Luis Batista
ENGL 210
Research Essay Draft
Immigrant Discrimination in America(And Education)
The United States, also known as America, has historically been perceived as “The land of the free” for decades. Latinos and other races, like myself, have been immigrating exponentially since the late 1900s and 2000s for a better life. Why America? The American Dream sounds amazing to everyone outside the States, especially immigrants who need a better opportunity to succeed. Unfortunately, America is not as immigrant-friendly as most people think it is. The states were not too long ago very non-accepting of immigrants, this feeling has been passed down throughout the decades and there’s still much discrimination and structural stereotypes to go over. In this essay, I will analyze how America has gotten away with prejudice and alien treatment of immigrants, leading them to failure in education and life more often than not. Immigrants among Latinos and other races are seen as lesser in America, they are stereotyped and mishandled by American society.
In the tedtalk “Why do I keep speaking up, even when people mock me”, our class was introduced to an Immigrant man from Pakistan, named Safwat Saleem. After doing some research, I found Safwat Saleem to be the perfect author to illustrate how being an immigrant in this American Society can be harsh and degrading. Throughout Saleem’s works, he talks about the struggles of being an immigrant, the disadvantages and obstacles he faces through not being an English native speaker, how it affects his work, and most importantly, the worries that can come from being an immigrant father. In the tedtalk Saleem explains how the responses to his work were filled with criticism of his voice and it led to a hit in his confidence as a creator, this indirectly relates to things like Linguistic Discrimination and the Hierarchy in types of English. In one of Saleem’s artistic named “Anxieties of an immigrant father”, he states “You[Daughter], like me[Saleem], will feel like you don’t belong here”(Saleem, Page 1). In this quote, Saleem states one of the biggest problems that immigrants have, is the feeling of not belonging, and the feeling that their children will also be judged and miss treated like they were because of their non-american ethnicity and way of speaking.
For historical context, Most Americans in the early to mid-1900s did not want to deal with immigrants entering the country. As stated in an article named “Warmth of the Welcome: Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy in the United States” by Elizabeth Fussell from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, “Historically, Americans have favored limiting immigration… in 1938 a poll asked about allowing immigration, Fully two-thirds of those polled replied ‘With conditions as they are here, we should try to keep them out, 18% felt that only as many as the national quota allowed should be admitted, and only 5% said quotas should be raised and refugees encouraged to come”(Page 482, Fussell). In this quote, Elizabeth shows data conveying the unwillingness of Americans to allow in their country, and by nature that would later lead to many issues as immigration in America was soon forced by politicians. But why would Americans of all countries want immigrants in their country you might ask. While America may be doing immigrants a “favor”, It does not come without an exchange. America allows immigrants to enter the country not as an act of kindness, but because Immigration fuels the economy. In an article written by Pia Orrenius in 2016, It states “When immigrants enter the workforce, they increase the productive capacity of the economy and raise GDP… Immigration is a net positive for the country, but it is not distributed equally”. Hence, why immigrants are such an important aspect of this country. Immigrants work hard physical labor and do the things others don’t want to do, the influx of workers helps America much more than the “cost” of carrying immigrants. Elizabeth states, “Over the same period[1993 to 2001], a growing percentage agreed with the broader statement that “immigration is a good thing” for the country. Between 1993 and 2001, agreement grew from 29% to a peak of 66%, averaging about 59%.”(Page 482, Fussell) Americans believed that immigrants were taking away their jobs in the early 1990s. Still, countless studies have come to light proving that immigrants’ work outweighs any bad. All this proves that American society has only started accepting immigrants recently in the past 2 or 3 decades.
Despite the well-deserved acknowledgment, immigrants are still not treated equally in America. A great number of parents bring their children to America for them to receive an education and get a better life(my parents included), but the unfortunate truth is that immigrant children seem to face hard barriers. In the article “Discrimination, Ethnic Identity, and Academic Outcomes of Mexican Immigrant Children: The Importance of School Context”(2012) by Christia Spears Brown, Christia talks about the effects of discrimination on children and how it relates to their academics and lifestyles. Christia states many of the reported disadvantages, unfair treatment, and results. For example, she lists “first-and second-generation Latino immigrant students state that teachers have low expectations of them, often assuming their English is poor; report having hostile encounters with teachers who stereotype them as troublemakers; and report being treated as invisible by the teachers”(Page 1477-1478). These are a few of many common complaints listed by surveyed and examined students, they convey that being an immigrant is a common link to being forced to learn Standard English, as well as being looked at as hostile because of their ethnicity as a student. But immigrant children have to deal with much more than just being treated differently because these things lead to much greater problems. Christia goes on to state “Latino students who perceive discrimination by teachers and peers are particularly likely to have negative attitudes about school and have lower academic performance, teacher bias has been linked to lower academic motivation and academic disengagement and increased risk for dropping out of high school.”(Page 1478) As stated, being treated as lesser than other students because of how you look, how you speak, and your ethnicity, is all linked to being an immigrant. It leads to horrible life choices like dropping out of school because you don’t feel like you belong with others. The evidence states that Immigrants are forced to adapt to American society if they want to succeed.
While there is glaring evidence of overlooked prejudice toward immigrants in America, there are still things that only America can offer. An Indirect counterclaim states that America is the best place for immigrants to move if they want an education and more opportunities. After all, America has phrases like the “American Dream” and the “Land of the Free” for good reasons. Immigrants keep coming to America even with all the drawbacks and horrible obstacles they have to face. In the end, that itself proves that this will always be the place with the most opportunities to make a life for yourself and your kids. The issue I have with the counterclaim is not what it says, but what it does not address. Simply marking America as the best place to immigrate leads to a false narrative of what to expect, and I was one to fall for it from personal experience. Hearing the American phrase from the outside is comparable to a commercial ad, it generally seems like the best place on earth to migrate to until you arrive yourself and see the poverty, crime, oppression, racism, etc.
As an immigrant myself, who had to learn English from scratch and struggled to transition to New York, I can see a version of myself in all of the data gathered, especially those who filed as students and parents. I’ve felt oppression because of my mother tongue, because of my ethnicity, and simply for being labeled as an immigrant. Classmates used to joke around about how I “swam” here or how I was going to be “deported” by the IRS because I was an immigrant. I never felt like I was taken seriously on any subject in school except math, because it was the only subject where I was able to excel early on as I struggled with my English. An individual with a similar experience as me goes by the name of Amy Tan(and her mother) from “Mother Tongue”. Amy Tan had an immigrant Chinese mother, her mother experienced others not taking her seriously on multiple instances because of her mother tongue and how she acted, relating to the theme of being treated as lesser or an alien because of the way you are. For example, in the text “Mother Tongue” Amy’s mother was trying to get her CAT scan to figure out what was wrong, but the doctors lost it. They wouldn’t bulge until Amy(with perfect English and born American) made a move, she states “And when the doctor finally called her daughter, me, who spoke in perfect English — lo and behold — we had assurances the CAT scan would be found, promises that a conference call on Monday would be held, and apologies for any suffering my mother had gone through for a most regrettable mistake.”(Pages 3-4) A situation like this only adds to my claim of America’s oppressive and unequal treatment of immigrants that struggle to speak or act the way Americans do. Judging and treating others for being different is a repetitive sequence in American society. Happens in classrooms, In events, and parties, it happens everywhere. Immigrants are a big part of what makes America great, but we are not treated as if that were the case.
Works Cited
Brown, Christia Spears, and Hui Chu. “Discrimination, Ethnic Identity, and Academic Outcomes of Mexican Immigrant Children: The Importance of School Context.” Child Development, vol. 83, no. 5, 2012, pp. 1477–85. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/23321175. Accessed 24 April 2023.
Fussell, Elizabeth. “Warmth of the Welcome: Attitudes Toward Immigrants and Immigration Policy in the United States.” Annual Review of Sociology, vol. 40, 2014, pp. 479–98. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43049545. Accessed 2 May 2023.
Tan, Amy. “Mother Tongue.” [Threepenny Review 1990; 1989.] The McGraw-Hill Reader: Issues across the Disciplines. Ed. Gilbert H. Muller. 11th ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2011. 76-81. Print.
Miller, G. (2022) Benefits of immigration outweigh the costs, George W. Bush Presidential Center. Available at: https://www.bushcenter.org/catalyst/north-american-century/benefits-of-immigration-outweigh-costs#:~:text=Immigration%20fuels%20the%20economy.,the%20economy%20and%20raise%20
Saleem, S. (no date) Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent, Safwat Saleem: Why I keep speaking up, even when people mock my accent | TED Talk. Available at: https://www.ted.com/talks/safwat_saleem_why_i_keep_speaking_up_even_when_people_mock_my_accent?language=en (Accessed: 19 May 2023).
Saleem, S. (no date a) Anxieties of an immigrant father, Safwat Saleem. Available at: https://www.safwatsaleem.com/anxieties-of-an-immigrant-father/ (Accessed: 19 May 2023).
