—Euripides, 431 B.C.

Immigration to the United States has different meanings to different immigrants. It can mean increased economic opportunity, a chance to reunite with family members, or freedom from political or religious persecution. It sometimes means dealing with ethnic, racial, or language biases still operating in the United States. For many immigrant families there are many new norms and social rules to learn. Others will find their most basic beliefs and values challenged. Behaviors that served well in a home culture may not be easily accepted or function well in the new country. All immigrant families must confront, some to a greater extent than others, the following major issues: (1) learning about a new culture; (2) handling conflicts between home cultural ways and new cultural ways; and (3) functioning effectively in a new environment.

Some factors affecting the experience of immigrants as they arrive and adjust to life in the United States include:
Background and reasons for emigrating
Immigrant or refugee status
Adjustment issues
Family and cultural supports
Cultural differences
Language issues
Economic status
Marketability of skills in U.S. economy
Acceptance by U.S. mainstream society
Generational issues

Each of these factors may affect the schooling experience of immigrant students.

A variety of conditions compel emigration from a homeland to a new country. Some are pulled to the United States by the hope of a higher standard of living. Often, immigrants are highly trained professionals, young ambitious business managers, and white-collar college-educated people who enjoyed high social and family status in their home cultures. They seek a better life, citing rigid societies, overcrowding, or lack of business or educational opportunities as reasons for emigrating.

Some people are driven from home cultures due to political, social, or economic conditions and seek refuge in a new country. They are fleeing threatening conditions such as warfare, persecution, or poverty. Dangerous and intolerable situations jeopardizing health and survival may prompt emigration from one’s home country. Refugees who apply for asylum are seeking to escape persecution because of their race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.

The varied political, economic, and social conditions prompting immigration mean that immigrants arrive with different expectations about how long they will stay, different feelings about their countries of origin, and different attitudes toward their new home. These differences in attitudes and expectations affect adjustment in the new country. Some immigrants arrive with the intention of becoming citizens of the United States, while others plan only temporary stays.

In some cases, recent immigrants to the Northwest and Alaska have been preceded by others of their own nationality who immigrated during an earlier time and perhaps for different reasons. These recent immigrants may join established ethnic communities, such as long-standing Chinese, Russian, and Mexican communities. Other newcomers are from regions where few have preceded them, such as Central America. The brief summaries that follow seek to provide some basic information about why the most numerous immigrant populations now residing in the Northwest and Alaska emigrated from their homelands to the United States, under what conditions they made their journey, and what awaited them. Following these descriptions is a brief examination of refugee groups in the area.

When speaking of White, English-speaking Canadians emigrating to the Northwest and Alaska, the term "invisible immigrant" seems appropriate. It is difficult to obtain written information on this group. Their Western-European background and small numbers may be a partial explanation. Canada’s indigenous peoples, who have a certificate of Indian status, enjoy the rights of a U.S. legal resident and are free to cross the U.S.-Canada border without restriction.

This lack of information illustrates an underlying bias of White U.S. society toward White, English-speaking immigrants. Although their numbers are not large, Canadians represent the fourth largest group of legal immigrants in Alaska and the second largest group in Idaho.

A number of Canadians may reside illegally in the United States, many employed in occupations where they may be paid "under the table." They can live here with relatively little fear of the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) or media targeting.

Canadians also attend U.S. universities and, like others, may overstay their visas. College graduates are often recruited into business and professional occupations. Medical professionals may immigrate to the United States in part because of the national health-care program in Canada, which limits their earnings in comparison to their U.S. counterparts.

In the late 1990s, control at the U.S.-Canada border was tightened in an effort to stem the illegal drug trade and illegal immigration to the United States through Canada.

Early Chinese immigrants, single men working as contract laborers, provided the bulk of labor during the 19th century throughout the western United States. Though their labor was needed, these early immigrants met with hostility from the native-born population. One result of this hostility from European Americans was the growth of large Chinatowns in major U.S. cities, as Chinese sought to protect themselves as well as retain their cultural identity. Discriminatory U.S. immigration laws in 1917 and 1924, which kept out additional immigrants and prohibited Chinese men from bringing families to join them in the United States, brought a halt to immigration from China between the world wars.

Changes in U.S. immigration policy in the 1950s and 1960s that favored unification of families and the granting of refugee status to citizens of countries hostile to the United States allowed for the first substantial Chinese immigration in nearly a century. Subsequent immigrants have come from a wide variety of circumstances. Chinese from Taiwan and Hong Kong, including many who had fled the communist victory in the 1949 Chinese civil war, were able to emigrate to the United States under family reunification provisions. Others, as refugees from a country hostile to the United States, were granted asylum as refugees. These have included a mixture of dissidents from communist China, including pro-democracy activists, opponents to China’s strict family-planning laws, and those persecuted on religious grounds. Ethnic Chinese living in Vietnam comprised a substantial portion of the people who fled from Southeast Asia in the late 1970s.

Following the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam and Cambodia, the communist Vietnamese government began persecuting ethnic Chinese, a substantial minority group within that country. Many fled to China, even though they had lived in Vietnam for generations; others fled by boat for asylum in whatever country would grant them refugee status. Many ethnic Chinese refugees who had adopted Vietnamese names and culture reverted to their Chinese identity when they immigrated to the United States and other countries.

Many Chinese immigrants coming to the United States during the 1990s lived in Hong Kong for many years after fleeing the communist victory in 1949 or had left China more recently. With the reunification of Hong Kong with the People’s Republic of China in July 1997, many Hong Kong Chinese emigrated to other countries.

Filipinos are the only immigrant group from Asia whose relationship with the United States is based on colonialism. The Philippine Islands were a Spanish colony from the 1500s until 1898. Although a newly formed Philippine nation had proclaimed a declaration of independence, the United States seized the colony. The islands continued as an American colony until 1946. After Philippine independence, the United States maintained a heavy military presence at Clark Air Base and Subic Bay Naval Base until the end of the Cold War in the mid-1990s.

Filipinos first came to the West Coast as early as 1565 as sailors on Spanish galleons. A few Filipinos settled along the Louisiana bayous around 1763, although they did not come in significant numbers until the early 20th century, when Filipino farm hands were in high demand on Hawaiian sugar and pineapple plantations and California farms. They helped build the railroads and became involved in the fishing industry. The Philippine and U.S. governments sponsored students on educational scholarships to the United States as well. The agreement was that they would then return home after receiving their education, so the typical Filipino immigrant remained a young male farm laborer.

After the Immigration Act of 1965 removed restrictive quotas on immigration from Asia, the U.S. immigration preference for professional and skilled workers brought a dramatic shift in the profile of Filipino immigrants. These Filipinos came for economic opportunity, as well as to escape economic and political pressures in the Philippines. In the late 1970s, excepting Mexicans and Southeast Asians, Filipinos were the largest immigrant group to the United States. In 1972, Ferdinand Marcos, elected President of the Republic of the Philippines in 1965, declared martial law. Under the repressive Marcos regime, many Filipinos emigrated from the Philippines seeking political asylum. Today, the United States is only one destination of choice, as hundreds of thousands of Filipinos seek work throughout the world, particularly in Asia and the Middle East, to help support families back home.

James Banks contends in Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies (third edition) that Filipinos, as part of the later arrivals of Asian immigrants, were often met with unexpected prejudice and discrimination. Many Filipinos had been raised in an American colony where schools perpetuated the concept that "all men are created equal." They came to the United States expecting equal treatment and were disillusioned with their negative reception.

Filipinos are a Eurasian mixture of races, with Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, mixed European, and native Filipino ancestry. They represent the largest immigrant group in Alaska and maintain a strong presence in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Russians have had a long history in Alaska and the Northwest. In the early 1700s, they were the first Europeans to visit Alaska. Although Alaska had a substantial population of Russian nationals by the mid-1800s, the vast majority either returned to Russia or moved south to Vancouver in British Columbia, Seattle, Portland, or San Francisco when the United States bought Alaska in 1867. Russian culture and the Orthodox religion remain strong in Alaska at the end of the 20th century.

After the sale of Alaska to the United States, Russian immigrants have come in four distinct arrivals:
1880–1917. Nearly 50,000 Russians had settled in British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California by the time of the Russian revolution in 1917. They came for religious, political, and socioeconomic reasons, some fleeing turbulent social conditions at home, others seeking economic opportunity provided by expanding mills and factories on the West Coast and plantations in Hawaii. Russian Jewish settlement was largely concentrated on the East Coast.
1917–1945. At the end of the Russian civil war in 1922, large numbers of refugees fled the Soviet regime. These immigrants joined the older Russian settlements and communities of the West Coast. Russian immigration was reduced drastically from the late 1920s until after World War II because of U.S. immigration quotas and a Stalinist-era halt to emigration.
1945–1987. Russian Orthodox, Old Believer, Baptist, and Pentecostal immigrants who had fled Russia after the civil war for Harbin, Manchuria, and Sinkiang Province, China, were forced to move again when the communists gained control in 1949 at the end of the Chinese civil war. Some Old Believers emigrated to Brazil and Argentina before settling in the United States. The Old Believers in particular—with their traditional dress and lifestyle— have been the least integrated of all Russian immigrant groups in the United States.
1987–present. Pentecostals, Baptists, and Jews emigrated by the hundreds of thousands after Mikail Gorbachev lifted the Soviet ban on emigration in 1987. These immigrants have been attracted to areas settled by earlier Russian emigrants, joining communities that had largely become acculturated. In the West, Russian Jews tended to settle in Los Angeles and Southern California, while Protestants have had a heavier impact in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho. With the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1994, immigration has grown considerably. Immigrants from the former Soviet Union comprise one of the top five groups of immigrants in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

Religious belief is the main distinguishing characteristic of various Russian communities in the Northwest today. Recognizing these differences can help educators and others in the larger community understand individual Russian immigrants and how they are similar or different from others sharing the same homeland.
Old Believers. The Old Believer sect (also referred to as Old Ritualists) held to the traditional Russian Orthodox ritual and belief system, along with pre-17th century dress and culture. They settled in the Salem-Woodburn area of Oregon in three groupings related to cultural variations and have tried to preserve their traditional religious beliefs, culture, and agricultural lifestyle. One group resettled in the early 1970s on the Kenai Peninsula near Anchor Point, Alaska, seeking an area even more removed from outside influences.
Baptists. The Baptists were the first evangelical Christian group to organize in Russia and today constitute the largest number of Baptists outside of the United States. Like other anti-Orthodox groups before them, the Russian Baptists were persecuted. North American evangelical Christians supported their emigration to the United States and other countries. Baptists have been a significant segment of each period of Russian immigration. During the third period, they joined earlier Baptist Russian communities in Seattle and other West Coast cities, and organized new Baptist churches in Hubbard and Portland, Oregon, and in Bellevue, Washington. These communities served as a magnet to Baptists and Pentecostals during the fourth period of immigration.
Pentecostals. Pentecostalism was a 20th-century movement in Russia and the former Soviet Union. Support from believers in the United States helped spur its rapid spread. Like anti-Orthodox sects before the revolution, and all religious groups after, the Pentecostals were persecuted, fled to the fringes of the Russian and Soviet empires, and emigrated in large numbers to the West when given the opportunity.

Korean immigration from 1905 to 1930 was in response to the Japanese occupation of Korea. Unlike other Asian groups, however, an agreement between the United States and Japan allowed Korean wives and potential brides to immigrate from 1910 to 1924. Koreans living in the United States at this time had the opportunity to establish and maintain family ties, a right denied to earlier Chinese and Japanese immigrants.

As with other Asian groups, Korean immigration to the United States nearly halted during the years of national quotas and resumed after 1965 when U.S. immigration policies favored professionals and people who possessed skills or trades in short supply in the United States. In the aftermath of the Korean War, spouses of U.S. soldiers, children orphaned by the war, and students seeking education and economic opportunity constituted Korean immigration during the 1950s and 1960s.

The majority of Korean immigrants arrived in the 1970s, admitted under U.S. immigration preferences and by a South Korean law (1961) that encouraged emigration from Korea as a way to lessen unemployment, balance foreign exchange with money sent home by emigrants, and bring technological skills back home. Korean emigration began slowly after 1965, but rose in the 1970s. Japan and the United States have been the preferred destinations for these voluntary economic emigrants. Koreans in the United States increased five-fold between 1970 and 1980, when they constituted the fourth largest Asian population in the United States. Immigration from Korea has slowed in the 1990s.

As with most voluntary Asian immigrants, many Koreans have chosen to live in the major Pacific Rim cities, with substantial populations in Seattle and Portland.

Hispanic is a term commonly found in census and other government documents. Most people, however, who share Spanish as one of their languages prefer to be called Latino. While most Latinos have a common language and religion and share a similar culture, they are a complex and diverse group. They come from different countries with different histories and varying ethnicities that include:
Descendants of Spanish-speaking Europeans and indigenous people who became the dominant populations of Mexico, Central America, and South America
Descendants of the Maya, Aztec, and other indigenous people of Central America who may combine the Catholic faith with the beliefs of their ancestors and who are likely to speak a native tongue as their first language and may or may not speak Spanish
Descendants of Africans who intermarried with European and indigenous peoples to develop a diverse Caribbean culture

Latino immigrant children in the classrooms of the Northwest and Alaska are likely to be of Mexican background. They join Mexican Americans whose families have lived for generations in what is now the United States.

Mexican American families had lived for centuries in the Southwest, including the states of Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and parts of Wyoming before they became part of the United States. The United States acquired these lands, two-fifths of Mexico’s territory, as a result of the U.S. doctrine of Manifest Destiny, which rationalized the nation’s expansion and annexation of all the land from the Atlantic to the Pacific, regardless of existing claims.

In 1836, Texas became an independent nation, with a population consisting of Texas Mexicans and Anglo-Texans. In 1845, when the U.S. government decided to annex Texas as a state, war with Mexico broke out. In 1848, Mexico signed the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo in which it ceded over half of its national territory to the United States. Mexicans living within the ceded territory could either remain Mexican citizens and have resident alien status, or become U.S. citizens. Although the Treaty assured all Mexicans within the ceded territory rights to their properties, these rights were not respected. The California gold rush, the appearance of railroads, and the introduction of cattle ranching all contributed to Mexicans losing their land.

Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, Mexicans were able to enter the United States unhindered. Many were brought into the country to provide labor for the fields and factories. During the Depression, these Mexican workers, along with others, were blamed for many of the nation’s economic woes. Thousands were deported, many of them U.S. citizens. Labor shortages during World War II prompted the U.S. government to formalize an existing "guest worker" relationship into the Bracero program, which again imported Mexican laborers throughout the United States for farm and factory work. When the war ended, Mexican workers either returned to Mexico or settled in the Southwest. The Bracero program was officially ended in 1965 by an act of Congress.

American agribusiness has continued to require large numbers of seasonal workers. Mexican American immigrants and migrants, as well as other immigrant groups, have been a traditional source of seasonal farm labor. As these individuals become more established and obtain better-paying jobs, a new supply of workers is continually sought. Today, many of the people who continue to immigrate to the United States from Mexico are escaping poverty and searching for a better life. Whether legal or undocumented immigrants, they often begin life here working in low-paying jobs that mainstream U.S. Americans do not want to fill. Some newcomers often hold two jobs, resulting in a middle-class standard of living for them or their children.

Many Mexican Americans have gained economic success despite long-held biased attitudes and discriminatory practices against them. Overall, about 65 percent of Latinos live above the poverty line. In Southern California, 50 percent of the native Latino population, and 33 percent of foreign-born Latinos, are middle class. Latinos are becoming more visible in politics, business, education, the arts, sports, and entertainment.

During the 1980s, Mexico was the country of origin for the largest number of immigrants to the United States. In 1991, Mexican immigrants moved into the Pacific Northwest in large numbers, and they remain one of the most numerous immigrant groups throughout the Northwest and Alaska.

Mexican Americans in the United States are unique in several ways:
Their size enables them to play significant roles in the political climate of their communities. Throughout the Southwest—in parts of California, New Mexico, and Texas—the Mexican American population is increasing and will become the majority after the year 2000.
Living in close proximity to their country of origin enables Mexican Americans to maintain stronger social and economic ties with family members in the country of origin than most other immigrants.

It is projected that by 2005, Latinos will become the largest minority group in the United States, with nearly one of every four U.S. Americans identifying themselves as Latino. Mexican Americans, who vary widely by region, experience, and length of residence, are the largest subgroup, currently constituting 63 percent of the total Latino population.

The Vietnamese, as the primary ally of the United States during the war in Southeast Asia, have represented the largest number of post-war Southeast Asian immigrants. Even in the mid-1990s, 20 years after the end of U.S. military involvement, new Vietnamese immigrants continue to be one of the larger immigrant groups each year in the Northwest.

Vietnamese families evacuated with U.S. forces in 1975 were the most westernized and formally educated of all Vietnamese refugees. Their life as refugees in the United States, however, differed dramatically from the positions they had held in Vietnam. Professional degrees were not transferable, and language differences posed a barrier to employment. They experienced the trauma of a chaotic evacuation from Saigon and the memory of family members left behind to an uncertain future.

Hostility by Americans, disturbed by the U.S. role in Southeast Asia, greeted the 140,000 Vietnamese who were admitted to the United States in 1975. In the economic sphere, the country faced high domestic unemployment (9 percent) and rampant inflation, and many of the jobs available to higher-skilled Vietnamese refugees did not meet their skill levels.

The next group of refugees from Vietnam came during 1978-79 when numerous factors contributed to further deterioration of life in communist-led Vietnam. The worst flooding in decades destroyed millions of acres of crops, coming after years of drought and warfare had devastated food production. The implementation of communist economic policies in 1978 led to the expropriation of thousands of businesses. A new form of currency was issued at the same time, creating financial difficulties for many. Military conscription was reinstated to provide troops for the new regime’s war against Cambodia. The Vietnamese government also confiscated the assets of the ethnic Chinese population and forced them into slave labor camps.

Hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese fled, many by the only means of transportation left—rickety fishing boats. The horrors endured by those fleeing are well-known: they were robbed and raped by pirates, ignored by passing ships, turned away by overwhelmed refugee camps in Malaysia, Thailand, Hong Kong, Indonesia, and Singapore. Finally, in 1981, the United States allowed 160,000 refugees to join the 500,000 that had previously arrived.

In the late 1990s, Vietnam remains the country of origin for one of the major immigrant groups in the Northwest and Alaska. See page 28 for a short description of Vietnamese refugees.

Granting asylum to those fleeing persecution and war began in ancient times and continues in the present as a basic principle of international law, upheld by the United Nations in the "Universal Declaration of Human Rights." Refugees are people who cannot rely on their own governments and state institutions to protect their basic civil rights and physical safety. Sometimes they are escaping abuses perpetrated by the government sworn to protect them. The face of the world’s refugee population changes frequently as nations experience political, military, and social chaos—often predicated on age-old rivalries and ethnic hostilities that force people to flee their native lands.

The United Nations High Commissioner of Refugees (UNHCR) estimates that between 1991 and 1995, for example, over nine million refugees left refugee camps to return to Afghanistan, Cambodia, Iraq, Mozambique, and Myanmar, among other countries. Some refugees may find themselves in danger in their first country of asylum, usually a neighboring country, and need to be resettled permanently in a third country. Countries that experience an exodus of their population because of internal strife may become havens for refugees from other countries when their political and economic conditions stabilize.

The United States is one of many nations that accept asylum seekers. U.S. policy dictates that refugees will not be considered for the U.S. refugee program if they have close family living in another country unless they fail to gain admission to that country. This policy is designed to ensure that all countries involved in refugee resettlement share the responsibility equally.

The United States has given refugee status to a large number of people from Indo-China, the former Soviet Union and Cuba, mostly through in-country processing. This means the refugees were processed in their home countries for arrival in the United States and were expected by U.S. officials. According to the UNHCR, in 1996 nearly 92,000 refugees, Cuban/Haitian entrants (those who arrive to the United States without first being processed in their home country), and Amerasians (someone fathered by a U.S. serviceman in Asia) were resettled in the United States.

Official U.S. policy also attempts to disperse refugee groups around the country. The stated purpose is to minimize any temporary negative effect on local economies and to facilitate a positive reception of refugee groups by local populations. This strategy has rarely succeeded because refugee groups, like immigrant groups, tend to resettle together. Living in close proximity to their national or cultural group helps soften the disruption to their lives and enables refugees to support one another. Freedom of movement is a fundamental right that applies to all U.S. citizens and residents.

In 1996, the number of refugees resettled initially in the Northwest and Alaska totaled 6,410 persons. Of these, 4,327, or 67 percent, resettled in Washington state. In Alaska, refugees came primarily from the former Soviet Union; in Idaho, from the former Yugoslavia; in Oregon, from the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, Cuba, and Somalia; and in Washington, from the former Soviet Union, Vietnam, the former Yugoslavia, and Somalia. The chart on page 27 provides detailed information on Amerasian, entrant, and refugee arrivals to the Northwest and Alaska for the years 1983-1996 and 1996 only.

Northwest schools can expect continued immigration of populations seeking refuge in the United States. A brief description of prevailing conditions in countries where the populations face persecution and war follows. These descriptions are summarized from the Oregon State Refugee Program FFY ’96 Annual Report (April 1998).

Bosnia. Conditions in Bosnia have not improved to the point that would allow the safe return of many refugees. Houses are being destroyed, and many refugees who were living in Western Europe are forced to flee again after they try to return to Bosnia. Children and spouses of mixed marriages are threatened. The country continues to be divided into ethnically exclusive, hostile camps.

Cuba. In 1997, the number of Cubans who can migrate legally between the United States and Cuba was set at 6,000. Cubans who can apply for asylum in the United States include: (1) former political prisoners, (2) members of persecuted religious minorities, (3) human-rights activists, (4) forced labor conscripts from 1965-68, (5) persons deprived of their professional credentials or subjected to other disproportionately harsh treatment resulting from their perceived or actual political or religious beliefs, and (6) others who appear to have a credible claim that they will face persecution as defined by the 1951 U.N. Convention on the Status of Refugees.

Ethiopia/Eritrea. Thousands of Ethiopians have fled the civil war of the past two decades. Some have started returning to their homes. However, existing tensions between Sudan and Ethiopia are slowing the pace of repatriations.

Iran. Since the Islamic revolution in 1979, the Iranian government has dealt harshly with any kind of real or perceived political opposition.

Notes: A refugee’s arrival is planned through the Office of Refugee Resettlement; an entrant is someone who comes on his or her own, often arriving on a raft or boat. Persons from El Salvador, Guatamala, and the Domincan Republic are not included here because they are not part of the U.S. refugee resettlement program. Some, however, may have what is called "temporary protected status." About 80 percent of refugees from the former Yugoslavia are Bosnians. About half of refugees from Laos are Hmong. Mien are also included in this figure.

Targeted groups include monarchists, ethnic minorities such as Kurds and Baluchis, and religious minorities such as the Bahai. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians are in political exile outside Iran, mostly without refugee status.

Iraq. Since the Gulf War in 1991, Iraq has existed under international economic sanctions that have caused economic hardship to the populace. Over a million Kurds sought refuge in Iran and elsewhere after the Kurdish uprising early in 1991. Civil war between the secular regime of Saddam Hussein and the Shi’ite population in southern Iraq persists. The Shi’ites are Muslims of the Shia branch of Islam.

Former Soviet Union. Jews and evangelical Christians face a heightened fear of persecution in an environment of economic instability and an atmosphere of anti-Semitism and ethnic hatred. It appears that the governments are either unwilling or unable to protect these populations. While most refugees make escapes under dangerous and physically-taxing conditions, former Soviet Union refugees, once approved, board airplanes for a safe flight to the United States. Because the departure is made under less stressful conditions, the population of former Soviet Union refugees consists of a larger proportion of older people than usual.

Somalia. While a condition of massive starvation no longer exists, civil war and its concomitant hardships continue in Somalia, causing people to seek refuge, mostly in neighboring countries.

Sudan. The 12-year civil war in Sudan has created huge displaced and refugee populations and rampant malnutrition. Humanitarian efforts are regularly blocked and relief camps attacked, forcing their closure after years of assistance.

Vietnam. Refugees continue to arrive from Vietnam. They represent: (1) re-education camp detainees, (2) Amerasians, (3) close relative of U.S. citizens, and (4) other approved entrants. A small number of Vietnamese from refugee camps in neighboring countries of first asylum are also being resettled in the United States.

Five countries that have been part of earlier refugee resettlement programs have contributed to the ethnic diversity of the current school population. They are briefly described below:

Afghanistan. In 1979, the former U.S.S.R. invaded Afghanistan and did not withdraw their Soviet forces until April 15, 1989. In the ensuing war, it is estimated that there were two million (mostly civilian) casualties, economic devastation, over five million displaced citizens, and political and social disintegration of Afghan society.

Cambodia. The Vietnam war spilled over into Cambodia from 1970-75, weakening the economy and devastating agriculture. When the United States pulled out of Southeast Asia in 1975, the Khmer Rouge persecuted hundreds of thousands of Cambodians, or Kampucheans as they are also known. Some fled to Thailand, while others were forced into massive slave-labor camps. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1979, forcing another half-million refugees into camps along the Thailand border. Many of these refugees received asylum in the United States.

Laos. As in Vietnam and Cambodia, many people who supported the United States in the war with Vietnam (lowland Lao, Hmong, and Mien) were heavily persecuted, killed by the new government, or became refugees. The Hmong, a group living in the mountains of Laos and Vietnam, were particularly targeted for persecution. They provided long-standing support for Western military interests, beginning with their opposition to the Japanese toward the end of World War II.

Poland. Polish immigrants arrived during the late 19th and early 20th century period of European immigration to the United States. For more than 40 years after World War II, Poles became refugees fleeing communist oppression. In the 1980s, they were the first among many dissidents fleeing Eastern European nations as internal pressures built up within the former Soviet Union and its satellite states. As refugees from communist states, Poles, and later Russians and Romanians, received refugee status.

Romania. Like Poland, Romania is a Central European nation that came under Soviet control with a communist government after World War II. Under Nicolae Ceausescu, Romania broke with the Soviets in 1965 but maintained a repressive regime. Dissidents fled Ceausescu’s repression and the political and social chaos that erupted after his overthrow in 1989.

Another group who has a presence in Northwest and Alaskan schools needs mention, although this group is not part of the official U.S. refugee resettlement program.

Central Americans. In Guatemala, El Salvador, and Nicaragua, civil wars in the 1980s brought political refugees to the United States. Most such applications for asylum were denied, and a sanctuary movement grew up within the nation to support the refugees. Some refugees returned to their countries of origin as domestic turmoil subsided, while others remained. Cessation of hostilities does not necessarily mean that those who have fled will return to safe conditions. Some of those who remained received temporary protected status. They work to support themselves while trying to convert their temporary status to a permanent status through other means. In September 1997 an estimated 300,000 Central Americans were in fear of deportation because of changes in immigration rules that were applied retroactively. Legislation has been proposed in Congress to shield about 50,000 Guatemalans, 60,000 Nicaraguans, and 190,000 Salvadoran refugees from deportation. The future of many is uncertain. Central Americans continue to be a recognizable segment of immigrants throughout the Northwest and Alaska.

This brief overview of different immigrant and refugee groups is designed to convey the need for educators to study the history and culture of the immigrant groups represented in their school communities. All staff need a basic understanding of key events and cultural practices essential to the cultural identity of the diverse students in their schools. In-depth learning about a culture different from one’s own, however, is a gradual process that takes place over many years. The box below lists basic steps toward achieving a deeper understanding of another culture.

For some, classroom demographics may change on a year-to-year basis. Knowing where to find more information and how to involve members of an immigrant community in the school is an important skill. The resource section in the guide provides sample resources for obtaining this kind of information.

Families may consist of both legal and undocumented members. Once a person or group of people make the momentous decision to leave their homeland, whether in search of prosperity or physical safety, what has been called a "channel" often develops. This channel helps ease the journey to a new temporary or permanent home for subsequent arrivals of family members, friends, fellow villagers, or townspeople. This helps explain how whole communities develop, sometimes rather quickly.

A living situation in which some members have not achieved legal status may place additional stress on household members. Educators are prevented by law from inquiring about students’ legal status or in any way "chilling" their status. In Plyler v. Doe, the Supreme Court ruled that educators are responsible for providing a free and basic education to all students, regardless of the legality of their immigrant status. Educators should, however, be sensitive to the reality that some students themselves or their families may be struggling to attain legal status.

Children born in the United States of first-generation immigrant parents often think of themselves as "Americans." They may not like being called "immigrants"—a term that to them connotates being different.

There are many words used to describe how people respond to experiences in new cultural situations: culture shock, acculturation, assimilation, and integration, to name a few. Behind the vocabulary, however, is the reality that adjusting to a new culture is never easy or simple.

When immigrant families are immersed in a new culture, they are bombarded with many experiences that are difficult to interpret because the social context has changed. Much of what they know about how to live, communicate, and get along may not match established norms in the new country. Experiencing a loss of predictability, coupled with fatigue that results from having to remain consciously focused on what one would normally take for granted, often results in culture shock. Some common signs of culture shock include:
Excessive concern over drinking water, food, dishes, and bedding
Staring off into space
Feelings of helplessness and a desire for dependence on long-term residents of one’s own nationality
Excessive anger over delays and other minor frustrations
Delay in learning or outright refusal to learn the language of the host country
Excessive fear of being cheated, robbed, or injured
Grave concern over minor aches and pains
Extreme homesickness
Concern about differences in family values—fear of allowing a spouse to work in case he or she leaves, or fear of one’s children becoming "Americanized"

Not everyone experiences culture shock. While some people overcome culture shock rather quickly, others may take longer to make a positive adjustment to their new surroundings.

Acculturation is a broad term that refers to cultural change that occurs as a result of continuous, firsthand contact between two distinct cultural groups. Acculturation occurs when a person or group is confronted with:
Physical changes like food, climate, water, and housing differences
Biological changes like new viruses and bacteria; new foods that may cause new reactions and new allergies
Social changes like new role definitions and bonding with new groups

The process of acculturation or learning how to "fit" into a new culture happens along a continuum from assimilation to separation or seclusion.

Assimilation occurs when one’s original culture is seen as less important, either from the immigrant’s or host culture’s point of view. The focus is on adopting the new culture’s beliefs, values, and norms. The common U.S. metaphor of the "melting pot" in which ethnic differences vanish reflects an assimilationist point of view. In Teaching Strategies for Ethnic Studies, author James Banks notes that the melting-pot theory has never "accurately reflected the status of ethnicity in America" but is rather a misconception that has persisted since the turn of the century. A person raised in one culture seldom sheds entirely his or her original cultural skin, and there is no evidence to suggest that losing one’s first cultural identity is desirable. It is not unusual, however, for third-generation and beyond immigrant children to have lost the language as well as the knowledge of their cultural heritage. Many people who have "assimilated" may not be aware of which part of their behaviors and attitudes derive from their original culture and which from their family’s adopted culture.

Integration, the middle road, occurs when an individual or group retains its home cultural identity while, at the same time, seeking to maintain harmonious relationships within the mainstream culture and other ethnic communities. Within this group, individuals can be at different stages:
Bicultural describes an individual who has had intensive experiences in both cultural environments. Bicultural individuals often may experience feelings of marginalization in each culture and may need to acquire skills to help them transition between cultures.
Intercultural in orientation means one has grown beyond one’s original cultural conditioning and has developed a cultural identity that is open to further transformation and growth. Rather than being culture-free, this person is not bound by membership to any one particular culture.
Multicultural suggests that one has, to some degree, experienced a variety of cultural influences and therefore has developed a multicultural perspective.

Separation can occur if individuals or groups do not necessarily want to maintain positive relationships with members of other groups and want primarily to retain their cultural characteristics. If the separation occurs because the politically and economically powerful culture doesn’t want intercultural contact, the forced separation is called segregation. If a nondominant group does not want to participate in the larger society and has the goal of maintaining its own cultural identity, the separation is called seclusion. Monocultural describes a person in these environments. He or she has experienced a single dominant cultural orientation with little influence from other cultures.

There are fundamental ethical dilemmas for those acculturating as well as for those facilitating the acculturation process, such as educators:
Is it solely the responsibility of newcomers to adjust their behaviors and attitudes to those of the host culture, or should members of a host culture also make adjustments to facilitate effective communication? U.S. Americans often cite the adage "when in Rome, do as the Romans do," expecting newcomers to do all the adjusting. If one group does all the adjusting, the question becomes: At what point do people lose their own sense of self, cultural identity, and moral integrity?
How much intercultural contact should occur if a group desires to keep their culture intact within the new country? Original cultures can change with contact with other cultures, resulting in a loss of traditions and ways of being that have sustained them for hundreds of years. It is increasingly difficult to maintain an original culture because the pressure from mainstream culture to assimilate is strong. The influence of the mass media in speeding up the acculturation process, especially of young people, cannot be denied. While previously it took about three generations for a family to lose its native tongue, there is now a trend towards monolingual English speaking among the children of immigrants, that is, second-generation immigrants.

Adjusting to a new culture is an involved process, and the length of time in the United States has been shown to have an effect on school success. The younger an immigrant youth upon entering the United States, the more likely he or she is to graduate from high school. This allows more time to learn the academic and language skills necessary to succeed in the new country. In one study, parental attitudes to social change and new experiences also were found to be significant predictors of school adjustment.

Research shows that newer immigrants may be strongly motivated to succeed in school, while more acculturated immigrants and the children of immigrants have higher dropout rates. Two reasons are proposed to explain this difference. One suggests that new immigrants in general are often a highly motivated population that use education for upward mobility. The other contends that immigrants with low economic status may experience discriminatory treatment in society and educational institutions.

Some people join family members in the new country, while others arrive individually and lose immediate family connections. Joining a family member already settled in the United States is currently the most common reason for immigrating. Kin sponsorship, also called "chain migration" or "sequential migration," accounts for 80 percent of the annual quota. While joining family is common, immigrants cannot enter the United States legally without proving that they are self-sufficient and unlikely to need public assistance.

Loss of family unity may occur for some immigrant families and can be difficult because the family unit is usually the main source of emotional and social support. Often, for economic reasons or for children’s educational needs, only part of the household immigrates while the rest of the family remains in the home country.

Loss of family unity also occurs when an adult male immigrates to the United States and his family stays behind. He then returns home a couple of times a year to visit the family. There are also many situations in which children, both young and as adults, immigrate to the United States either singly or only with siblings. Children may send money to parents in the home country and sometimes save enough money to support the immigration of the rest of the family. While arriving in the United States with an intact family makes the immigration adjustment less traumatic, it is not always possible.

In situations where parents are limited in their English proficiency, there can be consequences for parents and students. The inability to speak English fluently may force college-educated professionals from white-collar backgrounds to accept working-class jobs or start a business.This situation becomes another major adjustment for the family.

Some immigrants join a culturally familiar group already established in the area, while others may find themselves without cultural ties. Cultural communities may provide links to other emotional and social supports, including ethnic, spiritual, or business communities. These communities provide practical guidance and support to new community members and help ease these major life transitions.

Some support strategies that immigrant families use include:
Split household. A residence in the home country is maintained at the same time a household in the United States is established.

In this way, financial support can be provided for members not currently emigrating.
Continuing a close tie with the homeland. Immigrants often seek or provide ongoing emotional support and financial assistance to family in the homeland.
Emphasis on education. Some groups place a high value on obtaining education, believing that a formal education can help secure a satisfying life for the next generation.
Attending adult schools. Attending adult English as a Second Language (ESL) classes in the first few years after immigration helps provide an ideal transition, because in addition to language skills, immigrants learn other communication tools and coping strategies. Social and emotional support may also be provided.
Seeking religious affiliations. Religious organizations may provide an important role in many communities, meeting spiritual needs as well as helping adaptations to the new environment. They can provide a network of social support as newcomers go through the immigration process and later adjustments.
Joining social or business associations. Some immigrant communities form support groups to ease the transition for newcomers, for example, commercial or cultural associations.
Participating in community activities. Some immigrants prefer to stay close to their ethnic community, while others participate in mainstream activities and become active members of the host society.

When values, attitudes, and behavior of the home culture are similar to U.S. mainstream culture, adaptation to life in the United States may be eased. When the differences are great, immigrants may have difficulty understanding, communicating, adjusting, and effectively functioning in their new homes.

Gender roles, parental relationships with children, the status associated with one’s work, and the expectations parents have about education are some of the areas where the U.S. experience may or may not match the home culture experience. For example, a conflict may occur between the home culture and U.S. mainstream values about education. Immigrant children may complain that they do not have their own social lives because their parents require them to study all the time and they are told that playing is unproductive. Parenting sometimes becomes difficult because what immigrant parents already know about parenting from their home culture may conflict with parenting behaviors of U.S. parents. The children are often caught in the middle.

A basic cultural difference between U.S. mainstream culture and the cultures of numerous immigrant groups involves the degree of emphasis put on the importance of self versus the importance of the group. U.S. Americans place a strong emphasis on individualism. Many people who believe strongly in individualism are also committed to their families and their places of work, but the self is the basic unit of the culture. Self-reliance is highly valued. Reflections of this self-reliant orientation may include a strong emphasis on the pursuit of self-interest, a high level of preparation in childhood for making one’s own decisions and developing preferences, relatively less loyalty toward work organizations, and a lower investment in family authority than cultures that are more group-oriented.

In cultures with an emphasis on a collectivist or group orientation, the family is the basic unit of the culture. Decisions and actions are undertaken in relation to the welfare and traditions of the family group. This does not mean that people do not have the opportunity to develop their own individuality. Many people who are group-oriented still have considerable room to cultivate personal expression as long as it does not interfere with social obligations to family and tradition. Some reflections of the collectivistic orientation may include a higher reliance on family authority, an importance placed on reciprocal obligations, an emphasis on sharing, and a definition of "family" that includes extended family or people with no formal kin relationships.

Dr. L. Robert Kohls, director of International Programs at San Francisco State University, has developed a list of 13 values that he claims are commonly held by many U.S. Americans. He uses these values to help first-time visitors to the United States better understand the behavior they encounter. Reflecting on this list may also help educators better understand how these values may differ from those held by various immigrant groups and ethnic minorities in the United States.
Personal responsibility. Life’s problems result from not taking responsibility or being lazy, not from bad luck or fate.
Change. Change is good and leads to progress; tradition and ancient heritage are not considered important.
Time. Being on time or getting something done on time is more important than interpersonal relations. This attitude toward time makes U.S. Americans very productive, which is also highly valued.
Equality/Fairness. All people are created equal and should have an equal opportunity to succeed. This attitude results in less deferential treatment of people based on their status and authority than observed by most other cultures.
Individualism/Independence. U.S. Americans resist group identifications and are free in their expression of opinions. They place a high value on privacy, a word that does not exist in many non-Western languages.
Self-help/Initiative. Credit is taken only for individual accomplishments. More than 100 composite words begin with the prefix "self." Most other languages do not have the equivalent of these words.
Competition. Competition brings out the best and is reflected in economic life (free-enterprise system), education, arts, medicine, and sports.
Future orientation. The future is seen in terms of progress and improvement. The past is not valued as in many cultures, and the present is often overlooked because one’s eyes are on the future.
Action/Work orientation. Any action is seen as superior to inaction. Workaholism—addiction to and identification with one’s job—is viewed in a positive light. Upon meeting, people often ask first, "What do you do?"
Informality. In the workplace, employees often call their bosses by their first names and discard titles such as "Mr. or "Ms." Dress is casual, even at "formal" events.
Directness/Openness/Honesty. In contrast to cultures that use subtle, indirect ways to communicate unpleasant information, mainstream American culture uses the direct approach. An indirect approach is considered dishonest, and using someone else to deliver your negative message is viewed with suspicion.
Practicality/Efficiency. Being practical, realistic, and efficient is valued over being pleasing aesthetically, being enjoyable, or advancing the cause of knowledge. Emotion or sentiment are seen as clouding decisions.
Materialism/Acquisitiveness. U.S. Americans, in contrast to others’ view of them, do not view themselves as materialistic but as enjoying the fruits of their hard work. Because they value newness, they frequently replace or discard possessions, even major ones such as cars and houses.

Language is an important issue for newcomers. Approximately 25 percent of immigrants come from countries where English is the dominant or official language. Nearly 50 percent come from non-English dominant countries, but they arrive already speaking English. It should be noted that the English spoken in other countries is not U.S. English. Fluent English-speaking immigrants still need to learn national, regional, and local English idioms. For some immigrants the grammatical structure of their language is antithetical to English, and fluent English may take longer to learn. In all cases, immigrant students’ native language and English-language proficiency needs to be properly assessed before class placements are made.

Some parents may not have sufficient English-language proficiency to supervise their children’s homework in English, or they may not be literate in their native language. Language differences may often result in limited parental involvement in schools.

Biases in educational theories and practices have also impacted immigrants. A monocultural bias can be seen in early educational research that saw bilingualism as a "language handicap" and suggested that bilingual children had "more limited vocabularies, deficient articulation, and more grammatical errors" than monolingual children. Recent research on bilingualism reflects a more inclusive perspective and has dealt with many of the methodological problems of the earlier research. Newer research finds that there are cognitive advantages to being bilingual. Bilingualism provides greater cognitive flexibility, greater ability to think more abstractly, and greater ability in concept formation. It is also correlated with abilities such as creativity and knowledge of how language works. Bilingual programs are under siege in such states as California, where recent elections banned bilingual programs. The courts will decide whether states will be able to make such decisions.

Title I and ESL or bilingual programs help support the educational needs of immigrant students. The Emergency Immigrant Education Program provides grants to state education agencies to assist districts with large increases of immigrant students.

Family resources are an important issue affecting immigrant students’ education. Immigrant youth are twice as likely to live in families with low incomes and to have parents with less than 12 years of schooling. Economic status may affect the support that children have at home. More advantaged students are likely to have educational tools such as encyclopedias and personal computers, as well as formally educated parents or other family members who may be better able to help them with homework and set an example of academic achievement. This is not to imply, however, that children must have these advantages to excel in school. While immigrant youth and parents tend to have higher educational aspirations than do natives of the same racial/ethnic group, low family income has a disproportionally negative effect on college attendance for some immigrant groups.

Some immigrants arrive with high-level, transferable skills, while others have skills of limited immediate marketability in the U.S. economy. The relationship between skills, social status, and language can be very complex, however. For example, a high premigration socioeconomic status may not always translate into a high socioeconomic status in the United States. Many immigrants with professional-level skills are unable to practice in their new land because of licensing or other restrictions. If they are not proficient in English, they are often forced to change occupations or to work at lower-paying jobs.

Groups with the fewest resources are refugees and undocumented immigrants. Refugees, who comprise about 10 percent of the immigrant population, are the most likely to require benefits. However, only 15 percent of all refugees receive welfare. Currently, newly arriving refugees use assistance. However, the younger ones, those able to work, get off assistance very quickly. Many undocumented immigrants who are eligible for emergency medical care under Medicaid and nutrition benefits still pay for their care themselves or have private health insurance. They may actually use services less frequently than the general population. The new welfare reform law prohibits some forms of aid to all noncitizens.

Many immigrants seeking a better quality of life find social conditions in the United States a considerable improvement. Some immigrants, however, may find themselves facing hostile or less-than-accepting attitudes from some U.S. citizens. Immigrants may find themselves easy targets for frustration and anger that would be more accurately directed toward economic and political factors. Prejudice and discrimination may be directed toward an immigrant’s status as a newcomer as well as against his or her ethnicity or race. A recent resurgence in the level of advocacy for citizens over immigrants, or "nativism," has accompanied the most recent rise in the number of immigrants.

Nativism is an attitude held by people who want to restrict U.S. residence or citizenship to people they label "native." They often express intense opposition to people they consider "strange" or "foreign." A nativistic attitude results in the desire of some Americans to restrict, exclude, or attack immigrants. During the history of the United States as a nation, nativism has taken many forms, ranging from harassing behaviors, such as verbal epithets against "foreigners," to restrictive legislation and even hate crimes, such as vandalism of property or murder. Past targets of negative behaviors have included Irish, Germans, and Japanese, while today’s targets are more often Mexican, Central American, or of Asian descent. Undocumented persons and, increasingly, the broader class of people who are not citizens are the newest groups under attack.

While issues such as prejudice and nativism often cast a negative light on the experiences of immigrants, there are positive trends as well. The 1987 "Report of the American Jewish Committee’s Task Force on the Acculturation of Immigrants to American Life" recognizes the biased conditions faced by immigrants but also points to a countervailing "tradition of openness to newcomers" and an "increased acceptance of cultural diversity" on the part of some U.S. Americans. This trend can contribute to a more positive acculturation for some immigrants to the United States. The past decade in U.S. history has seen these two trends continue to exist side by side.

In an interview in Listen to Their Voices: Twenty Interviews with Women Who Write, author Gish Jen, whose parents emigrated from China to the United States, discusses the "caught-in-the-middle" position of children of first-generation immigrant parents. During a year’s visit to China, Jen "first began to sort out what was Asian, what was Asian-American, and what was American." While in China, she began to see the Chinese characteristics in her mother’s thinking. The concept of authority is an example. When Americans think something is wrong they become indignant and set out to fix the situation, says Jen. On the other hand, the Chinese say "That’s the way the world is; you just make your way around it without confronting it." Her parents retained the Chinese idea about confrontation and were displeased when their children wanted to challenge authority.

Children of second-, third-, or fourth-generation U.S. Americans who were born in this country may have more in common with other native-born U.S. children than with recent immigrant children from their family’s home country. Although their families may maintain their cultures at home, the children are likely to be highly acculturated to U.S. society. They may have older relatives who speak a language other than English at home, but these children usually speak only English. Like Gish Jen, many may examine, at some point in their lives, what represents their cultural heritage, what is an adaptation, and what is mainstream U.S. culture.

By understanding the complexity of the immigrant experience and the profound effect of leaving one’s homeland for unknown demands and changes in a new country, educators will gain an increased sensitivity to the circumstances of immigrant students in their schools and classrooms.

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