This article first describes the historical record on the use of immigrant languages in American schools, concentrating on the important nineteenth-century experience with German but touching also on other groups, the 1880-1920 period, and parochial schools. The article then turns to the issue of school achievement by immigrants circa 1910, when public school policy did not provide for the use of immigrant languages to support that achievement.
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References
1.
1. Stephen Wagner, “The Historical Background of Bilingualism and Biculturalism in the United States,” in The New Bilingualism, ed. Joyce Bartell (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Books, 1981), pp. 29-52.
2.
See also Joshua Fishman, ed., Language Loyalty in the United States (The Hague: Mouton, 1966).
3.
Charles Hart Handschin , The Teaching of Modern Languages in the United States (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1913), pp. 67-71.
4.
4. Quoted in Handschin, Teaching of Modern Languages, p. 67.
5.
5. Quoted in Schlossman, “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” p. 145.
6.
Selwyn Troen , The Public and the Schools (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1975), chaps. 2-3.
7.
Schlossman , “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” pp. 147-150.
8.
Schlossman , “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” p. 149.
9.
9. Schlossman, “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” p. 150.
10.
10. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, p. 89.
11.
11. Quoted in Schlossman, “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” p. 144.
12.
12. Quoted in ibid., p. 154.
13.
Schlossman , “Is There an American Tradition of Bilingual Education?” pp. 175-178.
14.
Theodore C. Blegen , Norwegian Migration to America: The American Transition (Northfield, MN: The Norwegian-American Historical Association, 1940), chap. 8.
15.
15. Kloss, American Bilingual Tradition, pp. 77, 91, 161.
16.
E. W. Bagster-Collinset al. , Studies in Modern Language Teaching (New York: Macmillan, 1930), pp. 25-26.
17.
17. Selma Cantor Berrol, Immigrants at School: New York City, 1898-1914 (New York: Arno Press, 1978), pp. 217-225.
18.
Arnold Leibowitz , Educational Policy and Political Acceptance: The Imposition of English as the Language of Instruction in American Schools (Washington, DC: Center for Applied Linguistics, 1971), pp. 6-21.
19.
19. David John Hogan, Class and Reform: School and Society in Chicago, 1880-1930 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1985), p. 131.
20.
20. Richard S. Sorrell, “Sentinelle Affair (1924-1929) - Religion and Militant Survivance in Woonsocket, Rhode Island,”Rhode Island History, 36:3, 67-79 (Aug. 1977).
21.
Kloss , American Bilingual Tradition, pp. 95-96, 171-172, 180-185.
22.
Kloss , American Bilingual Tradition, pp. 125-140.
23.
23. Thomas J. Archdeacon, Becoming American: An Ethnic History (New York: Free Press, 1983), pp. 115-119.
24.
24. Kenji Hakuta, Mirror of Language: The Debate on Bilingualism (New York: Basic Books, 1986), pp. 135-136.
25.
25. Estimated from the U.S. Immigration Commission, Reports of the Immigration Commission, vols. 29-33, The Children of the Immigrants in Schools (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1911), sec. “Public School Pupils: General Investigation,” tabs. 3 and 4 for each city. High school entry rates were estimated by calculating the ratio of first-year high school pupils to all pupils 12 years of age in the public schools.
26.
See, for example, Reports of the Immigration Commission, vol. 29, tabs. 46 and 47.
27.
27. Joel Perlmann, Ethnic Differences: Schooling and Social Structure among the Irish, Italians, Jews and Blacks of an American City (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 36-42.
