Immigrant Children Selma Berrol Summary

The United States is often referred to as a “melting pot,” where different types of people blend together as one, which can especially be seen in our educational system. In “Immigrant Children” by Selma Berrol, the author argues the many challenges immigrant children faced as the United States tried to Americanize them through schooling. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, this blend of people faced more challenges than acceptance, particularly immigrant students. Immigrant children faced many dreadful experiences that no child should ever encounter in a learning environment. Many children were made fun of because of their foreign names, lunches, and traditions. Having their whole world changed was hard enough for these immigrant …show more content…
Unfortunately, for immigrant children, they saw their name as a burden and barrier to the American society. For example, “a student of Slovenian background… [recalled] that his teacher, despite his corrections, continued to mispronounce his unfamiliar surname” (Berrol 113). This would make students very upset, even to the point of dropping out. Immigrant children would be anxious to have their names called on because they knew that it would be mispronounced and that many teachers did not care to correct themselves. For Rosemary P., from Pittsburg, the embarrassment got to the point where she went out and spent “twenty-five cents on a self-improvement pamphlet” (Berrol 113) so she could practice her English. Immigrant children were often given an Americanized name, for convenience, but many of these children felt stripped of their …show more content…
Today, teachers are not allowed to put a hand near a child in a threatening way, but in the nineteenth and twentieth century, this sort of punishment existed. As Felix B. remembers, he “wanted to stay out of school because every time [his] work was wrong, the teacher would hit [him]” (Berrol 114). Many of these children faced a great language barrier, which often lead to misunderstanding and resulted in anger and physical punishment from the teacher. Not only were children intimidated by their teachers, but also by their own classmates. As Edward R. remembers “his teachers used ‘proxy punishment’ and encouraged his fellow students to hit him” (Berrol 114). Some of these students’ recall being hit hard by their classmates, the classmates they desperately would try to make their friends despite the language