Artifact: Paper on Mexicans in New York

One of the more personal and, because of this,  enjoyable projects I did was my paper on Mexicans in New York for my class ESC 769: Latinos in US Schools. I wrote a major portion of the research paper while I was with family in Norway. This caused me to reflect on the points in common that my immigrant family had with the history of Mexicans in New York, while also highlighting the differences. While I did not include it in the paper, many themes arose both in common and in contrast between the two groups. I also saw how the practices inside a classroom are very much driven by the legal decisions and research that happen outside it.

I reflected both on how far the laws have come since my grandfather came from Norway and received a “certification” in English from an English for adults program in his local high school and the history of laws and social change that both helped and hindered Mexicans who moved to the United States. One of the fundamental differences in two groups was in transportation. My grandfather came here to stay as an adult. My research on Mexicans showed that many students in New York schools came to the US as children and frequently went back and forth. Fortunately, today the law classifies them as SIFE  (students with interrupted formal education), and attempts to provide them with additional resources.

It would not have been as effective for my grandfather to move to the US prior to adulthood not only because he didn’t have close relatives to live with but also because many of the laws formalizing and mandating fair and equitable for English Language Learners did not exist. Key landmark cases such as  Lau V. Nichols and Aspira V. New York and legal changes such as the Bilingual Education Act and Every Student Succeeds Act have created a linguistic environment far different from the 1930s.

My entire career track is predicated on recent laws, most notably the Educating All Students Act passed under the Obama Administration, which mandated more funding for ELL education, No Child Left Behind, which mandates high standards and high stakes testing at all stages of students learning, and New York State law part 154, which, in mandating the hours students must receive ENL services, has pushed ENL education in New York away from stand-alone classes and towards co-teaching, with its simultaneous challenges and benefits. All of these changes have required me to learn specific methodologies and practices in order to provide the support my students need to succeed and all of them are rooted in political decisions and progressive changes through history.

The impact of this knowledge on my students is harder to place. I cannot change laws or change history. However, being aware of the changes and how we exist in flux makes me more likely as a teacher to be an advocate for my students and place their success, which is more important, in equal or greater place than following mandated and often hard to follow laws such as part 154 in New York or the standardized testing which can have a demoralizing effect on ELLs who don’t progress rapidly.