Deportations: Beyond the Numbers

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We hear the numbers a lot: 396,906 immigrants were deported last year. 392,862 the year before that. And almost 390,000 in 2009 as well. Yet seldom is it included in these news reports who, exactly, is being deported, and what circumstances the person is being forced to leave behind.

A poster from a May Day rally in Poughkeepsie, NY

One common assumption is that most of the immigrants who are being deported are felons who steal identities, cheat the government, physically endanger others, or get involved with drugs and other criminal activities. President Obama’s administration has certainly placed a rhetorical emphasis on removing these kinds of people from the country—and indeed, the number of deportations of immigrants convicted of felonies (e.g. murder, child abuse, possession of illegal drugs, etc.) has increased by 70 percent over the last four years. But that still only accounts for about half of all of the people who have been deported during Obama’s tenure.

As for the other half? These immigrants are often family members of U.S. citizens—parents, children, spouses, siblings—who have been unable to obtain legal permanent residency status due to the bureaucratic vortex that constitutes our immigration system.

One of these family members is Felipe Montes. Mr. Montes spent nine years in the United States raising two children with his wife before he was deported in 2010. His wife Marie had been pregnant with a third child when he was forced to return to Mexico, and the loss of his income and support meant that Marie would struggle to raise all of the kids on her own. Two weeks after their third child was born, the local child welfare department took thr children from Marie and put them in foster care. Now Mr. Montes may never see his children again.

The tragic situation of the Montes family is not an anomaly. ColorLines reported in December 2011 that during the first six months of 2011 the Obama administration deported 46,000 parents of U.S. citizen children, and there are now 5,100 children of detained and deported parents trapped in foster care.

A paper published in 2011 in the Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare describes the tremendous hardship that this separation can entail:

The disruption of undocumented families, when parents are separated from their children, results in increased symptoms of mental health problems among children. This disruption is so traumatic that the fear of deportation itself results in emotional stress. Fear of arrests and trauma from the workplace raids themselves have profound impacts on children. After the Iowa raid [a May 2008 federal crackdown which resulted in the arrests of 389 immigrants], half of the school system’s students were absent from school, including 90 percent of Hispanic children, because their parents were arrested or in hiding.

At the time, the May 2008 raid had been the largest-ever crackdown on undocumented workers. Despite the clear damage it inflicted on the families and communities in Iowa, however, the Obama administration has gone egregiously further this year. A six-day operation in April conducted by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) nabbed 3,168 undocumented immigrants—with only about half (1,477) of those with felony convictions on their record. This policy will only continue to cause pain and hardship for families with mixed legal status, and must be reconsidered.

Additional collateral damage can be found in the industries of which these undocumented workers have been a part. To take one example, last summer, Alabama’s legislature followed an insidious legislative trend in the South by passing a bill that would criminalize unauthorized work in the state and empower the police to stop and detain any person suspected of being in the country illegally. The law’s passage immediately led to a mass exodus of workers, both documented and undocumented, from the state, for fear of being harassed by local authorities. Many of the workers who fled had made significant contributions to the state’s agricultural economy. Now, a paper published this January by the University of Alabama estimates that the economic costs of the immigrant diaspora will be around 70,000-140,000 jobs, up to $250 million in state income and sales taxes, and up to $10.8 billion in Alabama GDP—a staggering loss.

It should be clear by now that the federal government’s wanton disregard for these immigrants who are affected by deportations is unconscionable. Our policymakers should look beyond the basic deportation figures, because if they bothered to parse the numbers and examine the consequences, they would find that current policy is severely detrimental not just to families, but to communities, industries, and the economy as well.

 Works Cited:

Androff, David K. et al. 2011. “U.S. Immigration Policy and Immigrant Children’s Well-being: The Impact of Policy Shifts.” Journal of Sociology & Social Welfare. March 2011.

Addy, Samuel. “A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the New Alabama Immigration Law.” Center for Business and Economic Research, The University of Alabama. January 2012.

Barriers to Reunification

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When discussing the deportation and detention of undocumented immigrants, the conversation rarely includes the impact that the actions of the U. S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have on the children of undocumented parents.   From the immediate emotional trauma of being separated from one or both parents, to the physical trauma of leaving their homes, children of undocumented parents suffer to an alarming extent.  The ICE tactic of removal is usually a forceful and violent one in which parents are dragged off in one direction while children are hauled off in another. Goodbyes are rarely afforded to detainees and immediate removal does not allow for time to secure the welfare of the children. If no relative is able to advocate for the children, the ICE’s course of action is to place the children in the care of Child Protective Services until the state can decide their fate. As legal U.S. citizens, these children are entitled to remain in the country without their parents and are placed in the foster care program. In 2011, the Applied Research Center, which publishes the Color Lines website, reported that “at least 5,100 children whose parents are detained or deported are currently in foster care around the United States” (Wessler 2011). The foster care program aims to place these children with available foster families, without regard for linguistic and cultural similarities. Children are forced to grow up in different environments from their own, without knowledge of their culture or ancestry. Siblings are sometimes separated and placed in different homes, creating a second level of separation. The emotional turmoil that these events have on children often go unmentioned as these children are shuffled around in the foster care system.

dpr_parents_kids.gif

Parents in detention centers, or those who have been deported, are disconnected from the real world and have no access to their children, family, lawyers or child welfare caseworkers. The immediate detention of undocumented parents severs all forms of communication, which usually lasts for months and sometimes years. The Applied Research Center reported that “ 85 percent of detainees lack legal representation and can be held for months, sometimes years, in squalid conditions” (Wessler 2011). Lacking the means to defend their parental rights over their children only adds to the frustration already felt in detention centers.  The ICE does not aid in providing legal services for detainees, often resulting in many parents missing court dates and foregoing the opportunity to plead their case. Without the parents’ presence at court hearings, the judge, lawyers and caseworkers decide the faith of the children without any contribution from the parents.  “Ultimately, child welfare departments and juvenile courts too often move to terminate the parental rights of deportees and put children up for adoption, rather than attempt to unify the family as they would in other circumstances” (Wessler 2011). The U.S. legal system advocates for children to remain in the U.S. in foster care rather than being deported with their parents because of the parents’ inability to provide for the children after being deported. Once deportation has occurred, reunification seems impossible and very few are able to reconnect shortly after. The emotional and physical welfare of the children of undocumented parents should be taken into consideration and changes to the ICE’s procedures changed to address their needs.

References

Rabin, Nina. 2011. “Disappearing Parents: A Report on Immigration Enforcement and the Child  Welfare System.” The University of Arizona. Retrieved May 5, 2012. (http://www.law.arizona.edu/depts/bacon_program/disappearing_parents_report.cfm)

Wessler, Seth Freed. 2011. “Thousand of Kids Lost From Parents in U.S. Deportation System.” Color Lines, November 2. Retrieved May 5, 2012 (http://colorlines.com/archives/2011/11/thousands_of_kids_lost_in_foster_homes_after_parents_deportation.html).

 

 

Civic Participation and Undocumented Youth

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Civic participation and civil disobedience are often thought of as rights reserved for citizens. However, given the growing human rights campaign being waged by undocumented immigrants in the United States, now might be an appropriate time to reevaluate that definition.

Judith Torney-Purta et al. (2006: 352) found that there were “significant differences favouring students who are neither immigrants nor Hispanic in knowledge of civic content and concepts, in understanding democracy, [and] in possessing the skills necessary to understand political communications.” While their sample only included legal immigrants, it is safe to assume that, as one of society’s most disenfranchised and vulnerable subgroups, undocumented immigrants feel those disadvantages doubly. Alienated by the same English proficiency, income, and education gaps that plague other immigrants, undocumented residents must also live in fear of systematic reprisal from the Immigration Naturalization Services (INS) and Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE). This underclass is constantly threatened by deportations, fines, and jailing, which forces them to conceal their identities at all costs. Were another minority so grossly marginalized, they would no doubt demonstrate against their unequal treatment. Yet those whose actions have been deemed criminal, such as “illegal aliens,” rarely invite publicity.

However, that paradigm appears to be changing. A few years ago, a handful of groups representing Latino youth organized the first Coming Out of the Shadows Day. The event was intended to restore pride to a people who had come to associate their identities with shamefulness and secrecy. Employing rhetoric similar to the gay rights movement, undocumented Latinos were encouraged to re-appropriate the stigmas against them by publicly announcing their lack of legal status. The risks are obvious – most of America’s estimated eleven million undocumented residents strive to protect themselves from being outed. Yet each year, many undocumented residents challenge their country to confront an issue that is so close to home, yet so often shunned by citizens, lawmakers, and media. The Immigrant Youth Justice League, one of the movement’s principle sponsors, claims that the coming out movement is intended to “push the boundaries of what it means to belong in the United States and call this country home – as a juxtaposition to the way the government criminalizes us and our families” (Unzueta 2011).

It is difficult to pinpoint where and when this sudden surge in undocumented activism arose. Hinda Seif (2011) cites the large-scale protests against the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act, during which demonstrators donned shirts reading “We Are All Immigrants,” as a possible catalyst. The gay rights crusade has undoubtedly been another source of inspiration. Journalist and author Jose Antonio Vargas, by far the most prominent immigrant to out himself thus far, explicitly cited Harvey Milk as an influence in his announcement (Vargas 2011). Undoubtedly, gays’ public identity revelations played some role in the startling pace at which they have advanced their agenda in the past several decades. It is understandable that an analogously marginalized subgroup would want to replicate that success. But, regardless of its exact origins, the coming out movement represents a generational shift in undocumented residents’ attitudes toward their identities and national responsibilities. Perhaps it is time to consider that civic participation is the duty of all those who feel they have a stake in their country’s fortunes.

Work Cited

Unzueta, Tania. 2011. “The Politics of Coming Out.” July 13. Retrieved 5/5/12.                                (http://www.iyjl.org/?p=2414).

Seif, Hinda (2011). “Unapologetic and Unafraid: Immigrant Youth Come Out from the Shadows. Pp. 59 – 75 in New Directions for Child and Adolescent Development edited by Lene Arnett Jensen and Reed W. Larson.

Torney-Purta, Judith et al. 2006. “Differences in the Civic Knowledge and Attitudes           of Adolescents in the United States by Immigrant Status and Background.” Pp. 343 – 354            in Prospects, vol XXXVI, no. 3 edited by Fernando Reimers.

Vargas, Jose Antonio. (2011). “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant.” The New York                      Times, June 22.

The Geographic Integration of Immigrants

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A number of metrics are employed by sociologists to gauge the level of assimilation immigrants have achieved in their adoptive country. Some combination of education, income, language preference, and national/ethnic self-identification is generally accepted as an appropriate measure. Geographic dispersal, or the rate at which immigrants venture outside of their ethnic circles into the country-at-large, is also revealing. A group’s settlement patterns can be a sign of integration among the broader American populace. Indeed, diasporas reflect ethnic groups’ reduced reliance on compatriots for survival and their increased comfort among people of different backgrounds – two excellent barometers of assimilation. Presently, the current wave of immigrants from Latin America is displaying a surprising willingness to explore different regions of the country.

Like previous generations of immigrants, Latinos initially concentrated near their points of entry (e.g. the U.S.-Mexico border, New York City, Southern Florida). However, they are beginning to constitute a noticeable presence in interior regions as well. Indeed, while 65% of first and 61% second generation immigrants continue to reside in the West or Northeast, only 36% of the third generation call these areas home, which constitutes a remarkable drop off (Jensen 2001: 25 – 28). This affirms the theory that prolonged exposure to a nation’s customs correlates with geographic dispersal. The South (and, in particular, the Southeast) has become a popular destination for immigrants. According to the most recent Census data, North Carolina’s Latino population more than doubled (111%) over the course of the last decade and, if no Latinos had relocated to Louisiana during that same period, the state of Louisiana would have earned the rare distinction of having actually shed population. In Georgia, the non-Latino population grew 14% between 2000 and 2010, while the number of those identifying as “Hispanic or Latino” jumped an incredible 96%. Their presence surely contributed to the state’s addition of a new congressional district this year. Despite the region’s reputation as unwelcoming of foreigners (Alabama and Georgia recently passed a pair of anti-immigrant laws that are as scornful as they are draconian), Latinos continue to flock to the South. Although a handful of states still represent a disproportionate amount of the Latino population, within thirty or forty years of arriving in force, Hispanic immigrants are already colonizing regions that much older ethnic groups have failed to penetrate.

Ignoring state-by-state analysis for a moment, Latino’s local settlement patterns also display increased dispersion over time. Regardless of the era or ethnic group, cities have always been important destinations for immigrants. Population centers provide greater access to jobs and support, contain preexisting immigrant networks, and are often more affordable. It is understandable, then, that 94% of the nation’s newest arrivals, foreign-born citizens, reside there. Mirroring dispersion rates at the statewide level, far fewer of their descendents live in cities. While 75% of the third generation still live in cities, they are far more likely than their parents or grandparents to reside in a greater metro area rather than a city center (Jensen 2001: 28 – 29). While the difference in terms of miles may be modest, city centers and outer cities are often worlds apart socioeconomically and culturally. Whether it be at the macro or micro level, Latinos are displaying an astounding proclivity toward geographic dispersion. This movement of people represents a hallmark in their assimilation: the so-called borderland evaporates as Latinos begin to feel at home even when ethnic allies do not surround them.

Work Cited

U.S. Census Bureau, 2010, “The 2010 United States Census.” Retrieved 5/5/12.               (http://2010.census.gov/2010census/data/).

Jensen, Leif. 2001. “The Demographic Diversity of Immigrants and Their Children.” Pp. 21 – 56 in Ethnicities edited by Rubén Rumbaut and Alejandro Portes. New York City: Russell Sage Foundation.

Mary: A 2nd Generation College Student

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Mary is the child of two immigrant parents from California.  She is currently a sophomore at Vassar College, a highly selective private four-year college in Upstate New York.  My research (see my blog post “Attainment of Higher Education for Immigrants: What Exactly is Possible?) concludes that access to private colleges is severely restricted for many children of immigrants.  I recently sat down with Mary to discuss her educational trajectory and see what factors enabled her to attend such an esteemed postsecondary institution.  My questions are in bold and Mary’s answers are in plain text.

Are both of your parents immigrants?  If so, where are they from and when did they immigrate?

Yes, they both are.  My dad immigrated about twenty five years ago and my mom immigrated about twenty years ago and they’re both from Mexico.

Do your parents have college degrees?  If so, from where?

No. Neither of them.

Do you have any siblings?

Yeah, two brothers.  Older and younger.

Are they in college?  If so, where?

No.

Did you attend public or private school?

Private school.

How big was your high school?

It’s small.  It’s like a hundred and seventy five students in total.

What was the ethnic make up of your high school?

It was mostly minorities.  Maybe like two or three white people in my class.  But it was like Blacks, Latinos, Tongans.

Did your high school implement ‘tracking’ in terms of its courses/policies?  If so, what track were you in?

Yeah.  We had AP courses and we ahd different levels of math, that’s the first one I know.  It’s advanced math, then regular, and then people who need help with math.  I was in the AP track.

Were there other children of immigrants in your track?

I was in the top and advanced classes in all subjects.  Half of {children of imms] were in the advanced ones and half were in the lower.

Were there a lot of children of immigrants in your school?

Yeah, I’d say about 90% of the population, at least.

What did your school offer in terms of resources to help you search for and apply to colleges?

We had a high school counselor, about one for every forty students.  She was definitely working with us individually, helping us know which colleges to apply to and which ones she recommends.

What types of schools did other children of immigrants in your high school attend?  Liberal arts colleges?  Public universities?  Community Colleges?

Some of them went to Stanford.  Others went to Community College.  Others went to public institutions—UCLA, Yale.  It was all over the map, definitely.

Did you participate in a college prep program?  Was this run through your school or privately?

We had a class called College Readiness.  It was a class where we had to do a lot of writing how college teachers would want us to write.  Just like the resources we need to apply to college, what resources we need to get, preparation for the SATs, and ACTs.  The whole period was dedicated to filling out applications, later filling out the FAFSA.

Did everyone have to take that?

Yeah, it was a requirement so everyone had to take it.

How big was that class?

They only offered two classes and it was about 25 students each.

What types of colleges/universities did you look at?

I looked at schools all over the map.  For my [high] school we have to apply to reach, safety, and target schools.  So I definitely applied to safety schools, the ones I knew I could get into.  Not community colleges, but like Mount Saint Marys.  UC Merced.  Everyone who applied got in.

So did you look mostly at smaller colleges?

Yeah.  I liked the smallness of my highschool.  I liked how teachers focused their time on individuals.  I visted the big schools like UCLA and UC Berkley and it was humongous, so I didn’t see myself there.

Why did you choose Vassar?

Mainly because of financial aid.  I liked that it was in New York, I’ve neve been here before.  I thought it would be a great experience to go across the country to a small liberal arts school.  I liked that it was small and there were no requirements.

Was financial aid an important factor when looking at schools?

For everyone in my high school, yeah.

 

Mary is working towards a degree in Sociology.  She plans on studying abroad in Europe next fall.

Attainment of Higher Education for Children of Immigrants: What exactly is Possible?

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In modern America’s society and economy, post-secondary school attendance is more important than ever, with students enrolling at enormous rates.  Record enrollment is occurring “across all institutional types.  [By 2005], public four-year enrollments increased by 39%, private four-year enrollments by 66%, and public and private two-year enrollments by 138%” (Price and Wohlford 2005: 60-61).  However, for children of immigrants in this country, access to higher education is severely stratified, with few options available in terms of the institutions that they are able to attend.  These discrepancies in attainment are shaped and perpetuated by three primary factors: socioeconomic status, availability of information regarding the college application process, and the rigor and policies of secondary schools.  Due to these three primary factors, most children of immigrants attend two-year community colleges, with few able to attend public universities and private colleges.

Socioeconomic Status

For many children of immigrants, access to higher education is severely limited due to economic constraints.  Post-secondary schools are a major investment and “according to the Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance (2002), more than 150,000 college-qualified students each year do not enroll in any post-secondary institutions due to inadequate financial aid” (Price etc. 2005: 64).  Many of these students are children of immigrants—unable to attend college because their families belong to an inescapable underclass.  However, “despite what is popularly understood, the issue isn’t only the cost of higher education and financial aid, but the simple need to spend time working for the survival of the family” (Berg 2010: 112).  Many students are torn between pursuing degrees for their own personal futures versus attending to familial duties.  Thus, for many children of immigrants, “the opportunity costs for attending college are too great, and thus they choose to work rather than attend college” (Kurlaender and Flores 2005: 26).

Access to Information 

Often, children of immigrants have limited access to information regarding higher education processes and opportunities.  This lack of information begins at home. “The children of parents who are not in a position to help them prepare for and navigate the post-secondary system are likely to struggle” (Baum and Flores 2011: 186).  In addition, “there is a close relationship between parental education and school readiness, performance on achievement tests, grades, drop-out rates, school behavior problems, and school engagement” (Suarez-Orozco, Suarez-Orozco, and Todorova 2008:37). Overall, immigrant parents without degrees themselves are unable to aid their children with the necessary processes for attending college.  In addition, some children of immigrants attend poor, low-quality schools without sufficient resources to advise and assist college application processes.  At the end of the day, many of these students have parents and schools that are unable to facilitate the transition to higher education.

 Rigor/Policies of Secondary Schools

More often than not, children of immigrants “are more likely to attend racially and economically segregated, low-performing schools with weaker resources, such as fewer qualified teachers, a less rigorous curriculum and worse facilities” (Kurlaender and Flores 2005: 26).  Underfunded schools are unable to provide the resources necessary for a rigorous, high-quality education.  In turn, children of immigrants who attend these schools are not prepared academically for college-level work.  Alternatively, if these students do attend better schools, they are often denigrated to remedial courses through the practice of “tracking.”  This pipeline process separates students into different trajectories of above average and below average courses of study.  Children of immigrants often find themselves in the latter category and many “internalize the low expectations of the school settings in which they work and often steer…away from applying [to college]” (Suarez-Orozco etc. 2008: 141-142).  In short, the rigor and policies of the secondary schools that children of immigrants attend bear heavily on their post-secondary educational outcomes.

Community College

Due to a combination of the three factors mentioned above, many children of immigrants enter Community College as a fast-tracked form of higher education, as they “have provided immigrants and other less well-off populations with a second opportunity to get educational credentials” (Trillo 2004: 58).  Community Colleges provide higher education for less money and with a lower expected level of academic preparedness, acting as ideal institutions for children of immigrants who are unable to attend public or private colleges for financial and academic reasons.  In addition, students are expected to transfer to four-year institutions upon completion of a Community College degree.  However, “while some do, the transfer rate to four-year colleges is surprisingly low and the dropout rate for students who pursue this route is appallingly high, especially for students of color” (Suarez-Orozco etc. 2008: 142).  In this sense, while attaining a BA is the ultimate goal of Community College attendees, children of immigrants ultimately emerge as disadvantaged as they started, “attaining fewer years of education and fewer BA degrees than students of comparable social background, educational aspirations, and high school preparation who enter four year colleges” (Karen and Dougherty 2005: 37-38).

Public and Private Four-Year Institutions

Public universities and private colleges emerge as less probable options for children of immigrants.  They are often expensive and demanding in terms of academic preparedness and expectations.  Many children of immigrants are ill equipped academically and financially to attend these higher institutions—they require high GPAs and SAT scores, which many children of immigrants do not have due to the rigor of their high school education.  Between the two, however, public state-owned universities are a more likely option, as “a number of states have implemented policies that offer in-state college tuition to out-of-state students who meet certain requirements” (Baum and Flores 2011: 184).  While this relieves some of the financial pressure, state universities are still difficult for children of immigrants to attend due to reasons of access to information and level of academic preparedness.

Private colleges are even more unlikely options—they are highly selective and expensive institutions that pander directly to the elite upper class.  In addition, these public and private universities “supported the founding of community colleges not just to expand college opportunity, but also to keep the universities academically selective by channeling less prepares students away from their doors” (Karen and Dougherty 2005: 42).  In this sense, it seems that the idea of “tracking” can extend to the post-secondary level—with Community College acting as less-elite options for the underclass, as public and private universities and colleges are reserved for wealthier and predominantly white middle and upper classes.

Works Cited

Baum, Sandy and Flores, Stella M.  2011.  “Higher Education and Children in Immigrant Families.”  The Future of Children 21(1): 171-193.

Berg, Gary.  2010.  Low-Income Students and the Perpetuation of Inequality.  Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Limited.

Karen, David and Kevin J. Dougherty.  2005.  “Necessary but Not Sufficient: Higher Education as a Strategy of Social Mobility.”  Pp. 33-58 in Higher Education and the Color Line, edited by G. Orfield, P. Marin, and C. Horn.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Kulraender, Michal and Stella M. Flores.  2005.  “The Racial Transformation of Higher Education.”  Pp. 11-32 in Higher Education and the Color Line, edited by G. Orfield, P. Marin, and C. Horn.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Price, Derek V. and Jill K. Wohlford.  2005.  “Equity in Educational Attainment: Racial, Ethnic, and Gender Inequality in the 50 States.”  Pp. 59-82 in Higher Education and the Color Line, edited by G. Orfield, P. Marin, and C. Horn.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Suzrez-Orozco, Carola, Marcelo M. Suarez-Orozco, and Irina Todorova.  2008.  Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society.  Cambridge, MA: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

Trillo, Alex.  2004.  “Somewhere Between Wall Street and El Barrio: Community College as a Second Chance for Second-Generation Latino Students.”  Pp. 57-78 in Becoming New Yorkers: Ethnographies of the New Second Generation, edited by P. Kasinitz, J. Mollenkopf, and M. Wates.  New York: Russell Sage Foundation.

The Role of Culture in Health

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In addition to the logistical complications cited in the Immigrant Health Care post, immigrants face social barriers that prevent them from receiving adequate health care. Instead of viewing immigrants as one group, each group’s ethnicity, age, language, and culture must be taken in to account to understand an immigrant’s approach to western health care. These socioemotional conflicts are overlooked by empirical research, but become painfully obvious when viewed through an individual experience. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down explores the clash between two cultures through a Hmong family and small county hospital in California to keep Lia Lee alive. Anne Fadiman delicately presents two sides that both want their respective idea of what is “best” for Lia. Faced with language and cultural barriers in addition to mutual distrust, American doctors and the Lee family led to Lia’s deterioration of health.

Amidst the Vietnam War, the United States created the Hmong Armee Clandestine. Half of the Hmong population in Laos died in the “Quiet War.” By 1970, forced to adapt their migratory habits to wartime, more than a third of the Hmong in Laos had become refugees within their own country. In the provinces of Hous Phanh and Xieng Khouang, the war has reached into every home and forced every individual to make the agonizing choice of flight or death. Today, more than 200,000 people live in settlements and military bases, confined to a mountainous strip of only 50 to 90 kilometers. The rest of the provinces are in total desolation. After the U.S. signed the Paris Agreement pledging to withdraw its forces from Vietnam, the Pathet Lao crossed the cease-fire line and announced the extermination of the Hmong. In a matter of a decade, half their population was killed in war, 3,000 were displaced, and over 10,000 were left at the hands of the Pathet Lao. The Lee’s distrust of America began here.

Lia Lee was the Lee’s first child born after arriving in the United States. She was birthed in a small county hospital in Merced, California with doctors who had no regard for spiritual practices that the Lee family felt would determine her soul’s presence, and therefore, their daughter’s reason to live. Three months later, Lia’s sister slammed the front door, and as the Lees believed, frightened the soul out of Lia’s body. The American doctors diagnosed her with epilepsy. The Hmong regard it as divine, because many of their shamans were afflicted with it. They have been chosen as the host to a healing spirit, allowing them to communicate and negotiate with the spirit realm in order to act as public healers to the physically and emotionally sick. In addition to these beliefs, Hmong also have many customs and folkways that are contradicted by those of the American mainstream and medical communities. For example, some Hmong traditionally perform ritual animal sacrifice, and because of very specific burial traditions and the fear of each human’s many souls possibly escaping, the traditional Hmong beliefs do not allow for invasive medical surgery.

Through miscommunications about medical dosages and parental refusal to give certain medicines due to mistrust and misunderstandings, and the inability of the doctors to develop more empathy with the traditional Hmong lifestyle or try to learn more about the Hmong culture, Lia’s condition worsened. The dichotomy between the Hmong’s perceived spiritual factors and the Americans’ perceived scientific factors compromised Lia’s health. Ultimately, in a climax of miscommunication leading to Lia being seen as an illness rather than a complete person, Lia suffered a detrimental seizure that left her in a vegetative state. After suffering through language barriers, cultural misunderstandings and judgments, pre-conceived notions, and removal from her parents’ care, Lia Lee became the casualty in the battle of two cultures.

Anne Fadiman’s book turns a tragedy into a case study that has been used for medical patient reform throughout the country. The understanding that culture affects health just as much as the patient’s access to health is crucial in understanding the future of our nation and its people, regardless of documentation. Immigration is an undeniable mixing of cultures, and this cannot be forgotten once inside an emergency room.

Works Cited

Fadiman, Anne. 1998. The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

English Language Learners

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“What the best and wisest parent wants for his child, so too must society want for all of its children. Any other ideal for our schools is narrow and unlovely; acted upon, it destroys our democracy.” – John Dewey, The School and Society 

The experiences of individual children are at the heart of my interest in bilingual education. I think we too often forget that government policies, academic scholarship, and popular media debates about bilingualism have real, palpable consequences for students throughout the country. Or even if we do recognize these consequences, it is still difficult to  construct images in our minds about how the absence of bilingual education shapes the experiences of many immigrant students.

Reflecting on my personal experiences with English language learners allows me to see the ways that the lack of bilingual education impacts students on a deeply personal level. While the individual experiences of these students are part of a larger social landscape, I think that emphasizing that these students are all unique children with their own worries, hopes, dreams, and challenges should be an important part of discussions about bilingual education.

During my time as a student at Vassar, I have worked continuously with Poughkeepsie students. Poughkeepsie has a large immigrant population, and many of the students attending Poughkeepsie schools are English language learners. Last year, I worked with a recent immigrant from Honduras in her history class. I attended multiple classes a week with her to help her make sense of the history curriculum, which was taught entirely in English. Though I speak Spanish fairly well, her teacher asked me to use Spanish as infrequently as possible. I asked this teacher about her thoughts on bilingual education, and recorded her response in my field notes:

“I don’t think students should be speaking Spanish in school…It’s just not the place. The problem is that they speak Spanish all the time, at home, with their friends. It makes it so difficult to learn English, and I feel for them because I know they just don’t get the English reinforcement they need. When I catch my students speaking Spanish I let them know that I’m not happy, it’s just making it so hard for them to learn. I know there are many theories about bilingual education and its benefits. But I just don’t know… I don’t know if there’s a place for that in schools. My students have ESL classes every day. Why should history class be in Spanish too? I’m saying this because I really don’t think it helps them, this Spanish in school.” 

During class, I saw the student I was working with become increasingly frustrated with her inability to understand the class material. Her limited English proficiency kept her from engaging with her academics, and there was no option for bilingual instruction. Though Spanish was highly present in the hallways and cafeterias of Poughkeepsie High, it had no place in her history classroom.

I worked briefly with another student at Poughkeepsie High last year, named José. José was placed in the special education classroom, but I quickly realized he had been placed there due to his language difficulties. José had a passion for math, and would breeze through the math packets his teacher gave him. One day, José and I approached his teacher, asking if we could work on more difficult math packets that could prepare him for advanced courses. The teacher looked right at José and said, “You don’t need that… you should be focusing on math that will be practical for you, like how to calculate a tip, ya know?” In that moment, I saw the light fade out of José’s face- a sight that was truly heartbreaking.

These individual stories speak to the experiences of many English language learners at Poughkeepsie High. Though there is such a large and growing immigrant population, there is no bilingual education, and Spanish language use is sometimes frowned upon by teachers. The absence of bilingual education presents enormous challenges for many immigrant students, and hinders their ability to be academically successful. The lack of recognition of the cultural and linguistic knowledge that immigrants possess reinforces stereotypes and damages many students’ confidence and sense of self.

My interactions with English language learners at home in Connecticut stand in striking contrast with those in Poughkeepsie. My mom is a speech pathologist in my hometown (a small, affluent suburb in northern Connecticut). She works with preschool students, most of whom come from white, upper-middle class families. There is not much ethnic or racial diversity where we live, and English language learners are few and far between in the public schools. This year, however, my mom has a student, Juan, whose family recently emigrated from Mexico. Juan is five years old, and very quiet. He comes to school every morning with a bright blue back-pack and a small, hesitant smile. My mom spoke to me a bit about Juan and other English learners in her school district:

“It’s challenging when so few of our students are English language learners. I think it’s really isolating for them, especially the very young students. Juan attends a particularly small elementary school in town, and he is the only student at this school who is a native Spanish speaker. The only other ESL students are two siblings from Bosnia and one boy from Korea. In some ways this is great, because the ESL teacher can devote so much time and attention to each of the students. But it’s also hard because the ESL students don’t have a larger network of English learners who share their experiences. Juan never has the opportunity to speak Spanish with anyone, there are no teachers here who can speak. Well, I can speak a little, but not enough to carry a conversation or teach. I constantly think about how isolating that must be for him.” 

Unlike students in Poughkeepsie, Juan is not surrounded by fellow English learners, and the absence of bilingual instruction means that he is rarely given the opportunity to express himself in his native language, if ever. When I’m home, I often go to work with my mom and I love seeing Juan. The first time I met him, I started a conversation in Spanish, and I saw his eyes instantly light up. He became animated and chatty, and my mom told me that she had never seen him so expressive or enthusiastic. He finally had the chance to express himself in the language he felt most comfortable in.

The experiences of English language learners in different environments throughout the U.S vary greatly- but English learners in all places face challenges due to the absence of bilingual education. It is important to remember that language is a critical component of students’ identities. Amidst all of the current debates about immigration, bilingualism, and immigrant schooling, I think it is important to remember the struggles of individual students, and to work towards finding the light behind each and every students’ eyes.

Immigrant Health Care

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Immigrants are often portrayed as free loaders who exploit and overuse American health services. Although immigrants are net contributors to the U.S. economy, the misconception remains that they are a burden to native-born taxpayers. However, a report by the University of California and the Mexican government found that recent immigrants from Mexico are half as likely to use emergency rooms as native-born whites and Mexican Americans (2005). Also, when controlled for minority groups, Latino immigrants accounted for $962 in per capita health care expenditures in 1998, compared to $1,870 for native-born Latinos. Black immigrants averaged $1,030 in health care expenditures, compared to $2,524 for native-born blacks (Mohanty et al. 2005). As many politicians call for the securing of our borders and the elimination of “magnets” for undocumented migrants, a 1996 study concludes, “there is no reputable evidence that prospective immigrants are drawn to the U.S. because of its public assistance programs” (International Migration Policy Program 1996:3).

Poverty, jobs that fail to offer health insurance, immigration status, and federal and state policies that limit access to publically funded insurance all reduce health insurance coverage rates for immigrants. On average, immigrants received about $1,139 in health care, compared with $2,546 for native-born residents. Although immigrants comprised 10 percent of the U.S. population in 1998, they accounted for only 8 percent of U.S. health care costs (Mohanty et al. 2005). A significant proportion of immigrants work in low-paying jobs with small firms that do not offer health insurance. Ultimately, these immigrants do not receive quality health care and lack timely preventive services. These delays result in some immigrants attaining medical care only when they become very ill. Additionally, legislative initiatives such as the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 (PRWORA) eliminated equal access to public benefits for all legal permanent residents. The PRWORA prevented states from using federal funds to provide Medicaid and State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) coverage for most legal immigrants who have resided in the United States for less than 5 years (International Migration Policy Program 1996). By not allowing all legal permanent residents the same public benefits, the government is directly compromising the health of immigrants until they have resided in the America for 5 years or attain health insurance through employment.

Even among immigrants who meet the qualification for publicly funded health insurance, fear and confusion often create barriers to enrollment. What could be reflections of a harmful immigration process or general distrust of the American government could cause concern about becoming a “public charge,” which would make them ineligible for U.S. citizenship and could result in deportation (Berk and Schur 2001).

Interestingly, despite the legislative and social issues complicating immigrant health care, male and female immigrants had, respectively, 3.4 and 2.5 years longer life expectancy than the US-born (Singh and Miller 2004). There are many possible reasons for this statistic. First, people immigrating may be healthier than those who remain in their countries of origin, for the process is generally difficult. This form of immigrant selectivity could skew the general health of their countries of origin, but underscores the point that America is not a welfare magnet. Also, it is possible that immigrants possess more favorable health habits, such as lower rates of smoke, drinking, and better diet. Regardless of the reasons, it is crucial to realize immigrants use less public assistance than native-born citizens, but may very well be suffering at the hands of harsh legislation and lack of health insurance.

 

 

Works Cited

Berk, Marc L. and Claudia L. Schur.2001. “The Effect of Fear on Access to Care Among

Undocumented Latino Immigrants.” Journal of Immigrant Health 3(3):151-6.

International Migration Policy Program of the Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace & the Urban Institute. 1996. “Immigrants and Welfare,” Research     Perspectives on Migration 1(1):1-15

Mohanty, Sarita A., Steffie Woolhandler, David U. Himmelstein, Susmita Pati, Olveen

Carrasquillo and David H. Bor. 2005. “Health Care Expenditures of Immigrants     in the United States: A Nationally Representative Analysis.” American Journal of   Public Health 95(8):1431-1438.

Singh, Gopal K. and Barry A. Miller. 2004. “Health Life Expectancy, and Mortality Patterns Among Immigrant Populations in the United States.” Canadian Journal of Public Health 95(3):14-21

University of California, Los Angeles Center for Health Policy Research and the National Population Council of the Government of Mexico. 2005. Mexico-United States Migration: Health Issues.

Arizona’s Ban on Ethnic Studies

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Over the past few years, Arizona has implemented harsh anti-immigration laws, such as Senate Bill 1070 and House Bill 2281. The SB 1070 law, signed on April 2010 by governor Jan Brewer, would essentially legalize racial profiling since it would allow authorities to stop and detain an individual they believe is undocumented. Arizona’s ban on ethnic studies, which was implemented by John Huppenthal, the superintendent of public instruction in 2011, is officially known as HB 2281. This state law prohibits public and charter schools from incorporating Mexican or Chicano studies into curriculums. In doing so schools must remove books that convey Mexican solidarity and ‘bashing’ of the United States. Law makers are specially targeting classes and courses they believe cultivates an anti-American attitude, fosters unity among ethnic groups which could potentially lead them to advocate for the overthrow of the United States government; in short, “HB 2281 bans schools from teaching classes that are designed for students of a particular ethnic group, promote resentment or advocate ethnic solidarity over treating pupils as individuals. The bill also bans classes that promote the overthrow of the U.S. government” (Santa Cruz 2010).

Though policy makers are only viewing Mexican ethnic studies as potentially harmful to the United States, in reality the program has proven to help Latino students stay in school. Dropout rates among Latinos are incredibly high, but statistics have shown that Chicano based curriculums in Arizona have dramatically decreased drop-out rates among this group; “Tucson’s ethnic studies program, created in 1998 and initially called ‘Mexican American/Raza Studies,’ has been effective in reducing dropout rates among Latino students, as well as discipline problems, poor attendance and failure rates, teachers said” (Martinez 2011). In Tucson, “about 3% of the district’s 55,000 students are enrolled in such classes;” the number of students in these classes is so few, there does not seem to be much of a threat. Yet policy makers are placing their efforts in banning these programs that so few students actually are part of. Though law makers might argue that ethnic studies are detrimental to America, high-drop out rates are more harmful to the future generations.

Similar anti-immigration laws in Arizona and Alabama, which target Latino immigrants are shown to negatively impact children of immigrants; policies are targeting their parents placement in the United States and now they are targeting these children’s education; “U.S. immigration policy has become more restrictive and punitive as government policies have expanded intervention at the federal and local levels. These changes have both contributed to a hostile anti-immigrant climate, and have placed undocumented immigrant children in an even more precarious economic situation” (Androff 2011: 80). In short, anti-immigration laws have only create a hostile environments for immigrants who clearly have made the United States their home. The law is now being proposed to be extended to public states colleges. Some state officials who supported the ban have admitted to have never entered a classroom with a Mexican studies curriculum, but they based their decisions on banning Mexican studies because “they simply didn’t like the idea of teachers telling students the apparently subversive facts that nonwhite people have at times suffered at the hands of white people, or that people of every color have at times acted with color-conscious solidarity” (Liu 2012). This brings into question, why and how are these policy makers basing their decisions on anti-immigrants laws?

 References:

Androff, David K. et al. (2011). “U.S. Immigration Policy and Immigrant Children’s   Wellbeing: The Impact of Policy Shifts.” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare.

Liu, Eric (2012). The Whitewashing of Arizona. Time. http://ideas.time.com/2012/05/01/the-whitewashing-of-arizona/

Martinez, Michael. (2011). Arizona education chief moves to ban ethnic studies in Tucson schools. CNN US. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-01-04/us/arizona.ethnic.studies.ban_1_arizona-schools-superintendent-ethnic-studies-tucson-program/2?_s=PM:US

Santa Cruz, Nicole (2010). Arizona bill targeting ethnic studies signed into law. Los Angeles Times. Url: http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/12/nation/la-na-ethnic-studies-20100512