Contemporary Perspectives on Immigration

By Donna R. Gabaccia, Professor of History and Director, Immigration History Research Center

These days, the “Dream Act” dominates news coverage of immigrant education issues. But while legislators debate the pros and cons of offering in-state college tuition to young immigrants without papers (as ten states already do), educators around the nation face the more mundane, everyday tasks of educating the millions of children--in primary and secondary schools—whose education firmly remains a right. What are their concerns?

Teaching and learning English remains the top priority of newly-arrived foreigners and those who teach their children. Language learning is also the focus of intense and often negative scrutiny from the surprisingly large numbers of Americans who believe that schools are failing in their job of teaching English.

Not surprisingly, language is by far the most common issue explored in newspaper articles that discuss education and immigration.

Educators and scholars agree that young children can learn English very quickly (for the case of some recently–arrived Hmong refugees in Wisconsin, see: http://www.postcrescent.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070425/APC0101/70425169/1979). But for older children, and especially for those over eleven or twelve years of age, the struggle to learn a new language increases.

In discussing immigrants children’s education, many teachers remain convinced that older children—who are at the highest risk of falling behind, failing and dropping out of school—must be offered academic instruction in their native tongues while they receive English-as-a-second-language instruction. Yet bi-lingual education programs like these remain intensely controversial among parents and voters; critics continue to question their success rates. Once debated in a few, large American cities, discussions of bi-lingual and “total immersion” strategies for teaching English now appear on the editorial pages of newspapers in the Midwest and in southeastern states like Georgia. (http://www.ajc.com/services/content/opinion/stories/2007/04/12/0413edenglish.html?cxtype=rss&cxsvc=7&cxcat=17)

For many teachers the most troubling challenges posed by the influx of large numbers of immigrants is not how to teach them English but rather the threat of losing federal funding while they struggle to do so. Will schools with high numbers of recently arrived immigrant children inevitably fail to fulfill the requirements of the no “child left behind” act or similar state-mandated tests of teachers’ effectiveness? Last week, readers in Dallas learned about the qualities that kept at least some local, urban schools highly competitive, despite large numbers of immigrant students (http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/wmckenzie/stories/DN-mckenziepts_22edi.ART.State.Edition1.4301a64.html) while readers in Phoenix learned that the federal evaluators were themselves considering whether to exempt students in the country fewer than three years from the law’s testing requirements.

It’s somewhat jarring to recognize that debates about the “dream act”—a program that would arguably help only English-speaking immigrant teenagers—co-exists with such intense concerns that immigrant children are not learning English quickly enough and that their schools will suffer as a result.

A century ago there was no federally or state-mandated testing of school children. At that time, New York City schools began offering instruction in English (and in foreign languages for older immigrant children) simply because teachers had discovered that older children placed on the basis of their language skills in first grade classrooms for purposes of swift immersion were so socially humiliated that they typically failed to return to school. Even with such programs in place, furthermore, not all immigrants learned to master English, especially when they arrived in the U.S. as adults. (My own grandmother never learned English, for example.)

The children of immigrants a century ago were typically bi-lingual, while “English-only” became the most common pattern among the immigrants’ grand-children. Scholars who compare language use among immigrants, past and present, tend to find similar patterns among both groups. They fairly consistently conclude that fears about today’s immigrants’ resistance to English-learning are greatly exaggerated. (See, for example, http://www.migrationinformation.org/Feature/display.cfm?ID=282). At most they expect that the grandchildren of today’s immigrants, living as they do in a highly mobile world, may exhibit slightly higher rates of bi-lingualism than was true a century ago.

Despite studies like these it will probably be a very long time before reports on public school efforts to teach immigrants other absolutely essential skills of American life (for example how to drive: http://www.mankatofreepress.com/local/local_story_108214256.html?keyword=topstory) can challenge the obsessive focus of the American media on the language issues. We can expect to read many, many more articles about how well or how poorly public schools are doing in encouraging English usage among immigrants and their children. Ironically, it may be exactly this constant attention to the issue that will push today’s immigrants and their descendants along the same path to English-only monolingualism as it did among their predecessors.

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Posted by Dan Ott at 11:02 AM | Permalink

By Andy Urban, PhD candidate in History at the University of Minnesota. IHRC Affiliated Faculty

“Still Present Pasts,” open at the Intermedia Arts gallery and sponsored in part by the University’s Institute for Advanced Study, takes on the problematic legacy of the Korean War. In the United States the Korean War’s legacy for many is that of a “forgotten” war. Although nearly as many American soldiers died during the conflict on the Korean peninsula as they would in the following decades in Vietnam, because of the ambivalent outcome of the war, it largely faded from American memory. For the Korean population, which suffered an enormous toll from the war, it impacted their lives in almost every conceivable manner.

“Still Present Pasts” offers a creative approach to revisiting the Korean War. Combining oral histories with multimedia art installations, the exhibit allows visitors to listen firsthand to individual memories of the war, while also encountering art that addresses the conflict in a more abstract yet no less revealing way. The individuals who offer oral histories as part of the exhibit are predominantly Korean Americans. During the war and in its aftermath, upwards of 100,000 Korean women came to the United States as military brides married to American GIs, while white, Christian parents brought an additional 150,000 Korean adoptees into the country. The oral histories conducted with these women and with the Korean adoptees revolve around the issue of being disconnected from one’s family past, and in the case of those who were adopted, creating a new sense of family. As is often the case, humans who saw their lives disrupted by the war look back on it not in the political terms of the Cold War era that spawned the conflict in the first place, but from the vantage point of those who saw their worlds fractured.

The art deals with the sense of a broken past as well – one installation contains jigsaw puzzle pieces in a child’s room, each representing a facet of the past that needs to be reconnected. Another uses blankets that refugees fleeing battles commonly took with them; the blanket is riddled with holes seemingly representing the gaps in memories and time caused by the war. Many of the exhibit’s histories and conceptual themes could apply directly to those displaced by the Vietnam War as well. Like the Koreans who ended up in the United States, the Hmong, Vietnamese, and Laotians who were forced to leave their homelands found themselves caught up in a type of cycle of human tragedy and movement. US troops came to their country ostensibly to promote democracy, and then a few years later, they founds themselves the subjects of “democratic” debates as to whether they should be allowed to enter America. As this exhibit on the Korean War aptly points out – not everyone forgets so easily such a history.

“Still Present Pasts” is open at Intermedia Arts gallery until June 2, 2007. For information on the exhibit, gallery hours, and directions to the space, see www.intermediaarts.org.

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Andy Urban is a PhD candidate in History at the University of Minnesota, and a member of the IHRC Advisory Council. His research focuses on Irish and Chinese domestic servants in the late-nineteenth century United States.
Contact Information: urba0090@umn.edu

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Posted by Dan Ott at 06:51 PM | Permalink

By Erika Lee, Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies, IHRC Affiliate,

The public's focus on immigration for much of the past year has been on
reforming national laws targeting foreigners as they enter – or try to enter
– the United States. Little attention has been paid to how the United States
deals with immigrant detainees who are already in the United States. And
since the federal government changed its illegal immigrant policy in the
summer of 2006 from "catch-and-release" to "catch-and-remove," immigrant
detention has grown exponentially.

In 2005, U.S. authorities released more than 100,000 arrested immigrants after
they were scheduled for a court hearing. Because most failed to show up at court,
the policy was changed and now requires detention until after the actual the court
hearing. Every year, hundreds of thousands of non-citizens, including asylum
seekers and those charged with violating civil immigration laws, are now detained
in county jails and federal prisons. There are more than 300 facilities across the
country. According to Pat Reilly, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement [ICE], 65 percent of detained illegal immigrants are in
state or local jails and prisons, 2 percent are in federal prisons, 14
percent in ICE-owned facilities and 19 percent in contractors’ facilities.
ICE detention centers hold 28,000 illegal immigrants in an average day, up
from 18,000 in July 2006. It is clear that immigrant detention will only
increase in the future, with a national plan to triple detention space to
60,000 beds to accommodate growing numbers of immigrants caught in workplace
raids and border crackdowns.
'Immigrants Held in U.S. Often Kept in Squalor,'
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6922992&sourceCode=R

‘U.S. sued over detention of immigrants’ (Chicago Tribune, 4-9-07)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704080408apr09,1,7753901.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
‘ICE Official Wants to Expand ‘Alternatives to Detention’ Programs’
(Congress Quarterly, 3-16-07)
http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002472448.html

The United States has detained immigrants since the 19th century. The
immigrant barracks at the immigration station on Angel Island in the San
Francisco Bay (in operation from 1910-1940) was perhaps the most notorious
for its squalid, depressing, and prison-like conditions. But the scale to
which the United States is now engaged in "warehousing" immigrants and
asylum seekers is unparalleled. And a January, 2007 Department of Homeland
Security report has recently confirmed what most immigrant rights advocates
have been charging for years: many of the centers are cramped, unsanitary,
and infested with vermin. Guards at one facility in New Jersey used attack
dogs and beatings to terrorize immigrants. Asylee children at the Don Hutto
Residential Center in Taylor, Texas were forced to wear urine-stained
clothes, and families were threatened with separation if children misbehaved
or cried. Some critics have likened the facility to an "internment camp."
Detainees seem to have have little recourse. According to one immigrant
rights advocate, immigrant detainees are "the only group in America who do
not have a constitutional right to a free, government-appointed lawyer."

‘U.S. sued over detention of immigrants’ (Chicago Tribune, 4-9-07)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704080408apr09,1,7753901
.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
'Immigrants Held in U.S. Often Kept in Squalor,'
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6922992&sourceCode=R

‘Detained immigrants 'treated very badly'’ (Chicago Sun Times, 3-13-07)
http://www.suntimes.com/news/metro/294488,CST-NWS-IMMIG13.article

Negative media attention and federal lawsuits, including a Texas case filed
on behalf of ten children detainees at the Hutto facility and their
attorneys, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have put pressure
on the government. In testimony to congress last month, John Torres,
director of the Office of Detention and Removal Operations of the U.S.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement, claimed that detainee families were not
mistreated and that conditions had been improved. The razor wire that had
been in place around the facility has been removed, and children are no
longer required to wear uniforms.

‘U.S. sued over detention of immigrants’ (Chicago Tribune, 4-9-07)
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0704080408apr09,1,7753901.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed
‘ICE Official Wants to Expand ‘Alternatives to Detention’ Programs’
(Congress Quarterly, 3-16-07)
http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002472448.html

Closer to home, Tim Counts, an ICE spokesman based in Bloomington,
Minnesota, explained how many immigrants arrested in recent workplace raids
in the Midwest and elsewhere were being "conditionally released for
humanitarian reasons, mostly for child-care purposes" and were not being
detained.
‘Agency defends handling of families after raids’ (Des Moines Register,
4-8-07)
http://desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070408/OPINION03/704080309/1035/OPINION

The ICE is now considering alternatives to detention, including the use of
electronic monitoring devices and requirements that illegal immigrants
regularly report their location to the federal government. Another
non-detention program known as the "Intensive Supervision Appearance
program" would involve ankle bracelets, as well as curfews, and home and
office visits.
‘ICE Official Wants to Expand ‘Alternatives to Detention’ Programs’
(Congress Quarterly, 3-16-07)
http://public.cq.com/docs/hs/hsnews110-000002472448.html

These "improvements," however, fail to address the fundamental issue of
ongoing human rights abuses endemic to the whole question of immigrant
detention and immigrant surveillance. With our current obsession with our
borders, we are turning a blind eye to the egregious attack on immigrant
rights all around us.

_______________

Erika Lee is an Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota and an IHRC affiliate.

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Posted by Dan Ott at 01:08 AM | Permalink

By Erika Lee, Associate Professor of History and Asian American Studies at University of Minnesota, IHRC Affiliate,

We understand migration as a global phenomenon; people are on the move in
every part of the world and have been for centuries. We think less about how
the global migration of people also informs global debates and policies
about migration. This week's news gives us an opportunity to look at a few
common issues from around the world and to consider how they are connected
to each other.

The recent global discourse linking migration to terrorism, ethnic riots,
and illegal behavior has apparently had a direct impact in Japan. A recent
government survey there found that 84.3% of respondents believed that
"public safety had worsened over the past ten years." 55.1% of these
respondents blamed "a rise in crimes by foreigners visiting Japan." With
migration seen as a threat to public safety, Japan, "in line with recent
global trends," has introduced tougher immigration policies. For example,
only 34 out of 954 applicants were awarded refugee status in 2006. With its
rapidly aging population and nearly stagnant fertility rate, Japan has
grappled with the idea of massive foreign migration as a solution to the
impending future labor problem. But as a Japan Times contributor commented
this week, with the "way the wind is blowing, domestically and globally,"
Japan is unlikely to turn pro-immigrant or multicultural any time soon.
“'Multicultural Japan' remains a pipe dream” (The Japan Times, 3-27-07)

In the European Union, alarmist reports about "the greatest migratory
emergency in [European Union] history" have spurred discussions of drastic
new immigration controls requiring the cooperation of all nations within the
EU. European Commission vice-president and Commissioner for Freedom,
Security and Justice Franco Frattini ominously reported that “demographic
data show migration will rise as the population of the world’s 50 least
developed countries is expected to double, from 800 million in 2007 to 1.7
billion in 2050.” The report comes as the migration season involving
Africans searching for a route to the "promised land of Europe" begins
across the more serene summer seas. This year, with the human rights
situations deteriorating at a fast pace across the Horn of Africa,
immigration officials are warning of a springtime surge in "irregular
migration" along the Mediterranean. National responses to international
migration have been seen as insufficient.

In 2005, Frontex, the EU’s border control agency head-quartered in Warsaw
was established to coordinate border operations and border security training
across the EU. This year, the agency is poised to launch over 30 joint
operations spread across the central Mediterranean and along the EU's
"eastern flank." A European Patrols Network along the southern maritime
borders will begin this spring and will serve as a model for broader
cooperation among nation states. Overall, Frontex is charged with
coordinating the efforts of individual EU member states in securing the EU’s
6,000 kilometres of external land borders and 85,000 kilometres of
coastline.
‘Centre focus Irregular Immigration’ (The Malta Independent, 3-30-07)

Such coordinated efforts on such a large scale will surely be just the
beginning of a global trend. Indeed, they echo U.S. President George W.
Bush's post 9/11 call for a "North American Security Perimeter" to increase
continental security integration between the U.S., Mexico, and Canada.
Global discourses about migration and even coordinated migration policies
have played important roles in the history of migration, but the scale and
breadth of what we are witnessing today is truly unparalleled. With the
fence along the U.S.-Mexico border being built and "permanent patrols" by
the EU in the Mediterranean being planned, this week's news raises extremely
troubling questions about what our world will look like in the future.

_______________

Erika Lee is an Associate Professor of History and Asian Studies at the University of Minnesota and an IHRC affiliate.

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Posted by Dan Ott at 07:51 PM | Permalink