BOOK REVIEW
Children of Immigration
by Carola
Suárez-Orozco and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco
At War with Diversity: U.S. Language Policy
in an Age of Anxiety
by James Crawford
Educating New Americans: Immigrant Lives and
Learning
by by D. F. Hones and C. S. Cha
Language Crossing: Negotiating the Self in a
Multicultural World
edited by Karen Ogulnick
Globalization defines the post-Cold War order of nations. It is remapping cities - indeed, entire countries and regions - throughout the world. Globalization has three pillars: 1) new information and communication technologies; 2) the emergence of global markets and post-national knowledge-intensive economies; and 3) unprecedented levels of immigration and displacement. Together these interrelated phenomena will have profound implications for the study of immigration and education in the new millennium. In surveying the recent scholarship on globalization, it becomes obvious that a critical but understudied and undertheorized aspect is the experiences of children. Globalization is the reason that immigrant children are entering U.S. schools in unprecedented numbers. Furthermore, their life chances and future opportunities will be shaped by globalization.
In this article, Marjorie Faulstich Orellana highlights the work immigrant children do as active agents in supporting and sustaining their families, households, and schools. Building on the work of sociologists who examine children's engagement in social processes, Orellana maintains that we should not lose sight of children's present lives and daily contributions in our concern for their futures. Similarly, we should not see immigrant children only as a problem or a challenge for education and for society while overlooking their contributions to family and school. Integrated into her discussion are the voices of Mexican and Central American immigrant children living in California as they describe their everyday work as helpers at home and school. These examples illustrate how immigrant children's work can be understood in many ways - as volunteerism, as opportunities for learning, and as acts of cultural and linguistic brokering between their homes and the outside world. (pp. 366-389)
In this article, Loukia Sarroub explores the relationships between Yemeni American high school girls and their land of origin. She also illustrates the tensions that often arise between immigrant students' lives and the goals of U.S. public schooling. Sarroub begins by providing historical background on Yemeni and Arab culture and international migration. Then, drawing upon a larger ethnographic study set in the Detroit, Michigan, area, she presents a case study of one girl's experiences in the contexts of home, school, and community in both the United States and Yemen. Throughout the study, Sarroub makes thematic comparisons to the experiences of five other Yemeni American high school girls. She uses the notion of the "sojourner" to highlight the fact that many Yemenis "remain isolated from various aspects of American life while maintaining ties to their homeland." Sarroub describes the relationships between Yemen and the United States as social and physical "spaces" from which high school girls' networks and identities emerge. She suggests that in this particular Yemeni community, which was fraught with ritual and sanctioned norms, public schooling was both liberating and a sociocultural threat. This duality sometimes led girls to disengage with home and school worlds and to create "imagined" spaces that could bridge their Yemeni and American lives. Sarroub's study provide a larger lens through which to understand the multiple spaces students must negotiate and the sojourner experience of this Yemeni community in the United States. (pp. 390-415)
In this article, Gerardo López expands the concept of "parent involvement" by illustrating ways that parents are involved in their children's educational development that lie outside of traditional school-related models. Rather than viewing involvement as the enactment of specific scripted school activities, López describes how the Padillas, an (im)migrant family, understood involvement as a means of instilling in their children the value of education through the medium of hard work, and viewed taking their children to work as a form of involvement. López argues that, while exposing their children to their hard work in the fields, the Padilla parents were simultaneously teaching them three important, "real-life" lessons: 1) to become acquainted with the type of work they do; 2) to recognize that this work is difficult, strenuous, and without adequate compensation; and 3) to realize that without an education they may end up working in a similar type of job. These findings not only challenge discursive/hegemonic understandings of parent involvement, but also open up new avenues for research and practice. (pp. 416-437)
In this article, Vivian Louie examines how social class influences Chinese immigrant parents' expectations, strategies, and investment in their children's education. Her findings suggest that, across social class, Chinese immigrant parents have high expectations for their children, reflecting both immigrant optimism and immigrant pessimism about their children's outcomes. However, Louie finds significant differences in the resources and educational strategies pursued by working-class parents and their middle-class counterparts. Louie concludes that the role of the immigrant family is more multifaceted than suggested by previous theories on Asian American educational performance. (pp. 438-474)
Why do some low-income immigrant and native-born Latino students do well in school while others do not? Why are low-income Latino students less successful in school than their White peers? What are the effects of institutional mechanisms on low-income Latino school engagement? For the past two decades, the most persuasive answers to these questions have been advanced by the cultural-ecologists, who suggest that differences in academic achievement by race result from minority groups' perceptions of the limited opportunity structure. However, variations within the Latino student population remain - some Latino students succeed and some fail. In this article, Gilberto Conchas describes the results of a study that examined how school programs construct school failure and success among low-income immigrants and U.S.-born Latino students. The results of Conchas's study show that, from students' perspectives, institutional mechanisms have an impact on Latino school engagement, and he links cultural-ecological explanations and institutional explanations. The findings from this study extend our understanding of the fluidity and nuance of within-group variations in Latino student success in an urban school context. (pp. 475-504)
Hmong American youth are often stereotyped by the popular press as either high- achieving "model minorities" or low-achieving "delinquents." In this ethnographic study, Stacey Lee attempts to move beyond the model minority image of 1.5-generation students and the delinquent stereotype of second-generation students to present a more complex picture of Hmong American students' school experiences. The author explores the way economic forces, relationships with the dominant society, perceptions of opportunities, family relationships, culture, and educational experiences affect Hmong American students' attitudes toward school, and the variation that exists among 1.5- and second-generation youth. This article provides insight into how forces inside and outside school affect attitudes toward education, and suggests possibilities for ways in which schools might better serve these students. (pp. 505-528)
Should children of undocumented workers be educated in U.S. schools? Some states have attempted to do away with bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, which, as Eva Midobuche points out in this article, are naked attempts to marginalize children who are already at risk in our system. These public attempts divide the teaching profession and fuel anti-immigrant sentiment among teachers. The author's perspective is shaped by both her personal experience as a teacher and as someone who grew up along the U.S.-Mexico border. She argues for educational opportunity for all children. (pp. 529-535)
Despite speculation that immigrant and racial minority status may doubly disadvantage Black immigrant children in U.S. schools, researchers have rarely studied the educational attainment of immigrant Black youth. In this article, Xue Lan Rong and Frank Brown analyze 1990 U.S. Census data to examine the combined effects of generation of U.S. residence (1st, 2nd, and 3rd) and of race and ethnicity (Caribbean Blacks, African Blacks, and European Whites) on youths' total years of schooling and schooling completion at three levels - grammar school, high school, and four-year college. The results from their study show that these youths' educational attainment varies with race and pan-nationality, as well as with generation of residence. Based on their findings, Rong and Brown argue that as racial and ethnic identity is becoming increasingly complicated, educational practitioners need to move away from the conventional notion that equates each racial group with one culture and one ethnic identity. Using classic assimilation and acculturation theories as the framework for their analysis, Rong and Brown conclude that educators have to learn more about the process of assimilation and its relationship with youths' schooling and reconsider the common notion that more rapid assimilation is always better for immigrant children's education. (pp. 536-565)
In this article, Andrew Fuligni notes that, within the field of immigration, the process of acculturation has not been studied as a process of individual change over time. Instead, it has often been inferred from cross-sectional studies examining individual and group differences in adjustment. Fuligni argues that the limitations of traditional cross-sectional designs create a need for studies of acculturation that track the same immigrant children as they encounter and negotiate the potential differences between their own cultural traditions and those of the host society. He suggests an approach for studying acculturation that follows children from different generations across time and throughout their development. This comparative longitudinal approach allows investigators to isolate acculturative change from shifts that would have occurred through the course of the children's development had they not immigrated. Acculturation can also be examined in terms of both the level and the developmental progression across different aspects of adjustment. This approach allows investigators to use various quantitative and qualitative methods to explore variations within and between immigrants in order to better identify and understand acculturation or acculturative change. (pp. 566-578)
Carola Suárez-Orozco
To date, demographers, economists, and sociologists who focus almost exclusively on adults have dominated the agenda of immigration scholarship. Immigrant youth, however, are now the fastest growing sector of the child population (Landale & Oropesa, 1995). Today, one in five children in the United States is the child of immigrants, and it is projected that by 2040 one in three children will fit this description (Rong & Prissle, 1998). Given the numbers involved, how these children adapt and the educational pathways they take will clearly have profound implications for our society. Thus, there is an urgent need to expand our knowledge in this field.
Children of Immigration
by
Carola Suárez-Orozco and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco.
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001. 206 pp. $24.95.
Currently in the United States, one out of every five children under the age of eighteen — a total of fourteen million — is either an immigrant child or a child of immigrant parents. With most of these “newcomers” — the majority of whom are of Latino or Asian origin — enrolled in public school, meeting their needs has become a pressing issue facing educators nationwide.
To meet the needs of immigrant children, it is crucial to first understand issues related to their adaptation. A new book, Children of Immigration, written by Harvard University immigration experts Carola and Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, expands our knowledge of immigrant children’s adaptation to their new cultural setting. The book, relating “a fascinating and critical — but too often forgotten — chapter of the immigrant experience” (p. 1), represents the Suárez-Orozcos’ most recent contribution to the field of immigration and education.
Children of Immigration draws on the Suárez-Orozcos’ twenty years of experience working in the field with immigrant children and centers on their codirected research project, the Harvard Immigration Project. This five-year longitudinal study follows four hundred children from five different countries and regions: China, Mexico, Haiti, Central America, and the Dominican Republic. The Suárez-Orozcos report important findings from their first-year data, and use immigrant memoirs, plays, and films to demonstrate the variety of experiences of the children of immigrants.
The book, which takes an interdisciplinary perspective — psychological, sociological, anthropological, and historical — is “designed to provide an overview of the major themes in the lives of the children of immigrants — the nature of their journey to the United States, their earliest perceptions, and their subsequent transformations” (p. 13). With a central theme of the book being “how the children of immigrants are faring in American society” (p. 3), the authors emphasize the importance of understanding the experiences of immigrant children. They point out that “the future character of American society and economy will be intimately related to the adaptation of the children of today’s immigrants” (p. 3). Furthermore, the authors examine important themes established by recent scholarly work on immigrant children’s adaptation, most prominently the “disconcerting” trend of generational decline: the longer immigrant youth stay in the United States, the worse their overall physical and psychological health, and “the more ‘Americanized’ they bec[o]me, the more likely they [are] to engage in risky behaviors such as substance abuse, unprotected sex, and delinquency” (p. 5).
In chapter one, the authors introduce five youngsters from five different countries who have diverse backgrounds and motivations for migration to the United States: a girl from Hong Kong, a boy from El Salvador, a Mexican girl, a Haitian boy, and a Guatemalan boy. Through these youngsters the Suárez-Orozcos delineate and describe three different pathways that structure today’s immigrant experiences: “immigrants” (those who immigrated to the United States voluntarily), “transnationals” (migrants who move frequently between the United States and their country of origin, usually due to work-related reasons), and “refugees” (asylum seekers who were forced out of their country of origin by war or political persecution). These different pathways in turn have significant implications for immigrant children’s adaptation. At the end of this chapter, the authors examine the crucial impact of undocumented status on children’s adaptation.
In chapter two, the authors explore in detail the question, “What is new about the ‘new immigration’?” Compared with the “old immigration” at the beginning of the last century, the “new immigration” is characterized by its unprecedented size, diversity, and a “remarkable shift in the countries from which immigrants originate” (p. 56). Moreover, the authors examine in detail the “ethos of reception” — public attitudes toward immigrants and immigrant children from both a contemporary and a historical perspective. They critically consider five recurring concerns about immigration, including immigration and the economy, immigration and the welfare state, illegal immigration, immigrants and crime, and the lack of assimilation of children of immigrants.
Since “immigration is one of the most stressful events a family can undergo” (p. 70), in chapter three the authors carefully examine the psychosocial effects of immigration on immigrant families and children — how immigrant families deal with the gains as well as the losses, changes, opportunities, and stresses associated with immigration. Specifically, the authors consider the effects of various stresses of immigration on immigrant families, including traumatic border crossing, separation and reunification, violence in the new setting, and adjusting to “unanticipated realities,” that is, learning the new rules, changes in family and gender roles, and the process of “Americanization.” In this chapter, the authors also examine factors that influence the successful long-term adaptation of immigrant students, such as family cohesion, socioeconomic status, motivation for immigration, documentation, school quality, and neighborhood safety.
In chapter four, the authors focus on the “remaking of identities” for second-generation children — how they negotiate different identities in the U.S. cultural setting. The authors wisely point out that the traditional “straight-line assimilation” theory — as immigrants become more assimilated into the mainstream society and lose their own cultural traits, they experience upward social mobility and achieve educational and economic parity with the natives — no longer holds in the context of the new immigration. Similarly, “the Eriksonian theory of continuity and sameness in identity-making needs to be updated to effectively engage the complexities of experience in this era” (p. 92). The Suárez-Orozcos develop the concept of “social mirroring” to illustrate how the host society’s attitudes toward immigrant children, particularly those informed by discrimination and stereotypes, can affect immigrant children’s identity formation. The authors delineate three different styles of identity adopted by children of immigrants —“ethnic flight” (abandoning their own ethnic group and mimicking the dominant group), “adversarial identities” (constructing identity in opposition to the mainstream culture and its institutions), and “transcultural [bicultural] identities” (developing competence to function in both cultures). Finally, the authors provide a conceptual framework to understand important factors in the construction of ethnic identity for immigrant youth, such as ethnic community, opportunity structure, family factors, individual factors, and “social mirroring.”
In chapter five, the authors get to the core of the educational adaptation of immigrant children. The Suárez-Orozcos discuss divergent pathways of school adaptation in children of immigrants today. They claim that, for immigrant children, “doing well in school is more important today than ever before” (p. 124) because of today’s economic structure. The authors point out that, while nearly all immigrant parents and children have positive attitudes toward schooling, immigrant children face many challenges in school, including the challenges related to the “sending context” (circumstances before migration), the new neighborhood, and school factors, particularly the issue of segregation. Finally, the authors discuss other key issues in the education of immigrant children in the U.S. school system: bilingual education, school reform, classroom engagement, and school and parent relations.
In their Epilogue, the authors contend that immigration, especially that from Latin America, will continue. Thus, the key question becomes “how we can best incorporate into our society the larger number of immigrants who now call the United States their home” (p. 155). According to the Suárez-Orozcos, “schooling is at the heart of” (p. 155) this question. They point out that it is important to reconsider the issue of acculturation in this new context. They discuss the issue through two concepts, “instrumental culture”—“the skills, competencies, and social behaviors that are required to successfully make a living and contribute to a society” (p. 156) — and “expressive culture” –- “the realm of values, worldviews, and patterning of interpersonal relations that give meaning and sustain the sense of self” (p. 156). The authors conclude the book by pointing out that “it is important to recognize that immigrant children are a growing sector of the school population; policy interventions and funding decisions must be attuned to their special needs. If immigrant children are well served today, they will become important contributors to the future well-being of this country” (p. 156).
The Suárez-Orozcos’ new book, Children of Immigration, presents an excellent overview of important issues that have crucial implications for the adaptation of immigrant children in the United States today. It also provides important insights into the policy implications on the education of immigrant children. Researchers, teachers, counselors, clinicians, policymakers, and others working closely with immigrant children and the children of immigrants will find this book tremendously helpful in understanding the experiences of young new Americans.
D.B.Q.H.
At War with Diversity: U.S.
Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety
by James Crawford.
Clevedon, Eng.: Multilingual Matters, 2000. 143 pp. $49.95, $15.95
(paper).
In At War with Diversity: U.S. Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety, James Crawford tackles a complex question regarding the numerous challenges associated with U.S. language policy: “How should Americans respond to language diversity?” (p. 2). The six essays in this book provide a provocative perspective on this question, enabling readers to develop a rich, historically grounded, and nuanced understanding of language diversity and language policy in the United States.
The book begins with a comprehensive overview of the history of the English-Only Movement in the United States. Included in this first chapter, “Anatomy of the English-Only Movement,” are historical sketches that Crawford uses to examine the influence of English-Only campaigns on Pennsylvanian Germans, Louisianans, Californios, Native Americans, Puerto Ricans, Native Hawaiians, and European immigrants. These examples from U.S. history, Crawford argues, illustrate how language restrictionism has never occurred “independently of the material forces that govern U.S. history” (p. 10). Crawford further contends that “for the privileged and powerful, and for those who share their worldview” (p. 28), language conflicts are often triggered by a fear of change in the “structures of power, class, and ethnicity” (p. 27), and not by concerns regarding language use per se.
Chapter two, “Boom to Bust: Official English in the 1990s,” examines more recent trends in the push for English-Only legislation. Crawford outlines the progression of the movement from “fringe-group status to mainstream acceptance to political marginality” (p. 32). He examines the role of US English, an organization whose stated goals included the promotion of ethnic harmony and national unity, in fostering the marginalization of U.S. immigrants. Crawford also critiques the use of the “empowerment argument” (p. 39) to support English-only legislation, referring to the idea that the elimination of federally funded bilingual services would enable or empower immigrants to improve their English skills and make them more “productive members of society” (p. 39), which, for some legislative proponents, reflected a vision of economic advancement and civic participation for immigrants in the United States. Although a national English-only law was never successfully passed, Crawford observes that the legislative push brought to light strong ideological differences between supporters and proponents of the bill regarding the need for a “common language” and the value of linguistic diversity and cultural tolerance.
Chapter three, “Endangered Native American Languages: What Is to Be Done, and Why?” directs the reader’s attention to the situation of language extinction in the United States, specifically referring to the disappearance of Native American languages. This chapter is a particularly important one for readers with little background in language shift, referring to permanent changes in language use that result in the survival of some languages and the disappearance of others. Crawford advocates for the preservation of Native American languages, asserting that “we should care about preventing the extinction of languages because of the human costs to those most directly affected. . . . Along with the accompanying loss of culture, language loss can destroy a sense of self-worth” (p. 63).
Crawford expands his discussion of the struggles associated with language maintenance and loss in chapter four, “Seven Hypotheses on Language Loss,” examining the language maintenance struggles facing four Native American communities in particular: Navajo, Hualapai, Pasqua Yaqui, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw. The author discusses his own hypotheses about the causes of language shift and possible efforts to achieve language preservation. These hypotheses highlight both factors within language communities (e.g., in- and out-migration) and broader societal factors (e.g., technological changes that bring language communities in contact with each other) that influence language choice and, ultimately, the maintenance or loss of a language.
In chapters five and six, Crawford turns to the anti-bilingual movement and its negative impact on the education of linguistic-minority students. Chapter five, “The Political Paradox of Bilingual Education,” provides a penetrating examination of the debate surrounding the provision of bilingual services to limited-English-proficient (LEP) students. Crawford examines the legislative history of the Bilingual Education Act (also known as Title VII) and addresses the ongoing debate around the intentions of the act, centering on the following questions: “Was it intended primarily to assimilate limited-English-proficient (LEP) children more efficiently? To teach them English as rapidly as possible? To encourage bilingualism and biliteracy? To remedy academic underachievement and high dropout rates? To raise the self-esteem of minority students? To promote social equality? Or to pursue these goals simultaneously?” (p. 84). According to Crawford, the enforcement of bilingual regulations by federal and state governments triggered intense conflicts about the effectiveness of Title VII programs. Citing poor academic performance and achievement of LEP children (particularly of Latino students), critics of bilingual education attacked the ability of the programs to promote academic success among minority students. Crawford illustrates how government regulation of bilingual education services led to a drop in the program’s “political viability” (p. 97), ultimately “[branding Title VII] as a failure in the public mind” (p. 102). This, Crawford observes, is the political paradox of bilingual education.
Chapter six, “The Proposition 227 Campaign: A Post Mortem,” focuses on the recent bilingual education controversy in California, or, more specifically, the passage of Proposition 227, which eliminated the provision of bilingual educational services in public schools. Crawford outlines the events leading up to the proposition’s passage in June 1998, then turns to an analysis of the various players and forces at work: the misleading representation of the issues by the media; the “brilliant” (p. 106) campaigning strategies employed by Ron Unz, the “Yes on 227” campaign leader; and the lack of empirical data supporting the effectiveness of the Title VII programs. Crawford criticizes those educators and researchers who did not engage in the political debate, concluding that their “failure to respond to legitimate concerns about bilingual instruction . . . contributed to an image of bureaucratic arrogance and intransigence — an easy target for Ron Unz” (p. 108). The author cautions researchers and practitioners that “if they neglect to publish data on program effectiveness, the political climate will only worsen” (p. 124) and calls for their mobilization.
A resounding message in this book is that the work of language-minority education professionals is political work, a reality that Crawford admits many “would prefer to avoid” (p. 124). Educators in this field need to be able to understand language policy and learn to effectively respond to criticism of bilingual education. To this end, At War with Diversity is a valuable book for any language-minority education professional who yearns for a better understanding of the political nature and the ongoing debates surrounding language policy in the United States.
M.G.S.
Educating New Americans:
Immigrant Lives and Learning
by D. F. Hones and C. S. Cha.
Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 1999. 276 pp. $59.95, $29.95
(paper).
Educating New Americans: Immigrant Lives and Learning retraces the education life experiences of Hmong refugee Cher Shou Cha, from his life in a Laotian village to his arrival in an urban U.S. community. This narrative inquiry into one man’s life effectively illuminates the Hmong immigrant experience while raising questions about what it means to be or become “American.” By examining the life history and educational experiences of one man within the larger social, cultural, and historical contexts, this book serves as a “place to begin new dialogues about who we are as a rainbow people and how we would prepare for the world of our children” (p. xiv).
The book is divided into three parts. Parts One, Two, and Three, respectively, are dedicated to exploring immigrant identity within American schools and society; to Cha’s personal life history; and to what educators, policymakers, and researchers can learn from this narrative inquiry into Cha’s life. Part One, Immigrant Identity in School and Society (ch. 1 & 2), opens in a convenience store parking lot in the United States with a “Prelude to a life History: The Shooting.” In his own voice, Cher Shou Cha recounts how being shot in his own neighborhood shortly after his arrival in the United States significantly shaped his American experience. Through poetry, Cha effectively expresses his feelings of alienation and confusion invoked by that tragic and near fatal event.
Chapter one further connects Cha’s rich personal experiences to the larger social and ideological contexts of immigration and education in the United States. The authors contend that how becoming and being an American is defined has implications for how teachers, policymakers, researchers, and all Americans approach education for both immigrant and non-immigrant children. Specifically, this book addresses the following questions: “How do we understand the educational lives of immigrants within the context of immigrant educational policies? What kinds of education takes place in immigrant communities and homes? How can schools benefit from this learning? How can the study of the educational life of one man inform our understanding of the educational needs of immigrants themselves as well as increase our understanding of how to further the education of all Americans?” (p. 15).
Hones argues for the utility of using narrative inquiry into the lives of immigrants as a methodology to answer the above questions. In chapter two, he foreshadows his inquiry into Cha’s life history with a rereading of the autobiographies of Richard Rodriguez and Leonard Covello, two renowned authors who are immigrants themselves. Rodriguez’s life as a Mexican American immigrant raised in a middle-class neighborhood in Sacramento in the 1950s differs significantly from that of Covello, an Italian American immigrant raised in a New York City ethnic enclave around the turn of the last century. Although very diverse, the lives of these two immigrants provide a useful framework for a deeper understanding of educational issues common across diverse immigrant experiences. Furthermore, their memoirs explore such topics as bilingual education policy, community involvement, and the role of the school in immigrant lives. Rodriguez’s and Covello’s examples further prepare readers for the narrative inquiry analysis and insights gleaned from Cha’s life throughout the remainder of the book.
Cher Shou Cha’s story is explored in depth in Part Two (ch. 3 to 6), A Hmong American Life History. Cha’s life story is contextualized in the Hmong historical background, then traced from a Laotian village through experiences in a refugee camp in Thailand to his newest life in urban United States. Through Cha’s story and his educational journey in becoming a new American, readers learn about the resourcefulness and resilience of Hmong refugees. The life experiences of immigrants, such as Cha’s, are unveiled as unique sources of learning outside of the schooling context.
Cha’s conversion to Christianity in Thailand is highlighted in chapter four as a means through which Cha is able to acquire literacy skills and to ease his transition into life in the United States. The complex nature of the relationship between traditional Hmong religion and Christianity is explored through Cha’s negotiation and reconciliation of these two ideologies in his life.
Family relationships also emerge as a critical part of Cha’s story. In chapter five, Cha talks about the influence of his father in his life in Laos, as well as the relationship he has with his own children in the United States, where he seeks to maintain familial relationships in the face of an ever-changing life. Tensions arise between Hmong parents’ efforts to pass on traditional Hmong values to their children and the children’s desire to adopt the more materialistic American culture surrounding them. Maintaining continuity while negotiating inevitable changes challenges Cha’s family across multiple fronts.
In chapter six, Cha talks specifically about the lessons he has learned through his role as bilingual aide and community liaison at the Horace Kallen Elementary school in Windigo, Wisconsin. In his position, Cha finds himself in the role of a peacemaker, continually striving to make a place for peace between the various ethnic groups within the school and community. This role serves Cha as a type of cultural therapy in his personal quest to make peace with the United States, to overcome his initial feelings of alienation after the shooting, and to find his new identity as an American. His challenge is to acknowledge change while respecting the elements of individuals, communities, and cultures that do not change. Hones proposes that this process of cultural therapy uniquely qualifies Cha, and other immigrants like him, for teaching peacemaking and respect for others to the next generation of Americans.
In Part Three, Learning from a Life (ch. 7 & 8), Hones argues that the themes of resourcefulness, relationship, and respect emerge as fundamental aspects of Cha’s life experiences as a new American. These three values, rooted in both the Hmong tradition and the communitarian American tradition, are then highlighted as key elements of a new conception of American identity. Schools are called upon to take these themes seriously in utilizing them as tools for constructing a great American community out of diversity. Hones argues that our newest Americans can be looked to as an invaluable source of inspiration in helping to move American society beyond individualism to a sense of collective responsibility.
In chapter eight, Hones returns to the idea that by investigating diverse lives we can discover what it means to be American. He explores three more autobiographical works — Eva Hoffman’s Lost in Translation: A Life in a New Language, Maxine H. Kingston’s The Woman Warrior, and Jesus Colon’s A Puerto Rican in New York and Other Sketches — to support his contention that autobiographic and life history research provides an ideal point of departure for discovering the construction of American identity.
Educating New Americans refers to the educational experiences of the newest immigrant populations in the United States, such as the Hmong, as experienced by Cher Shou Cha. Yet the lessons learned from the life of this man also gently remind us that what “being American” means is constantly being reinvented as these new immigrants’ experiences bring new insights for the education and conceptualization of all Americans as we begin the twenty-first century.
E.F.
Language Crossing: Negotiating
the Self in a Multicultural World
edited by Karen Ogulnick.
New
York: Teachers College Press, 2000. 180 pp. $52.00, $22.95 (paper).
Language Crossing: Negotiating the Self in a Multicultural World is a brilliant collection of essays and stories of language learners and their most intimate reflections on identity, as negotiated by their language-learning experiences. Editor Karen Ogulnick ingeniously joins the stories of these learners’ reflections into a unique bouquet that gives voice to the realities of language learners. This book presents research on language development that is colored by the complexities of real life and the authors’ passion for self-interpretation. Ogulnick divides these stories of humanity and love into five major sections that also represent the major theoretical themes of multilingualism.
In section one, Dislocations, Ogulnick integrates the essays of eight people who describe their personal transformations when learning a new language or switching language use. An opening poem by Myrna Nieves, based on her memories as an immigrant child from Puerto Rico growing up in the United States, portrays her experience of writing English as a “puzzle,” connoting a sense of personal fragmentation in her quest to make meaning of unknown English sounds.
Through stories of loss, adventure, and love, immigrants transform themselves as they adapt to various situations that they face in different linguistic contexts. Sometimes reinventing themselves, these authors engage in a linguistic metamorphosis as they transform themselves or their personas in each culture they encounter. In a story of loss and love, for instance, the daughter of a Jewish-German immigrant family in Quebec embeds her trilingualism in each language’s political context. Her identity is shaped by the effect of linguistic contrasts in which she was always depicted as the “other.” With these contrasts, she asks herself, which language will she die in? Searching for an answer to this question throughout her essay, she concludes that French has become the language of her heart, as she has lost the echoes of her grandmother’s German language.
In another story of transformation, an immigrant child in Switzerland discovers she has no place of origin, because in this country children inherit the father’s place of origin. Her father was from Czechoslovakia, and her teachers taught her early on to hide her origin: “You don’t fit in,” they told her. She reflects on this early experience as the possible reasons for her fascination with languages. She proactively assimilates the interaction of culture and languages that embodies multiple linguistic identities. Making the world her country, she describes change as going through airports and embracing the “crossings” of language to occupy “new bodies.”
In a journey from Poland to Israel, another immigrant child becomes fascinated by the “other” (people that looked different and spoke other languages) and actively seeks the experience of crossing language barriers. When she arrives in Israel she immediately socializes with the “newcomers” that arrived from different countries and that became their new neighbors. She finds that those barriers break at the realities of the immigrant experience in which people get reinvented and languages get renegotiated.
“Mouth open, tory jump out” is the educational model through which a child in Trinidad learns that language is the only means of acquiring higher social status. While her father’s goal is to disassociate her from the colonized culture by giving her an English education, she later discovers — when she becomes a writer — that “writing for effect” is writing lies, because she is writing about realities that are not her own. She finds her voice through her first novel about her African roots.
In a moving world where children constantly move or grow in environments different from their parents’, adaptation often takes priority over tradition, and language adaptations inevitably bring loss. In section two of the book, Mother Tongues, we hear stories of loss and of reencounters with loved ones who reside in bodies of silenced languages or with the people that carry the social significance of a language.
Having lost her mother’s language while in pursuit of an English education, another author now living in the United States finds in her memories of linguistic interactions with her mother when growing up in Bombay that she has also lost her mother’s cultural values, a loss that has disrupted their relationship. By reclaiming her native tongue, Tamil, she also reencounters her mother and reclaims the values that she gave up for her English education.
In another story of mother tongues, the effects of multicultural discourse are depicted in a story of remembrance by an author who takes the historical approach of cultural genocide. His identity is shaped by Peru’s history of Spanish colonization and through his experiences of immigration to the United States. He transports issues of power, politics, and culture into the discourse of multiculturalism and his reencounter with Quechua, the Peruvian indigenous language. Similarly, in another story of remembrance, a child revives the effects of a forgotten culture by reflecting on the social context of her linguistic experience in a disappearing linguistic community in New York. Her experiences growing up learning Yiddish, despite the shortage of fluent speakers in her community, influences her belief that she carries the Yiddish linguistic residues of the past. In another story of loss and reencountering new but inherited identities, a little girl remembers asking her White American father why he could not find them a mommy with blonde hair and blue eyes. This identity conflict is resolved for the girl when they move to Korea. By learning the sociolinguistic rules of her mother’s tongue, she understands her mother and learns to value her Korean origins.
Two stories of hearing impairment exemplify the obstacles and linguistic identity issues that children sometimes have to overcome. Through a child’s memories of growing up in a deaf family and trying to adjust to an oral English world, we learn to appreciate her American Sign Language culture and the strategies she uses to navigate the many limitations of the educational system in serving the deaf community.
The voices of those who yearn for transformation or to get close to others through language are represented in the essays in the section entitled Difficulties of Language Learning. These authors, in one way or another, were motivated to learn other languages, and while their attempts were fruitless for different reasons, theirs are also stories of the love of language.
One author’s vivid memory of his thwarted efforts to learn other languages painfully marks his experience. His memories of language use reappear as experiences of failure, not only for him, but also for others he cared for. He witnessed their feelings of frustration and humiliation as they fail to learn other languages or to use their native language (English) appropriately. Through these remembrances, language learning is associated with social humiliation, even in his native language. In another story of frustration, a woman’s reflection about her stressful relationship with her father, a linguist who spoke multiple languages, is intimately related to her failure to learn new languages and her decision to become an English as a Second Language (ESL) teacher.
Although the essays in this section seem to be stories of failure, they in fact are stories of a love of language. Even in their personal defeat as learners, these people make the best of their experiences. One learner applies her understanding of the difficulties of language learning to cross borders in ways that give her access to the linguistic worlds that she cannot come to know as a speaker. By becoming an ESL teacher she helps others to become members of different linguistic communities and she gets to know other cultures and the structures of other languages in this role.
The next section, Our Love Affairs with Languages: Stories of Multi-Language Learners, is the epitome of the love of language in relationships. Religion, playfulness, and love of people in other cultures inspired the authors to learn Hebrew, to keep their accents, and to fall in love in different languages.
These authors explicitly celebrate their knowledge of languages and the hope, flexibility, and adventures that being a multilingual speaker has granted them. Moving between the worlds of Chinese, English, and French, for instance, gives an American girl her sense of identity and an impression that she can “triplicate” with her trilingualism. Another author uses his linguistic knowledge playfully to communicate and to understand the structures of different languages and their historical connections. “Learning a language makes me a child again” (p. 128) is how one writer describes her experience. Finally, another multilingual girl holds on to her accent through her journeys among several languages just to remind herself of the contradictions that she lives every day and the amusement that comes with them. For example, after earning a degree in English philology she finally believed she knew English in Italy because she felt involved in English, and that is how she could better express tenderness to her lover.
The two authors in the final section, Close Encounters in Other Cultures: Learning Language while Living Abroad, bring out the inevitable and scarcely explored connection between language and culture. While learning his wife’s language in China, one author finally understands the role of a husband, as well as the meaning of the linguistic interactions between him and his wife and between him and his wife’s family from the insider’s perspective and in their cultural context. Another cross-cultural couple is confronted with the cultural nature of language as they experience a crisis on a highway in Mexico City and have to deal with Mexican culture when communicating with the Mexican police. They are forced to learn to navigate the connections between social roles and linguistic meaning by discovering that although they know Spanish they did not explicitly know the cultural symbols to communicate effectively. In another story, a Protestant minister in Taiwan struggles to learn the eight tones of the local language while negotiating the meaning of language between different Taiwanese cultures and religious orientations. Finally, Karen Ogulnick, the book’s editor, offers her adventures using languages in cultural contexts where she experiences the limitations of knowing the Japanese language but not knowing the Japanese culture.
Reading these authors’ stories, I reflected on my own stories as a Mexican immigrant in the United States and reinterpreted some of the stories in this book through my own lens. In remembering my own adventures in learning English, in learning about different cultures, in learning literature, and in moving among the different discourses of English and the different status of these discourses, I see this bouquet as being bound by three ribbons. One is the ribbon of power negotiations in contrasting linguistic status. Another is the ribbon of motivation that is illustrated by the stories of difficulties with learning language. Finally, there is the ribbon of the roles of literature and religion that bundles together some of the stories presented in this book. The editor could have given more attention to some of these forces that have influenced the authors’ lives and linguistic worlds. However, it is possible to group these rich stories in a number of ways, and that is perhaps what makes this book unique and fascinating.
B.Q.