Post 136: Americanization of Immigrants--Purpose of School--Purpose of Bilingual Ed

Post 136: Americanization of Immigrants--Purpose of School--Purpose of Bilingual Education

Ovando states, "At the beginning of the 20th century, when English classes were taught for immigrants, largely for purposes of "Americanization", there was not yet a conscious effort to professionalize the field of English as a Second Language." (53) Although the US recognizes the need for students to learn a foreign language to improve international relations, yet, immigrants who are a natural resource of other languages are being told to lose their native tongue and culture in order to become Americanized by insisting on having an exclusively English only instruction.

When I went to elementary school, our school did not have an ESL program. Although I was born in the United States, I spoke only Chinese and understood very little English when I entered 1st grade. Once my teacher realized that the reason I was not participating in class was due to my inability to understand English, my 1st grade teacher told my mother to speak in English to me at home. So for me, the 'sink or swim' submersion approach was used on me as I was totally immersed in English at home and then spoke English at school. Sadly, I did lose a lot of my Chinese language in the process of learning English and American culture. Ovando calls this process, 'substractive bilingural education' when the student loses his/her native language to become assimilated into the dominant language. To this day, I cannot read and write Chinese and I speak Chinese at a 6 year old level (since that was the age I became immersed in English).

At my school, we had no bilingual education program and we did not have an ESL program so I did not get to keep neither my Chinese culture nor my Chinese language. Instead, I learned all about American culture and history, which by the way, as a kid, I thought was fun. I enjoyed learning about George Washington having wooden teeth so that's why he never smiled, or that Abraham Lincoln was always honest and never lied. I was raised in an African American school district so we studied a lot about African American history such as the heroism of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. I remember that fierce look of 'revenge' on my African American teacher's face as she talked about how General Sherman marched through Atlanta burning it to the ground.  She loved the idea that the slave owners lost everything during the Civil War as revenge for their cruel treatment of slaves. Kids can relate to the taking down of the villain (the evil slave owning Southern plantation owners) and seeing the 'good guys' (Yanks) win.

 I learned all about American heroes and in elementary school, these American heroes did not have any flaws at all. I did not learn much about Native American history nor did I learn about the contributions of the Chinese immigrants in building the railroad until high school. For me, elementary school served as a springboard for the transmission of American values.  I didn't learn that my heroes like Thomas Jefferson or George Washington had slaves until I was in middle school and high school and I remember I didn't like learning that my American heroes had flaws.

I did not learn about my own Chinese culture or learn to read and write Chinese a little bit until I was in college. So, yes, in elementary school, I lost my L1 culture to be replaced by the L2 dominant American culture because before ESL, the purpose of schooling of immigrants was the assimilation of immigrant to American ideals of life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness and the American Dream. America was a melting pot, not a salad. Immigrants were told to 'lose' their culture and embrace the American culture to succeed, which is why my well-intentioned 1st grade teacher told my mother to speak English to me so that I would lose my Chinese 'otherness' and become Americanized.  I sometimes wonder what it would have been like if I had participated in a Bilingual Ed program where I learned to read and write Chinese 90% of the time learning academic content areas and teaching American students Chinese. I bet I would be more fluent in reading and writing Chinese if they had had a Dual Immersion Bilingual Ed program at my elementary school.