Jessica Lander - Making Americans: Stories of Historic Struggles, New Ideas, and Inspiration in Immigrant Education

To my students, who inspire me and are a light to the nation and to the world.

T his is a work of nonfiction. I have tried my bestthrough historical research, site visits, extensive interviews, and fact-checkingto ensure the stories told are accurate.

In writing this book, I have made certain choices.

The books title, Making Americans, is deliberately ambiguous with respect to who is doing the making. It reflects, of course, more than a century of efforts in this country to shape newcomers into Americansby governments, legislators, communities, educators, and many others, based on their views, their philosophy, and their power. But the key message of this book is that every newcomer is the rightful author of their own American identity: They make themselves into Americans, and the role of educators and others is to support them in this work.

In education, newcomers are often referred to as English learners (ELs) (or English language learners, or English as a second language students, although these latter terms are becoming less popular). However, learning a new language is just one of the many experiences a newcomer faces. Except when specifically discussing language learning, I use the term immigrant-origin students to emphasize the full range of experiences of families establishing a new home in a new country; it refers to immigrant children and children of recent immigrants. In the book, I stretch the term to include students from Puerto Rico. These students of course are not immigrants but American citizens, although they are often not treated that way. I do so because many of my own students from Puerto Rico have told me they dont feel like Americans, that in moving to the mainland they feel like immigrants to a new country. I mean to reflect that feeling and the fact that, for many, their experiences are similar to those of peers who come from other countries.

I have chosen to use America and the United States interchangeably. It is important to note that America is also appropriately used to refer to Central and South America. The usage in this book is not intended to exclude other important meanings of America.

The book profiles seven school programs across the country, selected after visiting and talking with many exceptional educators. Together, those schools reflect a range of approaches, regions, and sizes. They are intended to be representative of the many powerful programs across the country. Neither I nor the educators there imagine that the schools are without flaws. To the contrary, I was struck by how readily the educators acknowledged many areas for growth.

I have tried my best to capture people accurately in their own words. In writing about history, I note that some of the quotations are disturbing and, sometimes, dehumanizing. By reporting them, I do not mean to endorse those views. However, where the information is important for understanding the past, I felt it was better to confront it.

Because this book focuses on the education of young people whose families came, or who came alone, to this country in the last 150 years, it does not address the history and experiences of Indigenous students, whose ancestors lands were stolen and communities devastated by European settlers, nor of Black students who trace their ancestry to people who were enslaved and forcibly brought to this country. I urge readers to seek out and read the work of powerful educators and thinkers writing about, advocating for, and working to support these students.

To protect their privacy, I have changed the names of young people who are still minors. For those who are now adults, I have asked them to decide whether they would like me to use a pseudonym for themselves and their family members. For all of the young people whom I have quoted, particularly my former students profiled in the book, I have shared what I wrote and confirmed with them, and in most cases their parents, that they were comfortable with it being published. I am deeply honored that they chose to share their stories, experiences, and wisdom with me, and have given me permission to share their stories with you, so that we all may learn from them.

Can I eat with you? It was September 2015, and one of my students hovered hesitantly at the classrooms door. Gangly and shy, Wilson was apologetic. He had recently left his home in Puerto Rico, coming to live and study 1,700 miles north in Lowell, Massachusetts. Now, surrounded by nearly 3,400 new peers, he felt lost. Though as a Puerto Rican he was an American citizen by birth, he still often felt as foreign as the many immigrant peers who filled his new classes. Nowhere did he feel he belonged.

I too was new to the community, having recently come to Lowell High School to teach immigrant and refugee teenagers. That first month a routine was born. Each day after my fifth class, as students streamed out, Wilson would shuffle in, carrying pizza, a sandwich, or sometimes a baked potato smothered in sour cream. My desk became our makeshift lunch table. Little by little, I grew to know Wilson. I asked about his favorite classes, his weekend excursions, what he missed most about the island. Then one Friday during our lunch, he had a question for me. Pointing at my hand, he asked, How did you learn to use those? Nestled between my fingers were bamboo chopsticks. Wilson, I quickly learned, was mesmerized by all things Japanese. It was a love rooted in anime, which had spurred him to spend late nights reading Japanese history and practicing the katakana and hiragana alphabets. Over lunch, in a pause between classes, lesson planning, and grading, Wilson and I began speaking about learning languages and cultures.

But our lunches did not remain one-on-one for long. Early in October, Wilsons classmate Nie, a tall, serious Vietnamese girl, asked to join. Nie was quickly followed by Po, an inquisitive Karen refugee from Southeast Asia. More soon followed. By November, lunch in my classroom was bursting with students. Yemeni, Iraqi, and Lebanese girls drew center seats into a circle. A Liberian boy who loved history hung with a freckled Tanzanian boy near the door. In seats along the wall a gaggle of Brazilian girls liked to linger. Two Cambodian girls sat side by side in the front-row desks. Students chatted, ate, hunched over unfinished homework, and peppered me with questions about history we had learned in class.

Lunchtime also offered a master class in cuisines. Po presented classmates with excruciatingly spicy tiny fish. Nie unpacked Vietnamese soups and passed around her spoon. One Lebanese student brought in flaky diamonds of baklava that left everyone licking honey from their fingertips. I watched as studentstentative, curious, enthusiastictasted seaweed, egg curries, empanadas for the first time. I watched, too, as Wilson grew less reserved and more talkative, surrounded by his classmates from around the world.

Almost everyone in the United States traces their origins elsewhereto ancestors who, whether by force or by choice, built new homes and new lives here. Some arrived four hundred years ago and some four months ago. Some came seeking opportunity for themselves and for their children. Some came fleeing persecution. Many were brutally enslaved and forcibly transported across the Atlantic from the coast of West Africa. Even Indigenous people, whose forebears had lived in America for millennia, were violently displaced from their ancestral homes.