By the year 2050, the present percentage of Latinos in the U.S. population will almost triple; the Asian population will more than triple; African Americans will increase about 3 percent; the non-Hispanic white population will drop from 76 percent to 53 percent.The ESL language-minority student population in Illinois will experience a projected 91 percent growth in the greater Chicago area and 141 percent growth outside that area (U.S. Census Bureau).
This is some of the information I give to my classes, composed of prospective and veteran teachers, as we explore the concept of multicultural education. My premise is that, as teachers, we are experiencing these demographics—and we need to learn to appreciate and attend to new voices, new languages, and diverse educational needs among our students. We must go beyond the lip service we often give to multicultural education. Educating multiculturally is more of an approach than a recipe for dealing with diverse students; it requires an individualized, lifelong process of learning, discovering, accepting, and trying—a little like developing gourmet cuisine versus ordering fast food.
We need to read multicultural children's literature, invite diverse parents to our classrooms, and reflect on differences and embrace them, not lament them. One way to gather information is to observe our children's families and communities. We can learn much through such ethnographic observations of people living in various cultural groups (Husserl 1970). Dutch researcher and philosopher Max Van Manen emphasizes: "It is a crucial feature of teaching that the educator understands a child's learning and development in the context of the larger biography of the child" (1991, p. 53).
Children in the Neighborhood
In a study I conducted in Chicago, I set out to become better acquainted with the culture of Mexican-American families of my preschool students. I wondered what these parents desired for their children, what they did to prepare them for their first school experience, and what kinds of toys and books they encouraged. I wanted to know why so many Latino preschoolers lacked what teachers call "readiness skills"—despite my previous observations that these parents were totally attentive and devoted to their children.
Readiness skills, for the purpose of my inquiry, included a familiarity with basic concepts of color, shape, size, and numbers; the ability to attend to oral directions, storytelling, or oral reading for a short period of time; and the ability to express oneself verbally to communicate basic needs, ideas, and emotions appropriate for a preschool age. Prospects for the Latino pre-schoolers I studied saddened me. Latino students are reported to fall twice as far below grade level as their non-Latino peers. They suffer the highest dropout rate in the United States. In Chicago, the Latino dropout rate has been reported as high as 70 percent (Perez-Miller 1991).
I set about visiting preschool classrooms, homes, library story times, playgrounds, and neighborhood businesses in the community called Pilsen, which has the highest percentage of Latino people in Chicago. In Pilsen, sights, sounds, and aromas strongly attest to the Mexican-American presence in the community. Tortilla factories send wafts of freshly baked specialties throughout the neighborhood amidst the beat of salsa music pouring out of small record shops. Mothers carrying their babies in handmade shawls and blankets, grandmothers crocheting as they sit outside on kitchen chairs, handpainted murals exploding with color on the sides of old brick buildings—all are common sights in Pilsen. Children are everywhere—hanging on to their mothers or fathers' hands, sitting on their grandmothers' laps, being attended to by aunts, cousins, waitresses, and friendly passersby.
As I pursued my study, I was particularly interested in a 4-year-old girl, Maribel Chavez, who was not flourishing in preschool. I arranged for an interview, and my visit to Maribel's home was illuminating.
Maribel at Home
Senora Chavez's oldest son, Fernando, who is 18, peeked through the curtain on the front door window before politely welcoming me into his home. From the outside, I could see a small Christmas tree in the picture window of the one-family, red brick house.
When I walked into the house, Andy, the 7-year-old son, was seated on the floor about two feet from a color television set. The home was spotless and in perfect order. The first floor consisted of a living room, a large kitchen, two bedrooms (for the older boys), and a bathroom. It amazed me that a house with four children could look so clean and organized.
My impression was that this was not a show put on for a visitor. Senora Chavez had just returned from work 10 minutes before I arrived. Her four children, ranging in age from 4 to 18 years, arrived home before her—yet not even a jacket or book was visible or out of place. Mrs. Chavez turned off the TV and sent her three boys to the basement while we talked.
The basement was completely finished as one large bedroom for herself, her husband, and the two youngest children. She explained that Andy still cries at night (and I noticed that 4-year-old Maribel still sleeps in a crib) and that she didn't want to make separate bedrooms. "They're still very little," she said.
Mrs. Chavez works in a restaurant in downtown Chicago; her husband is a construction worker. They live quite comfortably compared to the humbler homes I have visited in their neighborhood.
I introduced myself and gave Mrs. Chavez my usual reassurances of anonymity. Maribel was a small-built 4-year-old. She cuddled into her mother's lap while we talked and remained there without a word until I left. I asked Mrs. Chavez what she looked for in a preschool program for her children, what she hoped they would learn. She answered without hesitation, "My first concern was that it be a full-day program because I work all day and so does my husband." With less certainty, she added, "And, well, I wanted to teach them something useful, you know, better than just being with a baby-sitter."
"Do you read to your children?" I asked. I saw no books, magazines, or newspapers in the house.
"Yes," she answered. "They send me books from school to read—sometimes in English, sometimes Spanish." Mrs. Chavez was bilingual, but as soon as she knew I spoke Spanish she was visibly relieved. "I'm so glad you speak Spanish. My English is not so good," she said.
“What kind of toys do you buy for Maribel?" I continued.
"Dolls, all dolls," she told me, and Maribel grinned. "She's crazy about Barbies. That's all she asks me to buy."
"How do you feel about their school?" I asked. "Are you happy with the program?"
Mrs. Chavez said that she was very happy with the school. She said that they called her a lot to bring or do things. "I just love it when they ask me to do something. Then I know they are paying attention to my children." Mrs. Chavez mentioned no further goals concerning her children's education. Like the other moms I spoke to, she seemed trusting of the educators in her children's school.
After further discussion, Mrs. Chavez told me that I was always welcome in her home. "What a shame you can't stay and eat," she said. I felt that what was a threatening situation for a woman whose children do not do well in school (her sons attended a special reading tutorial), turned out to be a positive experience for Senora Chavez.
I wanted her to realize that she was doing me a favor, that she had valuable information that would help me, and that I thought she was a good mother. I remembered what another Latino parent had said about how important it was to old-fashioned Mexican-American moms that little ones "don't touch." As I was leaving, Maribel stood gazing at their Christmas tree but never laid a finger on it. I told Mrs. Chavez how lovely the tree looked and that I noticed how careful Maribel was with it. Mrs. Chavez beamed and hugged her daughter. "She is always good like that," she laughed.
During this whole time, her sons watched TV in the basement bedroom. Mrs. Chavez puts few restrictions on types of shows watched or time spent watching TV. She is on her feet all day, working in a restaurant. Then she rushes home by train to cook dinner.
It must take a lot of time to keep a house as clean and organized as hers is, and this clearly is her priority. If the school asked her to do something or sent home a book, she took care of it; but I did not get the sense that she initiated contact. As Mrs. Chavez talked of her desire to keep her two younger children near her, I found it easy to forget that they are 4 and 7. They are very small for their ages, and Maribel constantly clings to her as Mrs. Chavez runs her fingers through the child's silky black hair. "I waited so long for a girl," she said.
Home/School Expectations
So in school, Maribel's English-speaking teacher struggles to get her to speak more, to be more independent, and to participate in class. At home, Maribel still sleeps in a crib in her parents' room—her mother's youngest child who plays exclusively with dolls and hears no English.
The Latino parenting that I observed in this home and others had a nurturing style. Children were not expected to be independent. The parent's role was clearly emerging as one of caretaker, provider, protector. Preparing children to express themselves verbally, develop fine motor skills, listen and attend to storybooks, partake in structured play activities, amplify vocabulary, or recognize colors was simply not considered a parental responsibility.
In fact, in most interviews I have conducted in this community, the parents expressed a definite hesitancy and uneasiness with schooling. Their early memories of school in Mexico were not positive. They worried that their children would "tire of school" because their experiences with it revolved around rote memorization with few stimulating materials. They wanted their older children to do homework, but did not usually structure a time or space in which to do it.
My research surprised me. I had expected to find that parents had prepared their children with some readiness skills that teachers had overlooked. Instead, I had discovered an important social and emotional support system separate from school goals or objectives. For most Latino children, entrance into the school world brings a more abrupt and total change than it does for other kids. Not only are there new surroundings and expectations, but many preschool activities are unfamiliar. Even typical classroom toys, often emphasizing fine motor development, frequently are not in their background of experiences. Most of their schoolwork is accompanied by a language they do not hear in their homes, and they are taught by teachers who know little about their culture.
In a similar study of an adolescent Mexican-American student (Carger 1996), I experienced another revelation about the strengths possessed by a Mexican-American family.
Alejandro's “Open Wound”
Alejandro Juarez was a student who had tremendous difficulty with literacy. I had met him when he was a 4th grader and returned to conduct a study about his 8th grade experience. His difficulties had mounted over the intervening years despite remedial efforts. Yet in elementary school, he doggedly hung on to his educational program, albeit by a thread, even in the face of embarrassment and punishments for poor-quality schoolwork in a traditional school system.
From Alejandro's mother, Alma, I learned the importance of listening to family stories as she narrated her own struggle to enter the United States to make a better life for herself and her children. She and her husband had made many terrifying trips, in all sorts of transports, to cross the U.S.-Mexican border, which Anzaldua calls "una herida abierta (an open wound), where the Third World grates against the first and bleeds" (1987, p. 3). They made their way through polluted river water, pushing through gaps in fences that sent electrical shocks through their bodies. They paid exorbitant fares to coyotes, or smugglers.
Their determination to provide for their family gave me great insights into Alejandro's resilience and persistence in the face of failure at school. I reflected in Of Borders and Dreams that "perhaps his parents have taught him a lesson far greater than the textual literacy which they cannot provide. Maybe he has learned from them that if you're strong enough to dive into that river enough times, sooner or later you might just beat the current and succeed in la lucha (the struggle)" (Carger 1996, p. 21).
Alejandro persisted in grammar school despite dyslexia; he resisted the gangs that surrounded him; and he remained faithful to his family. As my study drew to an end, high school presented further dangers and temptations that proved insurmountable to him. But his mother never lost hope that he would make something of himself and contribute to the family, even though she feared for his life and eventually had to acknowledge that he would drop out of school. Alma held tenaciously to her maternal goal that her son be bien educado.
“Bien Educado”
From my studies of Maribel and Alejandro's families, I learned much more than I expected. What I saw in these Latino families was a comprehensive, inclusive conception of educating children. Latino parents use the term bien educado. Translated literally, it means "well educated"; but in Spanish, it connotes a wider sense of being well-bred, mannerly, clean, respectful, responsible, loved, and loving. Children are an integral, celebrated part of family and neighborhood. They are expected to obediently fulfill the teacher's directives and to respectfully, lovingly fulfill family responsibilities. Rarely did the families refer to specific career or long-range educational plans, but they always hoped that their children would be bien educado.
Van Manen (1990) speaks of the necessity of connecting research to the everyday world of the children we seek to educate. Out of my research, I began to see connections that could benefit both teachers and parents. First, it appeared to me that Latino children have often been planted in fertile ground for a cooperative style of learning. They emerge from a culture that has blanketed them with supportive care and that does not emphasize competition and independence. A familiarity with Latino child-rearing practices may positively increase a teacher's understanding of how her students' family expectations and learning styles might blend with educational efforts in the classroom.
Second, I believe that parental involvement in preschool may increase Latino parents' confidence in actively participating in their children's school experiences. This is not meant to emphasize the "deficits" of such families and dwell on weaknesses, but rather to realize differences and help develop areas that will make school success more attainable. Van Manen (1990) laments the loss of "common sense, the sense we have in common, the basic assumptions and values . . . the inexhaustible layers of meaning of everyday living with children in cultures where family traditions have been lost" (p. 142). Here lies a strength still apparent in many Latino families I met: The "layering" from one generation's child-rearing practices merges with the next generation, so that families retain values even in the midst of great cultural adjustments.
I would like to see schools encourage parental involvement that realizes and celebrates the nurturance of the extended Latino family while helping the parents to explore new educational and academic ground. Latino parents can thus integrate new worlds into their child-rearing practices and incorporate new ideas about education into their family networks, which are already strong in integrative and collaborative skills. A goal of bien educado has much merit, and I believe it can cross into the academic world as teachers and parents move closer to one another's experiences and expectations.
From Negatives to Positives
For children like Maribel and Alejandro who are from Latino families, many teachers have had negative perceptions of what was (or wasn't) happening in their homes. Teachers have often assumed that these children's parents are not interested in school. But my studies have given me images of caring parents whose styles differed from the mainstream conception, yet were equally valid. My observations gave me a grasp on the concept of bien educado.
Integral to gaining understanding from close observations is the activity of writing about them. I would like to encourage teachers to write portraits of their students—and to write responsively and reflectively. We must share this writing—whether at a school level, the district level, or through professional publications. Teachers—and students—need to read immigrant stories, particularly those describing educational experiences. For example, read Sandra Cisneros's (1989) childhood vignettes and glimpses of classroom life, Carmen Tafolla's (1983) poetry on classroom memories, and Luis Rodriguez's (1993) recounting of misplaced Latino students in special education classrooms and the eventual drift toward gangs. Such works can provide powerful links between the life worlds and school worlds of diverse students.
In the case of young Maribel, the classroom teacher learned to gradually introduce new kinds of toys to her and to lend such toys, along with books, for home use. The teacher also learned not to view Senora Chavez's rare communication with school in a negative light but to realize that Maribel's mother would warmly welcome school initiatives.
In Alejandro's case, some of his teachers and tutors (including myself) learned a great deal about acknowledging diverse parents' strengths even when they are outside the academic realm. Alejandro's parents were eager to share their stories and their strengths. Sadly, Alejandro's schools did not pursue this information. For Alejandro, the huge urban public high school he attended the year after my study proved to be overwhelmed with issues of security from gang violence and operated on a deficit view of minority students. Unfortunately, it seemed too late to undo the years of misconceptions about urban students and families like Alejandro's.
My goal is to help teachers avoid losing more Maribels and Alejandros to the dropout rate and to encourage appreciation and integration of their families in educational settings. Through listening, observing, and reflecting, I believe we can cross borders and attend to the new voices of our diverse students and their parents.
