Book Review: Saint Rafael Arnaiz. The Collected Works

Abstract

In True American: Language, Identity, and the Education of Immigrant Children, Rosemary C. Salomone constructs a cohesive argument in support of bilingual education in American schools. She does so by drawing on research results, anecdotes, historical analysis, international comparisons, and personal experience as the Kenneth Wang Professor of Law at St. John’s University as well as a former Associate Professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Her book is consistent with a current trend of excellent empirical research dealing with immigration, diversity, and education. Scholarship on adolescence increasingly reveals the key factors that influence the educational achievement of minority and immigrant youth. Parental involvement, culturally responsive teaching, sense of belonging, and academic self-efficacy have been shown to be strong predictors of academic success in Hispanic adolescents (Chun and Dickson 2011). On the other hand, and as expected, loneliness that may emerge from being part of a minority group has a pernicious impact on academic progress (Benner 2011). Further, research with Hispanic college students demonstrates that academic and psychological adjustments are influenced by ethnic centrality, public regard, and perceived barriers to opportunity (Rivas-Drake 2011). Few doubt that such findings should be considered in educational policy decisions, but whether they actually can be considered, and be considered effectively, remains to be determined. True American: Language, Identity, and the Education of Immigrant Children begins the conversation. This excellent book was written with the hope of initiating widespread social change in the perception of immigrant children and bilingual education, and of showing how the legal system could benefit from our basic understanding of the pressures and realities facing youth from immigrant families. Chapter 1, titled ‘‘The Symbolic and the Salient,’’ introduces readers to the contentious nature of immigration issues in the United States. Notably, Salomone points to reactions to the 2006 release of ‘‘Nuestro Himno’’ (‘‘Our Anthem’’), a Spanish pop version of the ‘‘The Star Spangled Banner.’’ While some Americans praised the song as enabling Spanish speakers to better appreciate the anthem, others viewed it as a threat, representing a frightening turn toward cultural divisiveness and American disunity. Similarly, anger erupted in 2007 when New York City planned to open an Arabic public school, the Khalil Gibran International Academy. The school would teach the Arabic language in addition to the standard curriculum. Critics charged that the school would be a breeding ground for radical Islamists. These two situations serve as exemplars of challenges to our sense of American identity. Immigrants, and the foreign languages they speak, make us question who we are as a people. Salomone’s aim in True American: Language, Identity, and the Education of Immigrant Children is to calm such fear by establishing that immigrants and their languages and their cultures add, rather than subtract, to American culture. In Chapter 2, ‘‘Americanization Past,’’ Salomone presents a national history of immigrant education as a necessary prelude to further policy discussion. The traditional view of bilingual education opponents is that early European immigrants succeeded by assimilating into American culture, and therefore so should new immigrants. Salomone challenges this notion as a myth. Americanization efforts have historically isolated immigrants into ethnic enclaves M. Lapin (&) Indiana University Maurer School of Law, Bloomington, IN, USA e-mail: melapin@umail.iu.edu