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2016 Midterm2 (assignment) Index to Sample Student Midterm2 Answers Part 3. Research Report Starts |
LITR 4340
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Zach Thomas
Literacy Amongst American Immigrants
My area in this research is focused primarily on the relationship between
immigration and literacy. I wanted to learn what inhibits immigrants from
receiving the best acceptable education. I have had some thoughts and inferences
on the subject because as a child I was best friends with a Mexican-American boy
who lived next door. There was an obvious language barrier that we shared, but
it did not stop us from our friendship.
Looking back, I can now examine what it must have been like for my best
friend, Juan. Educational opportunities were made highly accessible to him
because he had immigrant parents. Maki Park shares through her statistical
research that, “Immigrant parents tend to have very high levels of commitment
to educational opportunities for their children”
(11). This is not true in the case of non-immigrant parents as, “foreign-born
parents as a group account for 27 percent of all low-income parents with young
children” (10). It is thus a higher ratio for most other foreign countries with
foreign-born parents. The accessibility of educational success is highly
depreciated within the homes of foreign-born parents’ children as opposed to
immigrant parents with young children.
The other difficulty in gaining literacy for Mexican-immigrants is
through the dominant culture’s minute involvement in ESL programs. As Roger Reed
puts it in response to a solution, “ESL
programs need to be structured to fit the needs of specific students. Most often
students are being taught not based on their background knowledge, but on what
is most convenient for the instructor or program sponsor” (1). He connects this
educational requirement to how the Mexican school system operates: by
identifying and placing students within one of the 4 categories they have
created to closely adhere to their background knowledge and experience.
Literacy is obviously a very important and consistent measure of success
for American immigrants. I would like to further this research beyond
Mexican-American immigrants to other low-income immigrant families. I could see
the importance of grasping an understanding of comparison between those closer
to America in proximity and those very far off. I would hope to understand the
language barriers between all of the chosen immigrants to the American culture.
How much more difficult is one’s path to literacy from the other? Could there be
underlying factors that make it harder for certain immigrants to become
literate?
Park,
Maki and Margie McHugh. 2014. Immigrant Parents and Early Childhood Programs:
Addressing Barriers of Literacy, Culture, and Systems Knowledge. Washington,
DC: Migration Policy Institute.
Reed,
Robert. Immigrant Literacy and English as a Second Language Program. Tech. Dr.
Geoffrey Sauer, 6 Dec. 1996. Web. 7 Nov. 2016. <eserver.org>.
