BOOK REVIEW
Made In America: Immigrant Students In Our Public Schools
Made In America: Immigrant Students In Our Public Schools
By Laurie Olsen.
Published by The New Press: 1997, New York: 276 pp.
Reviewed By Merri Rosenberg
Few political issues are more compelling, or divisive, than that of America’s current policy on immigration. Even more explosive, especially in states where there are substantial immigrant populations, is how to effectively educate immigrant students.
Laurie Olsen, now an independent consultant who previously served as director of California Tomorrow, a nonprofit policy research and advocacy organization, originally tackled this topic more than a decade ago, when this book was first published. She revisits the issue again in a comprehensive work that should be of interest to educators dealing with these students. Although the material is the same, Olsen has written a new preface, updating her concerns in the current political and economic landscape.
Few would argue, I imagine, that, “few immigrants get the preparation they need academically or the language development required for academic success. The reality is that they are largely precluded from access to the curriculum that their English-fluent and U.S.-born schoolmates receive.”
If anything, Olsen writes, the situation has gotten even worse. In 1997, she suggested that the nation’s response to its immigrant students could go in two directions. One would emphasize a “monocultural model of what it means to be an American” — the model that would ask students to relinquish their home language and identity. The other would indeed embrace a multicultural vision.
Unfortunately, Olsen now concludes, the events since 2001 have only intensified the distrust and backlash against immigrants, with immigrant students often a convenient target for xenophobic reactions. She points to the dismantling of many bilingual programs around the country, the pressures of No Child Left Behind legislation and the unending stream of high stakes testing, have further eroded innovative and flexible initiatives to welcome and support immigrant students.
“Immigrants are viewed almost wholly as ‘English Learners,’” Olsen writes. “Newcomer programs, orientation programs for newly arrived immigrants, multicultural and international curriculum that incorporated study of the nations from which students have come — all have largely fallen by the wayside in the rush to teach English.”
Olsen, as an activist, may be polemical in places, and her argument may not resonate with everyone. Still, she raises important questions that should, at least, be voiced and considered. #
