Coming to America — Becoming An American
Schools Play An Important Role in Molding Immigrant Children Into Americans
This is the third and last in a three-part series on immigration and diversity in Fairfax County in northern Virginia. The first in the series, Coming to America — The First Days is here, and the second in the series, Coming to America — Recreating Home in a New Country is here.
My daughter’s kindergarten class sat in rapt attention as their teacher told them stories about Martin Luther King, Jr. She told them about his “I Have a Dream” speech. She told them about Rosa Parks. At various points during the class she asked the children questions about what she had just taught them. That day, I learnt as much about just how thoughtful children could be as the children did about this country’s history.
As luck would have it, the teacher had two other volunteers in class that day – elderly ladies from the local community who love to work with little children. The teacher asked them what it was like to grow up during segregation. When they finished, the teacher ended the class with, “So this is what happened in our country a long time ago.” Among the students in class were second-generation immigrants of Vietnamese, Indian, Peruvian, Iranian, Ethiopian, Spanish and Chinese heritage.
While first generation immigrant parents may need to ferret out the resources they need in order to learn the language or get acclimatized to the way things are done here, the process of integrating children into the society and into the community’s value systems begins the minute they enter the Fairfax County Public Schools (FCPS) system.
At the beginning of the school year, the children enter with wildly disparate abilities and backgrounds. By the end of their first year, in addition to quite a bit of exposure to American History, they are well on their way to learning what it is to be an American. This includes becoming fluent in English if they are not already, being able to recite the Pledge of Allegiance, knowing how to conduct oneself when the national anthem is being played, and, most importantly, learning the importance of the behaviors that comport with American values (among other things, perseverance, citizenship, fairness, responsibility and trust).
FCPS cherishes the diversity in its schools (its student-body is made up of children from more than 150 countries). “Our diversity creates resilient, open and innovative citizens of the global community,” states one of its Belief Statements. “FCPS values its diversity, and students from diverse backgrounds … serve as resources that assist in promoting cross cultural understanding,” says Mary Shaw, Media Specialist in their Department of Communications and Community Outreach. Schools transform immigrant children into American citizens and all children grow into global citizens in the bargain.
Over the years, a number of theories have been deployed to explain the ways in which immigrants and host societies learn to adapt to each other. They have envisioned the United States as a ‘melting pot,’ a theory first floated in the late 1700s and made popular by a 1908 play of the same name. Similar to the ‘melting pot’ idea was the theory of assimilation, which postulated that the immigrants would eschew the language, culture and ways of life of their home countries, would adapt those of their host societies and thus fully ‘assimilate’ or ‘melt’ into the culture of their new homelands. Although this theory by itself no longer informs national immigration policy, the term ‘melting pot’ still finds currency in popular culture.
Then came the ideas of ‘cultural pluralism’ and ‘multiculturalism,’ which advocated for respecting and preserving the cultural and ethnic diversity of the various immigrant groups, the former idea also stressing that there should be no conflict with the values of the broader culture.
All the intellectual power that has been spent trying to arrive at a model that captures how people of different backgrounds, ethnicities and cultures learn to live in harmony is but an indication of just how profound the concern surrounding immigrants’ ability to integrate is. According to the Migration Policy Institute (MPI), a Washington, D.C. based think-tank, the United States is in the midst of its fourth wave of immigration (this one mainly from Latin America, Asia and the Caribbean) and fears about immigrants not being able to integrate have accompanied each new wave, including those that emanated from Europe.
In an MPI paper entitled Immigrants in the United States: How Well Are They Integrating into Society?, author Tomás R. Jiménez concludes that this current wave of immigrants is adjusting reasonably well, as did the prior three waves. While at first immigrants might struggle, “over time … immigrants and their children learn English, interact with members of the host communities, and become involved in the political process,” all measures of how well integration has occurred.
If the interest immigrants express in the various English language classes in schools, churches and libraries around Fairfax County is any indication, immigrants seize the opportunities that will help them integrate. They realize that learning English is the gateway to better jobs, to having more productive dialogues with the institutions in which their children are enrolled, and to having a better quality of relationships with their neighbors. The need to feel like you belong is almost visceral.
When asked what it means to be an American citizen, the immigrants I spoke to emphasized the importance of volunteering, being involved in the community and exercising the right to vote.
Jacqueline de los Rios’ story echoes the desire of immigrants to feel part of what is going on around them.
A first generation immigrant and a psychologist in her native Bolivia, she initially volunteered her time shredding paper at Floris United Methodist Church (Floris UMC) in Herndon. She learned the language from scratch, moved to Fairfax County to be closer to her family and eventually found a job at the church. She says she knows what it is to be an immigrant and to need help. So she herself gets involved and helps in whatever way she can. “I am loyal to this country because it opened its doors to me and my family. It gave me everything I have right now. I feel proud to be part of this country,” she says.
A good American citizen benefits society by volunteering her “knowledge and skills,” says Mona Al Batouti, an American of Egyptian origin. Madhu Maheshwari, an immigrant from India, says voting is important although, she says it is sometimes a struggle to get your voice heard. All of them volunteer their time and talents at their children’s school, on their sports teams or in local cultural organizations.
Barbara Miner, an Associate Pastor at Floris UMC, says her church not only counts many different nationalities among her congregation, but also first and second generation immigrant volunteers who teach, help out with registration and with the music. “When people receive care of some sort, they turn around and give care. This is how they feel involved.”
There are many factors that influence which area of the country immigrants choose to relocate to, according to Jeanne Batalova, a policy analyst at MPI. Refugees don’t have much a choice — they go where the refugee resettlement agency tells them to. Independent immigrants tend to choose an area based on whether they already have contacts in that area, or on available job and educational opportunities. Alaska, for example, attracts Filipino immigrants. Given that the Philippines is a warm, tropical island country, that choice of place might seem counter-intuitive, but not when you factor in Alaska’s big fishing industry.
Fairfax County, once a bedroom community for federal government personnel dotted with sprawling farms, is now a hustling, bustling powerhouse in its own right — with one of the best public school systems in the nation, a high median income, and a highly educated workforce with the largest concentration of tech sector jobs in the country. The types of jobs available in this area tend to attract immigrants and other residents with high educational attainment, says Batalova.
As the earlier articles in the series have shown, immigrants cherish the opportunities to better themselves and are grateful for the freedoms this country affords. They repay this debt of gratitude by getting involved in the community themselves and working to preserve the quality of life that attracted them to Fairfax County in the first place. And the county, for its part, provides them with the tools they need and fulfills its ‘core purpose’ — “to protect and enrich the quality of life for the people, neighborhoods, and diverse communities of Fairfax County.”
We may not all walk, talk or look like each other in this divine patch of Earth just south of the nation’s capital. We may not all eat the same food or dance to the same music. But the core qualities of all of us who have somehow found our way here — the desire to work hard, better oneself, raise good children, help those in need and be plugged into our communities in the best possible way we know how — are the red, white and blue ties that bind us.
