Sociological / Psycholinguistic   Bases of Bilingual Education

Notebook: 05, Immigrants Excel 

Immigrant success has always been a subject the news media loves to promote. Rags to riches, illiterate to Nobel Lauriat, scorned to beloved, these stories sell papers. Why? Americans enjoy hearing about the greatness of their country. It reinforces the notion that if you want something bad enough no one, no amount of discrimination, no language or racial bias can stop you. Those that come here and fail therefore must do so of there own accord, and it is no fault of this nation’s culture. It makes it easy to call someone lazy or stupid when they fail to succeed.

 Success stories in the newspaper are called Human Interest Stories, but just what kind of interest do Americans take in the true story of immigrants’ hardship? Economic, social, familial, language, ethnic, and cultural obstacles stand between immigrant students and academic success.

 The first five paragraphs of the article “Immigrants Excel” are all positive, they point to a trend of academic success first charted in the 1960’s. Much of the paper’s readership will read the title, and perhaps the first few paragraphs and feel good about themselves. Those who read to the end may come away with a different feeling.

 Although immigrant children are more likely to go to college and graduate school, they are also more likely to not finish High School. Why? Well Asians do very well, especially Chinese immigrants. One could read that and think, “Yeah, well I could have guessed that, those Asians are big time smart, math, computers, engineering, science…” And what contributes to the low high school graduation rate? A Princeton sociologist pointed to a study, which indicated students from Mexico, the Dominican Republic, and Central America tended to exhibit the highest dropout rates among immigrants. One reads this and might think, “Yep, just as I thought, those lazy, stupid Mexicans are bringing the rest of the immigrants down.”

 To be sure the article addresses the issue in a way that the above hypothetical conclusions are less likely to be drawn. Its conclusion is that for most immigrants, assimilation to the US culture is detrimental to their success. So why wasn’t this the title of the article? Why was there no mention of this until deep into the article?

Course Components:

1. Cognitive Theories Paper 
2. Legal Cases Analytical Paper 
3. Presentation 
4. Notebook   
5. Paper   
6. Professional Development