In the academic article, That Child Is a Yellow: New Immigrant Children's Conceptions of English Language, Literacy, and Learners' Identities in the NCLB Era by Sultan Turkan and Ana Christina DaSilva Iddings they both illustrate how many children of immigrants and who are spanish speakers trying to learn english are motivated to succeed due to the pressure of fitting in and getting an education for upward mobility. Sultan Turkan a doctoral student during the course of this study at the university of arizona, Ana christina dasilva iddings an assistant professor at the same university. They conducted a study in which they drawed observations on three new immigrants who are also native speakers (Gabriela,Juan,and Maria). Turkan and Iddings observed …show more content…
This creates frustration in youths whose perspectives and talents are lost to the american society. They are downgraded due to the national immigration policy and face liminal citizenship. They feel trapped between belonging and exclusion as they don't fully feel american nor mexican or their ethnicity. They feel more american than their ethnicity, sharing similar hopes and dreams as any american but they have more limitations on their …show more content…
An undocumented high school valedictorian and college graduate asserts his struggle in the interview. Raul had to face many obstacles to achieve his goals of becoming a businessman, however when his employees found out he was undocumented. Luckily he had saved up money expecting this to happen. He states how he worried if he would have to go back to his homeland but would be “I know I probably would end up feeling like a stranger in my own land.”(page 169). Many undocumented students feel like they are part of america growing up here most of their life and feel like it's unfair to not receive the same right. Many undocumented students surpass there obstacles and try to legitimize himself in america by succeeding in their studies and helping the community. They feel like going to their homeland to receive more opportunities in education would be just as difficult then living as an undocumented student because they would have to face the struggle of trying to adapt again to a community in which they are not use to or have an memory of. This exclusion and belonging excludes their identity. UNdocumented students don't feel american because they are labeled as illegal and
In “Se Habla Español,” the author, Tanya, talks about her personal experience with dealing with language issues. Tanya was born in Guatemala and moved to the U.S when she was only three years old. Tanya’s mother did not want her to speak Spanish, because they believed that when they moved to the U.S speaking only English would help her blend in. For so long Tanya believed that speaking Spanish went hand in hand with being poor and speaking only English made her feel superior. After many years she has tried to learn Spanish but has found it quite difficult because although that is her native language it was like trying to learning a whole new language for her. In “Mother Tongue,” Amy’s explains how she has come to the realization that she speaks more than one “English,” meaning that the way she speaks in front of a crowd is different than the way she speaks with her mother. The way Amy speaks with her mother is still English although it is not proper. Amy expresses how she does not really like the phrase “broken English,” because if something is broken it needs to be fixed and she does not feel that her mother’s English needs to be
Part Three of the book “Just Like Us” written by Helen Thorpe is comprised of illegal undocumented individuals residing in Denver Colorado. The individuals consist of a group of four Mexican young adults all with the dream of one day attending college and finally obtaining a legal status within the United States. In this portion of the readings, Yadira, Marisela, Clara, and Elissa are entering their senior year at their University and have defined the odds of successfully completing college while maintaining an illegal status. Helen Thorpe clearly demonstrates a passion in tracking individuals that are determined to become legal citizens within society; however, lack the proper advocacy and documentation to do so. Part Three of the book envelops the complexity of maintaining a legal status among society members through the lives of these four influential young ladies striving to achieve higher education in the
“Standard English was imposed on children of immigrant parents, then the children were separated from native English speakers, then the children were labeled “inferior” and “ignorant” (Hughes 70) because they could not speak Standard English. In addition to feeling inferior about their second language skills, these students also felt inadequate in regard to speaking their own mother tongues” (qtd in Kanae)
In Lives in Limbo, Roberto G. Gonzales dissects the disastrous effects of US immigration policy on young Latina/os struggling in the often untouched, unnoticed, uncared for, American underbelly. Through a striking ethnography, Gonzalez examines 150 illuminating case-studies of young undocumented Latina/os, shedding light on their shared experience in the struggle for legitimacy in the United States - their lives, effectively, in limbo. He develops two major groups with which to classify the struggling youth: the college-goers, like Cesar, who received strong marks in high school and was able to land himself a spot within the UC system, and the early-exiters, like Silvia, who was unable to attend college, resigned to a paranoid life plagued
Even if these students have achieved the highest honors and have the brains of an engineer, they aren’t able to reach their greatest potential because they simply do not have documents. Those who are undocumented are doomed to working backbreaking jobs that pay substantially below minimum wage. Spare Parts has challenged and shown me that it takes an immigrant double, or even triple the amount of toil to achieve anything in life. These boys endeavoured through adversities that many of us will never encounter. Luis luckily had a green card, but Lorenzo, Oscar, and Cristian were all living under the fear of deportation. They all wanted more after graduating from Carl Hayden but their dreams quickly vanished because the reality was that they’re illegal immigrants. When we hear the word “immigration”, we automatically think “illegal”, but what we don’t see is that these illegal immigrants are trying to reach their own American Dreams by coming to America. As the author includes Patrick J. Buchanan’s perspective on immigrants, “...families came to the United States to leech off government services.” (35), it shows us how immigrants are perceived.
America is a presumptuous country; its citizens don’t feel like learning any other language, so they make everyone else learn English. White Americans are the average human being and act as the standard of living, acting, and nearly all aspects of life. In her essay “White Privilege: The Invisible Knapsack,” Peggy McIntosh talks about how being white has never been discussed as a race/culture before because that identity has been pushed on everyone else, and being white subsequently carries its own set of advantages. Gloria Anzaldua is a Chicana, a person of mixed identities. In an excerpt titled “How to Tame a Wild Tongue,” she discusses how the languages she speaks identify who she is in certain situations and how, throughout her life, she has been pushed to speak and act more “American” like.
“ Ironically I faced discrimination from other immigrants rather than Americans themselves”, stated Valentina Luma when she was been interviewed. This quote was the most relatable to my experience of being an immigrant to United States of America compares to hers. Valentina Luma was the age of nine when her and her family immigrated from Dominican Republic to the United States. Luma’s journey to the United States wasn’t arduous physically rather mentally where the process to get accepted took almost a decade, she admits to understand why some immigrants would rather come to America illegally than wait almost a decade to come. Some of the positive
Another struggle for identity with Latinos is their struggle with the Spanish and English languages. While some Latinos may speak Spanish in their homes, the language may not be conversationally used in their schools. Some Lat...
For many Mexican immigrants, crossing the border into the land of freedom and the American dream is no easy task. Some immigrants come over illegally by means of hiding in cars to cross borders, using visitor visas to stay longer, marrying to become citizens, and having babies as ‘anchors’ to grant automatic citizenship. Other immigrants gain green cards and work visas and work their way into becoming US citizens legally and subsequently gaining citizenship through paperwork for their families back home. After escaping harsh living and working conditions in Mexico, immigrants come to America prepared to gain education, opportunity, and work. This American dream unfortunately does not come to pass for most.
Undocumented students are becoming a growing outrage in the United States. It has been a constant battle amongst the students, the schools, and the Government. According to collegeboard.com, statistics shows that 65,000 undocumented students graduate from U.S. high schools each year (collegeboard.com).After graduating high school they face legal and financial barriers to higher education. This paper will address the importance of this growing outrage and discuss the following that corresponds to it.
Anzaldua grew up in the United States but spoke mostly Spanish, however, her essay discusses how the elements of language began to define her identity and culture. She was living in an English speaking environment, but was not White. She describes the difficulty of straddling the delicate changing language of Chicano Spanish. Chicano Spanish can even differ from state to state; these variations as well as and the whole Chicano language, is considered a lesser form of Spanish, which is where Anzaldua has a problem. The language a person speaks is a part...
She describes it as “subtractive schooling,” a process in which students are left vulnerable to academic failure due to structural forces that impose on their ethnic identities and cultural backgrounds. The author explains that immigrants go through a dis-identification process, which seeks to Americanize them inadvertently forces minority status upon them. The division comes when their own ethnic identity of what it means to be Mexican to them is compromised. A prime example of this the use of linguistics and cultural practices. In the subtractive schooling process, all things Mexican or tied to the students’ identity is purposely diluted as is the use of the Spanish language. The concept of Mexicanidad becomes blurry as many Mexican/Mexican-American’s consider speaking Spanish as synonymous to what being Mexican is. In the subtractive schooling process, students are expected to know and speak English fluency, on the other hand in order to be considered truly Mexican they must also speak Spanish fluently. Many 2nd generational immigrants don’t fair as well as 1st generation because of the lack of bilingualism and biculturalism, skills that make the 1st generation more successful than the
The article shows her ideas with a specific focus on the Latino community in English-language country. The writer said “After my first set of lessons, I could function in the present tense. Hola, Paco. De que color es tu cuaderno? El mío es azul”. (Barrientos, Tanya p.64). This is evidence throughout the article that she said such as this sentence and writes some words in Spanish that she don’t know. The writer was born in a Latin American country, and feels like a Latina (the brown-skin) even if she was raised in the United States and does not speak Spanish anymore. In addition, this article also serves as inspiration for people with different backgrounds that suffer from the same problem, helping all the people that face the same problem. I’m also have same experience. I’m growing up in Shandong province, but born in Guangdong province. It is so far from Guangdong to Shandong. And China is an old country, the culture and habit is not similar from place to place. If there are a few mountains between two cities, the language is total different. So every time when I come back to my hometown, the citizen, especially my grandparents, which growing up in tradition, will call me “yuasangia”, which like the writer’s struggles in American. However, the different is that this noun just for others province people who live in or travel to my hometown. Every time when I say my hometown language
“You are in America, speak English.” As a young child hearing these words, it did not only confuse me but it also made me question my belonging in a foreign country. As a child I struggled with my self-image; Not being Hispanic enough because of my physical appearance and not being welcomed enough in the community I have tried so hard to integrate myself with. Being an immigrant with immigrant parents forces you to view life differently. It drives you to work harder or to change the status quo for the preconceived notion someone else created on a mass of people. Coming to America filled me with anxiety, excitement, and even an unexpected wave of fear.
There is a common consensus among people around the world that the United States of America is the greatest country in the world because it is the land of opportunity, and the land of immigrants. In fact, the United States of America has always been the epicenter for the world 's greatest minds, and where hard work is recognized and rewarded. A place where boys become the future leaders of the world. A place where everyone, regardless of the color of their skin and their religion collaborate to solve the world’s future/current problems. Recently though, many Americans claim that undocumented immigrants steal their jobs, don’t pay any taxes, and still reap the benefits such as free public schooling. However, the author of “My Life as an Undocumented