes them more excited and motivated to be in their in the first place and is what this chapter touches upon. Connecting with our students and empowering them are products of the type of communication we have with them. If we welcome their knowledge, their differences, their backgrounds and work with them (not against them), we can build a better classroom environment for them. I know I still have a lot to learn about being an ENL teacher but learning alongside my students and simultaneously learning from them makes the experience uniquely enriching for all of us.


As an emotional response to this chapter and it’s stories, I created a playlist on Spotify. This is just a small compilation of tracks that I felt inclined to include but even the diversity in artists and array of years in which the songs were released says a lot about the importance of this topic. The songs talk about human rights regarding immigrants, stories of people emigrating, how immigration affects those left behind, the resilience of immigrants, the politics behind views on immigration, cultural preservation post-immigration, and more.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1e7B7KA30ouPBt4vXli0HsVFc5e7W9eE2grQoQ8lH_5c/edit?usp=sharing

This is a link to a sort of “annotated song list” explaining the topic of each song and a translated quote since not all of the songs are in English.

MVP#9 How would we (teachers) build a trust relationship with students, as well as their parents?

A related line of research has shown that when the race-and class-informed expectations, practices, and values of school align closely with those of home, parents are more likely to feel comfortable at school and with school people, and therefore to be more visibly involved in school life (Fabienne, 2011, pg. 2708).

Continue reading MVP#9 How would we (teachers) build a trust relationship with students, as well as their parents?

Academic Support for Newcomers

“Newcomer students like Perla and Luis are especially likely to fall into this downward educational spiral if their schools don’t provide a socially welcoming and academically structured and scaffolded environment that can meet their particular emotional and developmental needs. To bridge the disconnect that such students may feel between their lives at home and in school, teachers and other school support staff need to bring a sensitivity to the cultural and psychological transitions they may be struggling with in both environments.” (Goodman, 2018, p. 64)

This passage really hit home. As a student teacher at an ESL placement, we encounter students with similar situations from this chapter. I’m mostly exposed to Asian newcomers, or emergent bilinguals that face emotional, social, and academic challenges parallel to those mentioned by Goodman. I’ve also read articles assigned by my TESOL courses about how staff and schools don’t provide enough of a welcoming environment, don’t take the time to get to know students, and don’t use scaffolded pedagogy to support “emotional and developmental needs.” Our newcomers, emergent students may be facing complicated situations that lead to emotional stress, like, trying to keep up with/learn the new language, rebuilding family ties after reunification, missing their old home/routines, and cultural transitions. These challenges that students are faced with can be dealt with, but as educators it can seem hard to give support since we know we’re not with our students outside of class, and we can’t hold their hand throughout the day. But, the chapter includes some ways in which educators can help these students develop new language and at the same time learn from them on a personal level through group work and journals. I also got a little excited when they mentioned pair work and allowing translanguaging because we just spoke about it in our last class. This is an approach that I haven’t been able to use yet since my placement is a school where they strongly encourage students to only speak English, but I definitely look forward to applying it in my future classroom. Even though I find useful the suggestions from the chapter in helping support newcomers, I wonder what activities can other content teachers use or create to support or get to know their emergent bilinguals?