Dr. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco a researcher and professor at New York University spoke at Fountain Street Church in the kick-off lecture for the Grand Rapids Community College (GRCC) Diversity Lecture Series. The title of Dr. Suarez-Orozco's lecture was "Immigration and the Future of Education."
He began the talk by giving some background on immigration from a global perspective:
"We are in the middle of the largest migratory wave in human history. Roughly half a billion people are directly affected by migration - those who have migrated and their families who are left behind. Immigrants are sending home roughly $300 billion dollars to their home countries, about 3 times the combined total of all foreign aid. China alone has more than 150 million internal immigrants. This is a global issue."
He said that the current debate over immigration in the US is out of context, because the US tends to see the issue "through the lens of exceptionalism. Every nation has at its core immigration. Immigration has defined the very character of the US. Over 36 million Americans are foreign born today. If we combine those foreign born and their children that would equal 70 million people. Australia, Switzerland, and Germany have higher rates of immigration than the US." This, the speaker said, helps us frame the issue of immigration, since all societies are dealing with very similar issues.
To illustrate how immigration is currently impacting US communities he cited some data on New York City schools. According to the speaker there are kids from 190 countries in the public school system, with over 90 different languages spoken. As a comparison, one hundred years ago in New York City there were about 12 different languages spoken. Thus both ethnic and linguistic differences are key to understanding the current trends in US education.
Dr. Suarez-Orozco said that education is more important today than ever before and if education is transformative for immigrant children, it will contribute to three positive outcomes; lowering fertility rates, increased health, and financial well-being. The speaker said, "The problems of the 21st century demand more education if we are to solved the problems we are faced with. The US went from 2nd in college graduates globally in 1995 to 15th by 2005."
Dr. Suarez-Orozco's new book is called Learning a New Land: Immigrant Students in American Society. The most important finding is with English language proficiency:
"If you want immigrant children to succeed you need to support literacy programs. Grade Point Average drops with immigrant children the longer they are in the education system. Only 10% of immigrant children improve in education over time. The quality of the schools makes a significant difference. Immigrant children face triple segregation - poverty, race and linguistic dynamics. This affects them in regards to safety, learning environment, curriculum, language models, access to college and social capital."
The speaker said that our current educational system is outdated and needs to take into account the integrated global economy. He said the US economy will fail if we do not address the changing educational needs.
In many ways the question and answer period was more interesting, since he relied mostly on a PowerPoint presentation for his talk. The first question that was asked was why US schools are failing. Dr. Suarez-Orozco responded by saying there is too much of a focus on testing and not enough emphasis on critical thinking. He also stated that Schools that have a very clear narrative of purpose, like religious schools, tend to generate better results, although he provided no data or sources for that claim.
The next question addressed the current anti-immigrant climate, particularly in the political class and candidates running for President. He said the political class has been afraid of immigrants in the here and now, but that they always look back fondly on immigrants from generations ago. One hundred years ago there was a panic over Jews and Catholics. Today six members of the US Supreme Court are either Jews or Catholics. There were also huge concerns over communism and anarchism coming with many Europeans. He said the claim was made then that these people will not integrate, but just the opposite happened.
A Native America woman asked how important it was for immigrants to maintain their first language. She said that statistics showed that Native children who lost their language have higher rates of school drop out and teen suicide. Dr. Suarez-Orozco stressed the importance of maintaining the native language of immigrants, but that English proficiency was key to educational advance. Then he made this observation, "the US is a cemetery for language. The more that languages are lost the more we all lose out. Languages and cultures should always be preserved."
