In Brumberg’s chapter “Tales Out of School,” he details how young Jewish immigrants learned and were integrated into the American school system. The biggest thing that stuck out to me was the passage about the growing Americanization of the students of these schools, regardless of heritage:
“Bleeding form and content, ritual and subject matter, the schools provided its immigrant students with a new “American” persona. The school clerk often changed the names of recent arrivals. Among these interviewed, we find Moses changed to Morris, and Nachum to Nathan. Last names became altered as well.”
This idea is extremely disconcerting and interesting, especially in terms of the reasons behind it. In the early 20th century, there were a lot of European immigrants coming to America hoping to start a new life, a new beginning. They wanted to take advantage of such a land of opportunity, and therefore came to this country in droves. While they were the perfect workforce to drive the Industrial Revolution, they were still considered second-class citizens, and there was a lot of animosity towards them. The Jews were no different, as there was incredible animosity directed to them from other white Americans. Therefore, when it came time for these immigrants to enroll in the same schools, there was a lot of resistance, and actions were taken to attempt to make the alien more familiar. As a result, we have these attempts to take away the Hebrew names and cultures of these immigrant children going to American schools, and steps to indoctrinate them in an increasingly Christian or Catholic environment to which they are not suited or accustomed.
Schools are ostensibly a very important way for children to learn their place in the social circle and how they behave in their peer groups, which is something that will often carry over into their adult life. (Dewey, 205) School ritual was the means by which to homogenize these Jewish immigrants into the rest of the population. There would be overt Christian procedures and rituals performed in class and during assemblies, such as the reading of the Bible and recitation of the Lord’s Prayer. (Brumberg, 130) Add to that the organization of the school calendar around only secular Christian holidays such as Christmas and Thanksgiving, and you have a school environment that subtly discourages the practice of Judaism.
Because Yiddish was not allowed to be spoken in these schools, it was all but impossible to express or practice their own individualism, marginalizing and sequestering them into a hive mind, trying to eliminate any sense of “the other” that might frighten or worry the American children so much. At the same time, it can be argued that the families of these Jewish children knew what they were getting into when they came to America – in a way, they were leaving behind their own cultures and homelands in order to start anew. Therefore, there is a part of these Jewish children that does not mind the conformity, as that sort of identity was what some of their parents were attempting to escape in the first place.
However, was this really what they had in mind? When they moved here, immigrants most likely wanted to find better opportunities for work and living, but America was also known as a land of religious freedom and expression. They should not have had to give up their own ancestry and sense of individuality through their religion in order to conform to the Christian “ideal” set forth by the education system.
Often, they were chastised and left out, especially as their lower-class mannerisms clashed with the politeness set forth by the upper-middle class American teachers and fellow students. They had to learn “the ways of America” the hard way, and subsequently displacing the very ideas and concepts that they were familiar with as Jews. (Brumberg, 133) Certainly, they still have better opportunities than African-Americans did for education, as even abolitionists and prominent figures in the community, including Booker T. Washington, believe that they needed industrial education more than anything. (123) This is likely what the Jewish and other European immigrants had in mind when they moved to the New World – they wanted their children to learn trades and get opportunities, and not necessarily be schooled in literature and other scholarly pursuits. Therefore, not only were American schools more discriminatory than they thought, they were less useful from an industrial standpoint.
There was a great deal of concession taking place on the part of the Jewish children and students, and this led to a gradual shift in values and considerations from the normal Jewish culture to that of Americans. Role models were provided from America to replace the old ones they had – previous presidents, the Founding Fathers, all of these people were meant to be the immigrant children’s new heroes, despite all of the culturally relevant role models they may have previously picked up. Those characters – Moses, etc. – were meant to show a child what it means to be Jewish, but Benjamin Franklin and George Washington taught these children how to be American. Often, these ideas would clash, due to the higher or more stringent standards for decency in dress and behavior than they were accustomed to.
Language was one of the biggest indicators in a change in ideology, as previously mentioned. Due to the language barrier, parent involvement in school was also limited, as the lack of Yiddish speakers in the faculty made conferencing difficult and strenuous. Since the parents had less of a say in how their children were educated, it was largely left to the schools to reshape their thinking away from their traditional heritages and more of a modern American sensibility. This led to a greater language barrier between the parents who immigrated to America and their children, who would be taught English.
At the same time, it seems as though even this marginalization directed towards Europeans was generous compared to the trials that Mexican children went through as they immigrated into America and attempted to be educated. This was due to the fact that, while European immigrants were still thought to have value (albeit as labor in the twentieth century during the Industrial Revolution), Mexican immigrants were simply not wanted or desired. Therefore, there seems to be less of an emphasis on education for their sake. (Donato, 33)
Mexican immigrants, unlike Jewish immigrants, had the advantage of having common ground on a religious footing, especially in regards to Christian or Catholic practices in schools at the time. Their own sense of punishment and discrimination came from the students and faculty themselves, as opposed to through the religious practices of the school. All the same, they would often have a very hard time contending with the incredible teasing and discrimination set upon them by the students and the institution itself.
This all seems indicative of a grossly negative portrayal and idea of immigrants in the United States in the early 20th century. They were still considered to be second-class citizens, and therefore did not need to be given due deference in regards to their individual culture, customs and religion. White, Protestant Americans distrusted (and still do) the intentions of foreigners immigrating to this country, fearing the jobs that would be taken by their cheaper workforce and higher work drive. As a result, while they were here, they would participate in the customs and school rituals that they entered into or just leave – absolutely no effort was made to accommodate them. This forced them to adapt quickly or completely burn out, and when they adapted too quickly, they likely had to become “too American” for their traditionalist parents.
Their treatment in the education system is no exception – all the teachers and faculty desired to do was impose quintessential American values and customs into their pattern of activity. This has the effect of subtly changing the attitudes and opinions of these immigrant children, thereby creating a rift between them and their more traditionalist parents, most of whom do not speak very good English. The generation gap then becomes a cultural one as well, further dividing parent and child, as parent wants the child to maintain their home culture, while the children wish to disassociate themselves with the culture that is thought to not belong.
These policies would even change their religion as well. Schools that practiced during that time would emphasize the Bible and Christian-based theology in their curriculum, leaving out those students who practiced Judaism. On top of that, their holidays and overall customs were not allowed to be practiced, contributing to an overall sense of inadequacy, which was purposeful.
The relative economic poverty of these immigrants played a part in their discrimination as well. On top of the normal racial and ethnic teasing, these children would also be forced to work through the stigma of being poor. Often, all of the teasing and rebuking would lead to them becoming delinquents themselves and perpetuate the cycle of violence. Whether or not they did become violent, they still felt the pressure of assimilation into American culture, which they often did merely to avoid further teasing. Sometimes these immigrant children would be able to find communities together, especially if groups of the same ethnicity or religion (Jewish, Mexican) went to the same school, so that can provide a measure of solace and solidarity when it comes to their plight. However, the white, Christian majority of students they would find at these schools would, in and of itself, intimidate and marginalize minority and immigrant students.
All of these factors led to a very hard time for the children of immigrants to participate in the school system. From institutionalized discrimination based on religion, to the more subtle digs at ethnicity and fewer scholastic opportunities afforded to Jewish and Mexican immigrants, among others, these children would seek to change their own identity in order to belong. What’s more, the American school system virtually gave them no other choice. Moving to America proved to be a much more difficult proposition for the children of these immigrants; once they were entered into the schools, their parents could not fathom the sort of marginalization they would experience once they got there.
Brunberg, Stephan. (1986) Going to America, Going to School: The jewish immigrant public school encounter in Turn-of-the-century New York City. Praeger Special Studies.
Dewey, John and Evelyn. (1924) Schools of to-morrow. New York: E.P Dutton & Company.
Donato, Ruben. (1997) The other struggle for equal schools: Mexican Americans during the
Civil Rights Era. State University of New York Press.
Washington, Booker T. (1899) “The future of the American Negro.” Slavery, reconstruction, and
the schools of the South, 1820-1903.