ABSTRACT

Lizet is nine years old and in the fourth grade. She is a pretty, fair-skinned little girl who, until only a few months ago, enjoyed a full and ordinary life in Mexico. She went to school and played with her friends. Suddenly at the beginning of last summer, her life changed dramatically. Both her parents were killed in a tragic automobile accident; and with no one in Mexico to care for them, she and her sister were sent to live in the United States with her father’s two younger brothers. She spends her days in a classroom in which the teacher speaks only English. During the week, she lives with one uncle, and during the weekend she spends time with her other uncle’s family and her little sister. Lizet appears lost and unhappy, and struggles to remember that part of herself that was a successful student just a few short months ago. She feels dumb, understands little, and is convinced that she will not learn English. Teng is five years old and entering kindergarten. Because he was born in this country, he is an American citizen. His family is Hmong (originally from Laos) and, like many other Hmong families, spent a number of years in refugee camps in Cambodia. The family has been in the United States for 10 years, but since they were relocated to areas of the country where other Hmong families were resettled, they have little contact with English-speaking Americans. Teng’s parents speak very limited English. The family depends on the two older children in the family to broker their communication outside the community. Teng attends a school where there are other Hmong children and a few teacher aides who are native speakers of Hmong, but all other school personnel speak only English. During the first weeks of school, Teng cried almost all day. Several months into the school year, Teng no longer cries, but he has yet to say a single word. Alejandro was also born in the United States. Now a tall ninth-grader, he speaks some English but understands very little of what his teachers say. He acquired the English that he knows during kindergarten and first grade when he attended a school in southern California. He returned to El Salvador after his parents divorced and only returned to the United States a few months ago. Unfortunately, the small charter school he attends does not provide special

instruction or special support for English language learners. Teachers believe that students will learn best by rapidly being immersed in mainstream classes where their teachers depend on Spanish-speaking classmates to make instruction comprehensible to non-English speakers. Unfortunately, teenagers often tend to be unkind. They make fun of Alejandro and his attempts to speak English. Some of his classmates find great glee in mistranslating assignments and explanations. They find it very amusing to see Alejandro’s confusion and the teacher’s surprise when she examines his work. Lizet, Teng, and Alejandro are all “new” American children. Only Lizet could properly be referred to as an immigrant, but all three children are the products of migration. They are here because their family members moved from their original place of residence to this country. All of them, then, are immigrant-origin children. Their place of birth-while important in terms of legal status-is in many ways a geographical accident that does not change the composition of the family, the newness of their experiences as new residents in this country, and the immense challenge of acquiring English. Worldwide, the number of people who have left their countries of origin is increasing rapidly. Bendixsen and Guchteneire (2004) estimate that from 1990 to 2000, the number of migrants grew by 14% (21 million people). Citing the International Migration Report of 2002, these researchers place the total number of migrants at 175 million, or 3% of the world population. They point out that as a result of such dramatic increases, “both host countries and countries of origin must deal with issues such as brain drain, migrants’ rights, minority integration, religion, citizenship, xenophobia, human trafficking and national security” (p. 1). Moreover, in the case of most immigrant-origin children, host countries must grapple with the challenges of providing them with a quality education in spite of both linguistic and cultural challenges. These challenges are complex and involve questions about appropriate or effective educational practices that are necessarily embedded in larger issues concerning national identity and the responsibility of governments in educating such children. In the United States, questions about the appropriate education for children of immigrants have surfaced in numerous debates beginning during the times of increased immigration from southern and eastern Europe at the turn of the twentieth century and continuing today. Because U.S. citizens are concerned about these “new” Americans and about the ways they can be integrated into American society, much attention is given by both the public and educators to this particular group of children. Recently, English itself has taken on greater importance in discussions surrounding the education of immigrant-origin students. These conversations have been deeply influenced by debates about the number of both authorized and unauthorized immigrants, about the security of our borders, and about the challenge of assimilating groups of individuals who appear not to be learning English (Huntington, 2004).