Macaulay Honors College Seminar 2, IDC 3001H

Month: March 2017 (Page 4 of 4)

The Hidden Cost of Becoming Americanized

In class today, we discussed how immigrants are forced to assimilate into American society. One point that struck a chord with me, was that the English language is harshly imposed on immigrant children in school. I have experienced a similar situation since my parents are immigrants from Slovakia. When I was a child, they spoke both Slovak and English around the house. Thus, I sometimes spoke a mixture of the two languages when I was in school. One day, I told my kindergarten teacher, “Môj žalúdok bolí;” meaing that my stomach hurt. She understood what I was saying because I was rubbing my stomach while speaking. Despite this mutual understanding, she decided to hold a conference with my parents about my bilingual abilities. She recommended that they stop speaking Slovak around the house because it was harming my communication skills. They saw the practicality in this and complied with her request.

This decision came with an unintended cost. When I was in kindergarten, I had not only been the best English speaker in the class, but had also spoken fluent Slovak. Unfortunately, my fluency in the Slovak language depleted as the years went on due to a lack of practice. By the time that my younger sister was born, my parents had completely stopped speaking Slovak at home. Luckily, my early exposure to the language allowed me to comprehend it at family gatherings and church events. However, my sister was not able to say the same. To this day, she is unable to understand only a few Slovak phrases and has had a difficult time learning the language. This has hurt her ability to communicate with our grandparents who exclusively speak Slovak. Her ability to delve into her ethnicity has been shattered.

Language is an important part of one’s culture. The ability to comprehend something that not everybody can make sense of, connects people, joining them in a secret society of mutual respect and cultural appreciation. Thus, losing the ability to speak one’s native language can truly disconnect oneself from one’s roots. The fact that some immigrants in New York City are frowned upon for retaining fluency in their native languages, is rather hypocritical. If New York City is supposed to be a place that celebrates diversity, then why is there an incessant desire to Americanize all immigrants who reach its shores? Where should we draw the line when it comes to cultural assimilation? When is an immigrant truly considered to be integrated into American life in every way? Is it when he or she has been absolved of all remnants of his or her past life in another country? I admit that it is important for immigrants to embrace American culture when they come to the United States, especially by learning the English language, but it is also crucial that they maintain ties to their ancestral practices. One’s background makes one unique. With uniqueness comes strength. This is what cultural assimilation destroys.

 

BY: Annmarie Gajdos

Questions

Hi everyone, apologies for the double email, this is the question sheet Prof. Rosenberg sent you all earlier today. We had some technical difficulties but we’re back up and running so we wanted to make sure these got posted here in the appropriate place on our site as well.

Download (DOC, 25KB)

-Jake

 

The Language Barrier Among Children

Today’s class discussion regarding whether or not children should be taught in English or in their native language in school, sparked an interest in me as this relates to my own family. While I myself am not an immigrant, my parents both immigrated to the United States and had their first child (my older sister) shortly after. When raising her, they held on to certain aspects of the Russian culture and wanted her to grow up with the ability to speak Russian in order to communicate with her relatives on the other side of the globe. They spoke with her solely in Russian and until the age of 4, that was the only language she spoke. Upon entering preschool, this method of teaching my sister to embrace her Russian heritage seemed to backfire, as she came home from school crying that she couldn’t understand any of the other kids or the teachers. From that point forward, my sister slowly began to learn the English language with the help of her teachers and my parents. By the time I was born, she was speaking predominantly in English at home, while my parents still spoke to her in Russian to try to maintain her understanding of the language. Due to this diverse language exchange that dominated my home, I grew up having the ability to speak both languages but my Russian began to deteriorate as soon as I entered the school system.  By the time my brother was born, my sister and I were speaking in predominantly English around the house and even my parents had begun transitioning from speaking only in Russian with us to a mix of Russian and English. This left my brother with very little knowledge of the Russian language as a young child, and after beginning school, only a few Russian words remained in his vocabulary.

I believe assimilation is important for the life of any immigrant in the United States, especially children, but I also believe greater efforts should be made to incorporate diversity into schools. In the case of my family, my sister would have benefited from the ability to practice the Russian language in school, through an after-school program or a period of time dedicated to the study of various languages. Many schools do place an emphasis on learning another language at a young age, but often this language is Spanish or some other language that is widely accepted as “the language of the future.” If my sister had not been forced to completely abandon the Russian language for the English language in school, my siblings and I would likely still speak Russian at home and have a much easier time communicating with the rest of my family still in Russia. This is relevant for all children who face the difficulty of a language barrier when entering the school system in the United States. Steps should be taken to help these students assimilate by teaching in the English language, but this can be done with some acceptance of varying languages.

Site visibility and privacy

Hello everyone,

I mentioned this in class last week but there was very little response one way or another, so I’m asking you all to please weigh in below. Because of the government’s newly stated policy regarding immigrants and heightened arrests and deportation, we want to make sure that you feel safe and protected in the work you do in this class. We’ve been very grateful for so many of the personal stories that have been shared via the blog, but we do not want anyone to feel that they are sharing personal immigration information that could compromise their status or that of their family. Right now, our site is open to the public, meaning that anyone can find our site and read it. This potentially includes immigration officials, although I want to stress that there has been NO evidence to suggest that they are doing so thus far.

Here are three options for continued privacy of our site:

  1. Continue being open to the public. If you have a post that contains potentially sensitive information, you can set the visibility to private and we will all have a password that we can use to read your post.
  2. Make the site accessible only to members of the Macaulay community. This means that only those who have signed up for an ePortfolios account can view.
  3. Make the site accessible only to our class.

I would be happy to discuss pros and cons of any of these options tomorrow in class, if you like. Or you may email me with specific questions. We want our site to be open to the greatest number of people because educators and students from other schools and from within the CUNY community can see the great work you’re all doing. At the same time, we want to make sure that no one feels that they are placing themselves or their families in a compromised position. We continue to be dedicated to the belief that Macaulay is a place for all students regardless of immigration status.

-Jake

Privacy

Next Week and more…

I attach three documents here:

  1. Questions on the reading for Monday, Chapter 2 in Foner (“Where They Live”)

    Download (DOC, 24KB)

  2. Information and questions regarding our trip to the Museum of Chinese in America on Friday, March 10 at 10am. I apologize for the late change of date. Please let me know if you have a serious conflict and we will arrange for you to visit some other time.

    Download (DOC, 31KB)

  3. An instruction sheet for your next big assignment, the neighborhood visit. This involves working with a partner. Please read the sheet right away and find a partner. If you have trouble finding a partner, I will help you.

    Download (DOC, 32KB)

Thanks,

Prof. Rosenberg

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