New Homes for Old Part 15

VIII

AGENCIES OF ADJUSTMENT

In the first six chapters an attempt has been made to set out certain difficulties with which foreign-born family groups are confronted on arrival. It has become clear that certain services skillfully rendered might prevent a great deal of needless suffering, discomfort, and waste, and also greatly facilitate the adjustment of the family to the new surroundings. The services that would be appropriate to the needs of all housewives might be cla.s.sed under (1) the exercise of hospitality; (2) supplying information and opportunities for instruction; (3) a.s.sistance in the performance of household tasks.

Suggestions that these services might prove useful are not based wholly on theory, and attention may at this point be directed to the work of certain agencies which have attempted to do these various things.

The suggestion has been frequently made that the immigrant should be the object of certain protective care during the journey across the ocean and on arrival.[53] The proposal here is that the community would gain enormously through the creation of devices for the exercise of a community hospitality. This should include the receiving and distributing of new arrivals in such a way as to a.s.sure their being put into touch, not only with their relatives and friends, but with the community resources which could be of special service as well.

Attention has been called to the efforts put forth by organizations among the foreign-speaking groups. The possibility of their more efficient and wider activity should be always kept in mind. But the work of the Immigrants' Protective League of Chicago, in behalf of unaccompanied women and girls, ill.u.s.trates both the nature of the task and the way in which the development of such services requires a familiarity with the governmental organizations and a capacity for utilizing official agencies not to be found among the groups most needing help.

IMMIGRANTS' PROTECTIVE LEAGUE

The work of this society has been referred to a number of times, and its methods and special objects should perhaps be briefly summarized.

Its organization in 1907 grew out of a desire to a.s.sist the immigrant girls coming into Chicago, with special reference to their industrial relations. The objects described in the charter of incorporation are, however, much wider than this. They were:

... to apply the civic, social, and philanthropic resources of the city to the needs of foreigners in Chicago, to protect them from exploitation, to co-operate with the Federal, state, and local authorities, and with similar organizations in other localities, and to protect the right of asylum in all proper cases. (By-Laws, Art. II.)

The services of the organization have been taken advantage of by members of all the national groups in Chicago, and these services have included meeting immigrant trains and distributing arriving immigrants to their destination in the city, prosecuting the agencies from which the immigrant suffered especial exploitation, visiting immigrant girls, securing appropriate legislation, and in general making known to the community the special needs of the newly arrived immigrants.

The League has from the beginning made use of the services of foreign-speaking visitors, and the volume and success of its work has varied with the number of these visitors, the extent to which they represented groups in need of special aid, and their skill as social workers. At the time of the publication of the last report, the following languages besides English were spoken by these visitors: German, Bohemian, Italian, Lettish, Lithuanian, Magyar, Polish, Russian, Slovak, and Yiddish. Many aspects of its work do not bear on this discussion, but the following brief pa.s.sages from the annual reports indicate the way in which the work in behalf of unaccompanied girls developed.

During the past year and a half the League has received from the various ports of arrival the names and addresses of the girls and women destined for Chicago. All of these newly arrived girls and women have been visited by representatives of the League able to speak the language of the immigrant.

Four, and part of the time five, women speaking the Slavic languages--German, French, Italian, and Greek--have been employed for this work. In these visits information has been acc.u.mulated in regard to the journey to Chicago, the depot situation, the past industrial experience of the girls, their occupation in Chicago, wages, hours of work, their living conditions, the price they pay for board, and whether they are contributing to the support of some one at home. On this basis the League's work for girls has been planned. (_Annual Report, 1909-10_, p. 13.)

In these visits many girls needing a.s.sistance are found. The most difficult ones to help are those for whom the visitor sees a danger which the girl is unable to antic.i.p.ate. Often a girl is a pioneer, who comes in advance of her family, and the friend or acquaintance whom she knows in Chicago undertakes to help her in finding her first job and a place to live, and then leaves her to solve the future for herself.

If she should be out of work or in trouble she has no one whom she can ask for advice or help. In cases of this sort all that the visitor can do is to establish a connection which will make the girl feel that she has some one she can turn to in case of trouble or unemployment. (_Annual Report, 1909-10_, p. 15.)

Sometimes the League's visitor can do little more than offer the encouragement which the girl so much needs during the first few years in America. Usually she tries to persuade the girl to attend the nearest night school; sometimes she helps her in finding work, or a proper boarding place; sometimes, when the immigrant is educated, she has to quite sternly insist that any kind of work must be accepted until English has been learned. Some girls are discovered only after it is too late to prevent a tragedy. In the cases of two girls, one Polish and the other Bohemian, who had been betrayed by the uncles who had brought them to this country, the results were especially discouraging because the efforts to punish the men failed and one of the girls who had suffered so much from the uncle whom she thought she could trust was deported. (_Annual Report for the Year Ending January 1, 1914_, p. 11.)

It is clear that such a plan involved the distribution of information from the ports of entry to the places of destination,[54] and the development of instrumentalities through which the immigrant on arrival at his destination can be placed in contact with those from whom help of the kind needed could be expected. A nation-wide network of agencies for such hospitality, with headquarters at the ports of entry, is seen to be necessary from the descriptions of the services to be rendered. The development of such machinery by the Federal Immigration Service, as at present organized, may be unthinkable; but with a change in personnel and with a wider understanding of the nature of the problem, the apparently impossible might be realized.

In the meantime, the service need not wholly wait on this remote possibility. There are agencies, both public and private, which with enlarged resources might undertake a considerable portion of this task and develop more completely both the methods of approach and a body of persons skilled in this particular kind of service. Such work as that done on a small scale by the Immigrants' Protective League is especially instructive. The resources of that organization for all its tasks have been limited, so that visitors have been only to a slight extent specialized, except in the matter of language. But with enlarged resources, so that a larger number and better trained visitors might be employed, this gracious and important hospitality might be widely exercised.

A NATIONAL RECEPTION COMMITTEE

As this visiting developed among the different groups, several results could be antic.i.p.ated. Just as the needs of the unaccompanied girls have been learned in this way, the needs of the families in the different groups could become more exactly understood, and devices for meeting those needs more efficiently worked out. It would perhaps be possible to urge the woman to learn English when she is first confronted with the strangeness of her situation, and before she slips into the makeshifts by which she later is apparently able to get on without learning English. Instruction in English might be made to appear the path of least resistance, if it were made attractive and available to the immigrant housewife at a sufficiently early moment.

These visitors might preferably be English-speaking members of the foreign-speaking groups. If there were a sufficient staff, they might also render many similar services to other women in the foreign-born groups. They could persuade those who have not yet learned English to come into English cla.s.ses; they could organize groups for instruction in cooking, child care, house and neighborhood sanitation; and gradually acc.u.mulate both additional knowledge as to the need and experience in meeting it.

A point to be emphasized in connection with this service is that it is not related in any way to the problem of dependency, but is directed wholly toward meeting the difficulties growing out of the strangeness of the newcomer to the immediate situation. By developing a method for lessening the difficulties connected with the migration of any group from one section to another differing in industrial or social organization, light would be thrown on a.n.a.logous problems such as the movements among the negroes from the South to the North during the war, or of the mountain people to the cotton-mill villages at an earlier date.

Another point to be emphasized is that while the method of approach and of immediate service can be developed independently, and while the amount of discomfort and genuine distress that can be prevented is very great--as is shown in the experience of families whom such organizations as now attempt work along this line have aided--the opportunity for swift and efficient adjustment will be dependent on the development of a body of educational technique.

It has been made clear that there are certain kinds of information that should be given to the newcomers, with reference, for example, to the change in the legal relationships within the family group, the new responsibilities of the husband and father, and the rights of wife and children to support. Attention has been called to the need of giving instruction regarding sanitary and hygienic practices, with reference to the new money values, and to the new conditions under which articles of household use are to be obtained, to the requirements in food and clothing, particularly for the children, in the new locality as compared with that from which the family comes. And, as has been suggested, above all there is always the question of teaching English.

Sometimes the necessary facts can be conveyed briefly and immediately.

Sometimes patient individual instruction will be necessary. Sometimes group or cla.s.s instruction will be the proper device. It is highly important, then, that these various forms of instruction be developed into a technique. Courses of instruction to be given according to these different methods to those for whom a particular method is appropriate must be organized, and a body of teachers developed.

The question then arises as to the extent to which this task has been undertaken and the agencies that have undertaken it. As to the first great body of material, it may be said to have been ignored. Only when one is summoned to the Juvenile Court of Domestic Relations, or when one learns of another's being summoned, is the body of family law called to the attention of the group. In English, in cooking, and child care, some agencies have attempted instruction. They are the public school, organizations like the Immigrants' Protective League, the State Immigration Commission, the social settlement, recreation centers of various kinds, the Young Women's Christian a.s.sociation in its International Inst.i.tutes. The possibilities in the work of these agencies are numerous.

THE PUBLIC SCHOOL

The public school touches the foreign-born family at two points: First, in the compulsory education of the children, and second, in the opportunities that it offers to the adult members of the family to learn English, to fit themselves for citizenship, and to adjust their lives to the new community.

The adaptation of the public schools to these tasks belongs properly to another section of this study.[55] In so far, however, as the school contributes through its att.i.tude toward the parent to a breakdown in family discipline, and in so far as it tries or does not try to instruct the foreign-born housewife in the art of housekeeping, it is concerned with problems that are primarily family problems. It may be of interest, then, to cite certain evidence obtained from foreign-born leaders and typical foreign-born families as to the relationship existing between the schools and foreign-born parents, the methods used by the schools in the education of foreign-born women, and their apparent success or failure.

Reference has already been made to the place that the school sometimes plays in the breakdown of family discipline, because of ignorance on the part of the teachers concerning the social and domestic att.i.tudes prevailing among the foreign-born groups.

The school has, in fact, been able to take so little account of the mother that so long as things run fairly smoothly she is usually unable to realize that she has any place at all in the scheme. Again and again, to the question as to whether she visits the school where her children go, comes the answer, "Oh no, my children never have any trouble in school." As long as they are not in trouble she is not called into consultation. She may even be made to feel quite unwelcome if she is bold enough to visit the schoolroom, so she very soon comes to the conclusion that the education of her children is really none of her business.

Sometimes the teacher thoughtlessly contributes to the belittling of the parent in the eyes of the child. An Italian man tells the story of a woman he knew who whipped her boy for truancy and then went to consult the teacher. But instead of a serious and sympathetic talk, the teacher in the child's presence upbraided the mother for punishing the child. The child of foreign-born parents, as well as the native-born child, often learns in the public school to despise what is other than American in dress, customs, language, and political inst.i.tutions, and both are thus influenced to despise the foreign-born parent who continues in the old way.

There is, of course, often a failure on the part of the teacher to uphold the dignity and authority of the parents in the native-born group, and the need of bridging the gap between school authorities and parents has been recognized by the organization of the Parent-Teachers'

organization as well as of the Patrons' Department of the National Education a.s.sociation. It may be that at a later date, when certain general fundamental questions of co-operation have been dealt with, devices for meeting the difficulties of special groups of parents will be developed.

On the subject of courses of instruction attention has been called to the many points at which the foreign-born housewife needs instruction and a.s.sistance in familiarizing herself with the new conditions under which she lives. When there exists such a universal and widely felt need which could be filled by giving instruction in a field in which the material is organized and available, the opportunity of the school is apparent. Not only courses in English, in the art of cooking, in the principles of selection and preservation of food, but those describing the peculiarities of the modern industrial urban community as contrasted with the simple rural community, could be planned, methods of instruction could be developed, and regular curricula could be organized.

There are, to be sure, certain inherent difficulties to be met in the instruction of housewives. The old saying, "Man's work is from sun to sun, but woman's work is never done," has been so long accepted as the expression of the inevitable that it is difficult to persuade anyone, most of all the housewife herself, that she can manage to give an hour or two a day to learning something new. Her time seems never her own, with tasks morning, afternoon, and night.

Nor is it only a question of overwork. Undoubtedly careful planning is uncommon, and the tradition that woman's place is in the home has its effect. In fact, there is a vicious circle; she cannot study because her housekeeping is too arduous, but it is so partly because she does not take time to learn better ways of doing her work.

There is, moreover, among most housewives, whether native or foreign born, a certain complacency about housekeeping and bringing up children. Housekeeping is supposed to come by nature, and few women of any station in life are trained to be homemakers and mothers. If they take any training it is generally designed to fit them to earn a living only until they are married. They do not realize how useful certain orderly instruction might be.

Moreover, instruction for foreign-born housewives must include the subjects needed for homemaking as well as English. Having survived the first hard adjustments it is difficult to persuade the foreign-born mother that she has any need for speaking English when housekeeping is all that is expected of her. The situation is often complicated, too, by her age at immigration and her lack of education in the old country, which make her particularly ill-fitted for ordinary cla.s.sroom instruction.

Besides these difficulties there are certain prejudices to be met. The middle-aged woman does not wish to study English in cla.s.ses with her children of working age or others of their age. She dreads the implication of this a.s.sociation. Many of the foreign-born mothers also have a hesitancy about going into cla.s.ses with men, as they feel a mental inferiority, and many prefer not to be in cla.s.ses with students from other national groups.

The most frequent criticism by immigrant leaders interviewed is the inelasticity of the public-school methods. The cla.s.ses are usually held three or four nights a week, and no housewife should be expected to leave home as often as that. The groups are composed of both men and women and of all nationalities, disregarding well-known prejudices that have already been mentioned.

A more fundamental criticism than these has reference to the failure to adopt or devise new methods of instruction for persons who cannot read or write in their own language, and who have arrived at a period in their lives when learning is extremely difficult. The cla.s.ses are often conducted in English by day-school teachers, who are accustomed to teaching children and who are entirely unfamiliar with the background of the immigrant woman and her special problems.

There are reports also of the unwillingness of the school authorities to relax formal requirements, with reference to the minimum number for whom a cla.s.s will be organized. Often it is necessary to "nurse the cla.s.s." In Chicago sixteen women have in the past been deprived of a cla.s.s because the Board of Education refused at the time to open the schools to groups of less than twenty.

THE HOME TEACHER

The home teacher in California is an interesting educational device, of which much is to be expected. The Home Teacher Act, pa.s.sed by the state legislature April 10, 1915,[56] permits boards of school trustees or city boards of education to employ one "home teacher" for every five hundred or more units of average daily attendance. The home teacher is

to work in the homes of the pupils, instructing children and adults in matters relating to school attendance and preparation therefor, also in sanitation, in the English language, in household duties, such as purchase, preparation, and use of food and clothing, and in the fundamental principles of the American system of government and the rights and duties of citizenship. She is required to possess the following qualifications:

1. A regular teacher's certificate under the State Education Law.

2. Experience in teaching and in social work.