[EDEQUITY Immigrant Dialogue] Dual roles of new immigrants and

From: Marta Cruz-Janzen (cruzjanzen@fau.edu)
Date: Wed Feb 07 2001 - 17:08:23 EST


their fathers
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The work I did while researching my dissertation seems to indicate that
girls/females are socialized to be more accepting of their status/condition
than males. Although I did not work exclusively with immigrant girls, the
responses I got indicated that they accepted the racial identity label put
upon them whereas males created their own self-identity and stuck with it
regardless of others. Indeed, they insisted upon others to accept it as
well. As well, they accepted the gender roles placed upon them. Families
almost expected the boys to become more facile with the new culture.

My experiences in Colorado (most recent) involved work with immigrant
Mexican families.Within those experiences, I tend to agree that immigrant
girls are under a lot of pressure from the family to comply with roles and
expectations
brought from the home country. I had to deal with situations where parents
punished daughters for deviating and wanting to become more "American."
Latino parents tend to be very protective of their daughters. Girls often
are expected to go home straight from school and cannot participate in
social extracurricular programs. We often had after school and/or weekend
activities and many of the Latino girls were not permitted to participate.
At times, I had to agree to be the "official chaperone" for the girls.

As well, some cultures do not consider it appropriate for girls/females to
be "smarter" than boys/males and had to work with parents who put pressure
on their daughters not to demonstrate how much they really knew,
particularly at the middle and high school levels, for fear that they would
become unsuitable for marriage. Indeed, I worked with several adults -
teachers!!! - who would not pursue their masters degree (even though they
took courses) because their spouses did not have either a bachelors or
equivalent education.

In working with immigrants, especially Latino families, I often found
myself going to the fathers for support. I had to negotiate with them. I
find it ironic that the culture does not usually see fathers as the ones
involved in "women's things" such as children's schooling, yet, when I
wanted to include the girls in activities, I had to recruit the support of
the fathers. The mothers seemed to act as "messengers" or liaisons between
the school and home but lacked authority to make critical decisions about
the children, particularly daughters. I had meetings where I directly (face
to face) invited the fathers to come. I found that by inviting them
personally, I placed them in a situation where male "honra" (this whole
concept cannot be translated) had to be followed through. In other words,
they gave me their word of honor, and we shook hands, that they would come
to the meeting and they did. While they often brought the wife, they knew
the meeting was for them. I found it interesting that in those situations,
the men talked while the wives listened.

As an elementary school principal, I struggled to get fathers to come to
the school and be more involved. I found that I had to go outside of the
school setting to get the fathers' attention. I worked closely with the
local church and even attended (even though I am not Catholic) to see them
there. I did most of my communicating and mediating with fathers through
the church and other community agencies that I found fathers frequented. I
worked with the local priests and maintained close communication with them.
I found myself becoming a member of the family and/or community by
attending numerous celebrations, including personal family affairs. That
gave me legitimacy within the community. Once I established this legitimacy
and membership, fathers / families, community members trusted my
judgement. This will vary with each community and I recommend finding out
what those agencies and places might be. It also take much time, effort,
and ongoing commitment to establish this credibility - it won't happen
overnight.

Marta Cruz-Janzen
<cruzjanzen@fau.edu>



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