Education and immigration

IDENTIFICATION: Formal and informal learning opportunities for immigrants from childhood through adulthood

SIGNIFICANCE: Schools are important sociopolitical entities within American communities. As such, they are a key arena where conflicting views about immigrants regarding identity, linguistic and cultural diversity, assimilation, accommodation, and other issues are manifested. Age-old and contemporary issues alike emerge as the educational systems in the United States are impacted by immigration.

Formal and informal education has always been crucial to immigrants as they have entered the United States, adjusted to the US culture and way of life, and sought to advance their personal and family goals. Throughout the long history of the United States, educational institutions and public and immigrant attitudes toward education have adapted to reflect the economic and political changes of each era.

Education in the Young Republic

The period from the Revolutionary era of the late eighteenth century through the early nineteenth century witnessed a diverse set of institutions and means by which Americans were educated. Most education was informal during this period and was undertaken principally by young men within the context of occupational apprenticeships. The bulk of Americans possessed only rudimentary literacy skillssuch as the ability to sign their own names and read a few simple words. Wealthy European American families hired tutors to teach their childrenmore advanced formal education was reserved for young men. Formal schools were rare, and only the privileged were eligible and able to attend them. Many of the early schools operated only intermittentlydependent upon the uncertain availability of teachers. Books were treasured by the literate class but were both expensive and in short supply. Only a few people in colonial timessuch as Cotton Mather, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and Thomas Jeffersoncould accumulate libraries that could command respect from visiting well-heeled Europeans.

The second wave of immigrationfrom 1820 to 1860saw immigrants primarily from Ireland and Germany. These Europeans brought with them books and literacy skills they were eager to pass on to their children. Upon settling into new territories in the movement westward and within the small cities of the growing nation, European immigrants quickly established schools with their own languages as the media of instruction. Norwegians and Germans were particularly associated with this trend. Irish Catholics established Catholic schools in the parishes in which they resided. Many of these schools endured for long periods of time. For example, during the 1920s, Detroit, Michigan alone had a network of around sixty Catholic schools educating nearly 50,000 pupilsmost of whom were first- and second-generation Irish immigrants.

Within that same period, Horace Mann, Henry Barnard, and others began to advance what became known as the Common School Movement. Citing the ideals of Jacksonian democracy, proponents argued the United States needed public schools free to all if the nation was to capitalize on its vast natural resources, preserve its democratic institutions, and serve as an example of new possibilities to the rest of the world.

As the nineteenth century unfolded, the number of immigrants continued to increase. In 1850 alone, 2.2 million foreign-born immigrants entered the United States. At mid-century, foreign-born residents constituted 9.7 percent of the nation’s total population. In 1849, the president of Middlebury College speculated the huge number of immigrants arriving on America’s shores could foreshadow the downfall of the nationjust as Huns and Goths had settled within the confines of the Roman Empire and ultimately weakened it because of their failure to assimilate and become “true” Romans.

Mann, Barnard, and others argued schools were the ideal institutions within society to take up the important task of turning immigrants into Americans and provide the means for the poor to advance their prospects within societyworking from the foundation of a solid education. It could no longer be left to chance that the varied, loosely organized system of informal learning would inculcate the skills and values that were necessary for the young and dramatically growing nation. Teachers and pundits of the time noted schools also needed to instruct in personal health and hygiene. The metaphor of the “melting pot” gained currency, drawing upon the notion that when steel and other useful metal alloys were made, the combination of several different metals produced new metals considerably stronger than any individual component alone. By extension of this metaphor, socializing and educating the teeming numbers of immigrants and the poor would help make a stronger and more unified nation.

This notion was seriously challenged by the unfolding tragedy of the US Civil War (1861–1865)which swept vast numbers of immigrants into armies on both sides of the conflict and caused more deaths than any other military conflict in US history. Nevertheless, the war reinforced the necessity of binding the nation together again and intensifying the national spirit of its inhabitants after hostilities ceased. New immigrants had to be rapidly assimilated into the American way of life and the values and mores of society. Schools were vital to this process of Americanization, even though teachers often complained about overcrowded conditions in urban schools and the overwhelming amount of attention that needed to be given to promoting socialization skills, teaching the English language, and improving personal health and hygiene.

Biculturalism was seen as distinctly un-American. There was no general sense that maintaining the ability to speak one’s native language while assimilating into the primary utilization of American English was valuable or desirable. Blatant public condemnation of immigrants or entire sets of people from particular parts of the world was common in the newspapers, magazines, books, and from learned professors and common folk alike. Many anti-immigrant ideas were tied to erroneous views about racial differences accounting for differences in innate mental capacities and fixed personality traits associated with distinct ethnicities. Ethnic stereotyping was rampant. Teachers were not immune to commonly received wisdom, some of which was taught to prospective teachers as they prepared for their important life work.

Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries

Immigration to the United States increased rapidly after the Civil War. The years between 1860 and 1914 saw the majority of new immigrants arriving from southern and eastern Europein contrast to the mostly British and northern European immigrants of earlier periods. Chinese and Japanese immigrants also began arriving on the West Coast. Farming and railroads associated with the opening of the West provided ideal conditions for the United States to accommodate the large number of new arrivals and for these immigrants to have a major role in opening up the region to settlement. Wealthy Chinese merchants in California established academies and schools during the 1880s and 1890s. Japanese immigrantswho were more likely to be Christians than Daoists or Buddhistsstarted Japanese schools in Hawaii and the western United States.

The pattern of Japanese immigrants’ assimilation into American society was distinctly different than that of the Chinesein part because of the emperor’s embracing of Western ways, including American science and technology. Japanese students were far more likely to attend American schools than their Chinese counterparts. At the same time, events unfolding in Asia through this period had a substantial impact on how these two cultures interacted with each other and other cultures in their new nation. For example, the Sino-Japanese War of 1894 to 1895, Russo-Japanese War of 1905, Japanese invasion and annexation of Korea in 1910, and conflicts between China and Japan that continued through World War II, all affected relationships and rivalries among these groupsespecially in the western United States.

Meanwhile, in the cities of the eastern United States, and to a much lesser degree in the South, poor immigrants arriving from southern and eastern Europe presented new challenges to the process of Americanization. Public officials commented openly about the perceived depravity, defiance, and criminal tendencies that these immigrants allegedly manifested. Worries about the political radicalism of immigrants led to a sharp suppression of dissent, and immigrants were schooled in the ways of American democracy. Instruction was conducted solely in English. Any maintenance of their native facilities in reading, writing, and speaking was left to the informal world of learning that ethnic communities could organize and encourage.

Immigrant students’ names were Anglicized as part of this process. Students were strongly admonished to drop ethnic customs, shed their foreign accents, and suppress expressing themselves in their own native tongues.

In response to a perceived need, many schools began opening their doors to the community for evening adult classes in English, government, vocational education, and the naturalization process during the later nineteenth century. By 1906, the US government required English competency as part of the naturalization process and citizenship procedures. Schools became de facto social centers and homogenization sites.

Meanwhile, the US Congress became increasingly interested in the process of immigration and its impact on the nation. In December 1908, investigators for the US Senate’s committee on immigration compiled statistics for thirty-seven cities across the United States. They documented the presence of sixty separate nationalities and found that within citieshuge percentages of residents had fathers who were born abroad.

Vast numbers of immigrant children during this period of massive influx of immigrants were denied entry into urban schools due to overcrowded conditions. Although some degree of literacy and aptitude for mathematics was required during this period, most students, regardless of their ethnic backgrounds, received only grade school educations. A study of New York City public schools in 1911 found these high school graduation rates for students of various ethnic backgrounds:

• British: 10.8 percent
• German: 15 percent
• Russian: 16 percent
• Irish: 0.1 percent

Although immigrants and others needed enough education to hold jobs in the developing industrial economy, few immigrants attained the higher levels of literacy, math ability, or advanced subject matter knowledge that became the norm after the mid-twentieth century. World War I (1914–18) highlighted even more starkly for Americans the importance of forging an American identity for all immigrantsas ethnic groups attacked one another with a vengeance across Europe in a war that would ultimately involve the United States. There was considerable concern at the time that these deep European rivalries would erupt into violence on US city streets.

After World War I, many US states passed laws declaring English as the official state language. Some of these laws were so restrictive that Robert Meyera Nebraska parochial school teacherwas brought up on charges because he taught his immigrant students in German. In its Meyer v. Nebraska decision in 1923, the US Supreme Court ruled the Nebraska language law overreaching, holding teachers could control their own curriculum and parents had rights to determine the best educational interests of their children.

Late Twentieth Century and Twenty-First Century Changes

A wave of immigration that began in 1965 continued to the present in the twenty-first century. Most of these new immigrants have been persons of Hispanic and Asian ancestry. In 2021, approximately 23 percent of all school-age children in America spoke a language other than English at home. Of these children, about four percent had difficulty in speaking English.

Many immigrant children in schools had parents who engaged in seasonal work or were members of families that moved frequently because of rising rents or changing sociopolitical situations in their homelands and in the United States. Indeed, high rates of student mobility among many immigrant school populations presented considerable challenges to the ability of schools to provide adequate education. Transnational migration, sojourning workers, and “parachute children” who lived on their own while attending American schools were all part of the complex contemporary mosaic of immigrants and education.

By 2021, many immigrants to the United States became educators. Over two million such foreign-born persons were reported to work in positions such as professors and teachers. In addition, nearly 800,000 immigrants had employment of some kind at US colleges and universities. In 2020, over one million international students were studying in American academic institutions.

Language Issues

The metaphor of the melting pot has given way to a new metaphor of the “salad bowl”suggesting an essential unity in the midst of considerable diversity. Bilingual educationwhich arose as a formal response of the educational system in the light of the fourth wave of immigration coupled with the achievements of the civil rights movementled to changes in laws, regulations, and public perceptions about the desirability of preserving competencies in native languages and developing more successful approaches to full English-language competencies. The Bilingual Education Act was passed in 1968 as part of updating the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA). Coupled with Title I funding under ESEA targeted at educationally underserved children, this legislation opened up increased possibilities for schools to support immigrant children’s education.

Three conflicting fundamental views about how to handle English-language learners within formal educational systems have emerged. The first view saw language as a barrier to acquisition of the English language and generally took a remedial approach to the problem. A second view saw language as a right tied to the individualalthough it is difficult to translate this view into effective educational policy. A third view that gained momentum in the globalized economy saw the acquisition and maintenance of multiple languages as a positive asset for both individual persons and the future of the United States. At varying times at national, state, and local levels, these views asserted themselves politically, ranging from English-only movements led with great success by S. I. Hayakawa and John Tanton in twenty-three states, to the passage of English-only legislation approved by voters in California in 1998, in Arizona in 2000, and in Massachusetts in 2002. These efforts largely lost momentum after 2007 when voters in Iowa and Idaho passed English-only laws. With the exception of West Virginia, by 2016, no other states passed similar legislation.

During the same period, a few other statesincluding New Mexico, Oregon, and Washingtondeclared themselves as multilingual states and required their schools to reflect this orientation in their curriculum and assessment procedures. The federal No Child Left Behind Act of 2001the successor to the Improving America’s Schools Act (IASA) that superseded the original Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1968removed all references to bilingual instruction. Moreover, the Office of Bilingual Education within the US Department of Education was renamed the Office of English Language Acquisition, Language Enhancement, and Academic Achievement for Limited English Proficient Students as part of a new wave of educational accountability at the federal level.

The US Supreme Court was also active in this arenits 1974 decision in Lau v. Nichols ruled the San Francisco school district had to provide instruction in the Chinese language for Chinese pupils who did not speak English. In Plyler v. Doe (1982), the Supreme Court ruled schools could not deny undocumented immigrant children access to a free public education. In Flores v. Arizona (2008), the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held the state of Arizona had to comply with a federal district court decision that required the state to adequately fund instruction for English-language learner students. Since the last decades of the twentieth century, state education departments and school districts struggled to fulfill various requirements imposed or rescinded by federal or state legislative or judicial actions.

Multilingualism

Concerns about American security since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 raised new issues related to language acquisition by American students and highlighted continued angst about immigrants within American society. In many ways, formal educational policies regarding language and culture in American schools closely resemble those of nations such as France, Portugal, Turkey, and Japan. They are less like the officially multilingual societies and educational systems of nations such as Canada, Israel, Singapore, Paraguay, Switzerland, and Belgium. Some nations, such as India and South Africa, and the European Union as a whole, eschew identification of any specific languages as hallmarks of their national identities.

One result of the Covid-19 pandemic to the United States educational system was a drop in international applications to American academic institutions. In 2020, foreign students in the United States showed a 20 percent decrease. In addition, the number of new international attendees fell by 72 percent. These numbers were impactful as foreign students in the United States are believed to contribute almost $40 billion to the US economy. These students were also sought by American organizations for their backgrounds in fields such as technology, engineering, and health science. By mid-2021, these numbers recovered and approached pre-Covid levels.

The special challenges presented by education of a diversity of immigrant peoples contributed significantly to American education generally. For example, addressing immigrant needs helped promote the expansion of kindergartens, vocational education, civics education, adult education programs, summer schools, compulsory attendance laws, and an expansion of foreign-language courses in school systems.

Educating Immigrant Children in the 2020s

In early decades of the 2020s, immigration was a hot-button topic in American politics. A public discourse resulted with divergent views on the obligations of American citizens to provide for children of immigrants. Regarding education, Supreme Court rulings established the right for immigrant children to receive public education in the United States under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment.

In thousands of cases, immigrant children arrived in the United States without parents. In 2022, over 10,000 children were in custody of federal agencies. Although detained, education for these immigrant children was federally mandated. Immigrant children faced challenges to their everyday existence beyond those commonly faced by typical school children. For many, placement occurred in financially challenged school districts. Others faced trauma from separation with parents, language barriers, lack of nourishing food, and sufficient clothing. In addition to these obstacles, in the 2020s, immigrant children were targeted for political gain. Many politicians employed anti-immigrant messages and slogans as methods to galvanize voter support and enthusiasm for their candidacies and policies. These atmospherics were impossibe to quarantine outside of school buildings and further compounded the complexities of immigrant children to secure educations.

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