New Homes for Old Part 12

As long as the mother does not understand this tradition of freedom between the s.e.xes nor realize its limits, it is natural that she should accept her daughter's dictum that everything she wants to do is "American" and that it is hopeless for the mother to try to understand. In many of the families visited in this study it was evident that the mother had completely given up trying to understand either the conditions under which her children work or how they get their recreation. One mother, for example, said that she knew where her daughter worked when it was a well-known place, but otherwise not.

Another said that her children told her where they worked, but she never remembered the names, for she knew that they would mean nothing to her.

Several said they did not try to advise their children about their work, because they knew they didn't understand. One Russian mother was very much worried about the future of her two boys, aged seventeen and thirteen. The older was working as a cash boy, earning twelve dollars a week, and the younger was working outside of school hours, sewing caps. The mother said that their father had learned one trade and followed that, but that her children changed work every two or three months. She seldom asked why they changed, because she did not understand conditions in Chicago.

Most of the women confessed to being equally at sea with regard to their children's amus.e.m.e.nts. Some of them accepted with resignation the fact that they could not understand, saying, as one woman did, that she thought they had too much freedom, but that young people lived very differently here. Some of the mothers, on the other hand, while thinking that young people in general had too much freedom, thought that they did not need worry about their own children, because they had been able to make companions of their daughters. A few even were found who approved of the freedom allowed to young people, but thought children should be taught "more morality."

It is scarcely possible to say too much of the failure of the American community to a.s.sist the immigrant family at this point. It has neither tried to make the fathers and mothers understand modern American ways, nor has it exercised any community supervision so that the girl is in reality safe at work and at play. Furthermore, some of the agencies from whom the most help might have been expected have deliberately pa.s.sed over the mother to educate the child, hastening the process by which the child becomes Americanized in advance of his parents.

The Church has had its share, as may be seen from the statement of one priest who holds a responsible position in the Church in Chicago. He believes that the parents are usually too advanced in years to a.s.similate or utilize whatever instruction is given them. In his opinion the ignorance of the parent is responsible for many bad tendencies in the children, but the difficulty can be corrected more surely and satisfactorily by dealing directly with the children.

The att.i.tude of the public schools is ill.u.s.trated by an interview with the princ.i.p.al of a public school in an immigrant neighborhood. He says that his contact has been only with the children. The foreign-born parents of the first generation are, in his opinion, "so incorrigibly stupid" that any attempts to educate them are a waste of time. The only possible way, he thinks, of reaching the parents is through the children.

THE JUVENILE COURT

We should not expect the Juvenile Court, dealing as directly as it does with problems resulting from the breakdown of family discipline, to be itself a cause of breakdown. Nevertheless, interviews with court officers show a certain lack of understanding and the use of methods which, instead of relieving the situation, only aggravate it. When the case of a delinquent girl, for instance, comes to court, the officers believe that it has usually gone too far for the court to do anything with the family. The child is often placed out in a family home, always an American family; and the probation officer supervises the child and the foster home, but pays no attention to the child's own home, where younger children may be growing up in the same way and to which, ultimately, the delinquent girl should be allowed and encouraged to return.

The probation officers know very little of the old-country background of the people with which they deal, and are often not clear as to the differences in nationality. The foreign-born parent's ignorance of laws and customs, and his inability to speak English, make him appear stupid to the officer. As a result, he may be ignored as quite hopeless.

In the absence of the court interpreter the child may be called upon to interpret to the parent the whole proceedings in court. While this is less common now than it was a few years ago, there is no reason to believe that the child is less used as interpreter between the probation officer and the parent at home.

From the records of the court proceedings it is often quite evident to the reader that the foreign-born parent has little idea of the reasons why he or his child should have been brought to court. In one Bohemian family studied the eldest boy, aged sixteen, was in the State School for Delinquent Boys. The parents seemed utterly unaware of the serious nature of the boy's offenses and of the blot on his record. They seemed to regard the school for delinquents somewhat as more prosperous parents are wont to regard the boarding school. In fact, they expressed regret that the boy was soon to be released. Yet this boy had been in the Juvenile Court three times; the first time for truancy, and the other two for stealing.

The attention of the community is usually called to the difficulties of the foreign-born parents only when a complete breakdown occurs, resulting in juvenile delinquency. This result is, however, comparatively rare. Most families work their way through without getting into a situation that calls public attention to their family affairs. There is no question, however, that there is often a lack of harmony in the home. Sometimes the child of working age leaves home, to board perhaps in the same neighborhood or to contract a hasty marriage.

Occasionally there are situations in which the ordinary relations of parent and child have been completely reversed, and the children have a.s.sumed responsibility for the management of the home and the family.

For instance, the Juvenile Court was asked by the neighbors to investigate conditions in a Polish family, in which a six-year-old boy was said to be neglected. The investigation showed no real neglect from the point of view of the court, but a situation that needed supervision.

The mother was a widow and had, besides the six-year-old boy, two daughters aged seventeen and nineteen. Both girls were born in Austria. The father had preceded his family to the United States, and for five years the mother had worked and supported herself and the children in the old country before he was able to send for them. He seems not to have had a very good moral influence over the children, but had been dead several years. The daughters were both supporting the mother, who was doing one or two days' work a week. The daughters turned over all their earnings to the mother, but said that she was a poor manager and never had anything to show for it. They themselves had managed to buy new furniture and clothes for themselves. They said they were ashamed to go out with their mother, who remained unprogressive, would not dress as they liked, and would not manage the home as they wished. The girls told the officer that they did not take her out with them, but gave her money to go to the "movies." Yet she would do nothing but sit at home and cry.

At one time the boy was accused of stealing coal from a neighbor. The oldest girl wanted her mother to investigate, but the mother would not go near any of her American neighbors. The daughter herself found out that the child had really taken the coal from a neighbor, and whipped him. Gradually the daughters, especially the older one, have a.s.sumed entire control of the family. The mother can no longer discipline even the six-year-old boy. Since the daughter has undertaken to correct him, he pays no attention at all to his mother. The probation officer has tried to restore a more normal family relations.h.i.+p, and has tried to help the girls to understand their mother's position. She still speaks with pride of the five years in the old country when she supported them alone, and when she was really of some use to them.

The older daughter threatened for some time to leave home if her mother could not be more agreeable. When the court officer remonstrated, she said that of course she would leave her furniture, and could not be convinced that that would not entirely compensate.

Later she did leave home, and took some of her furniture. The family are Catholics, but the mother no longer goes to church, and, though the girls go, the priest seems to have had no influence over them.

Although the great majority of the foreign-born parents succeed in bringing up their children without the children becoming delinquent, the minority who are not successful is large enough to cause grave concern. This has been shown in all figures in juvenile delinquency. A study of delinquent children before the Cook County Juvenile Court shows that 72.8 per cent of the 14,183 children brought to the court between July 1, 1899, and June 30, 1909, had foreign-born parents.[48]

A special study of 584 of these, who were delinquent boys, showed 66.9 per cent with foreign-born parents.[49] A comparison of the nativity of the parents of children in the Juvenile Court with the proportion of each group in the married population of Chicago indicates that the number of parents of delinquent children in the foreign-born group is disproportionately large. That is, the foreign born form 57 per cent of the married population of Chicago, while "at least 67 per cent of the parents of delinquent boys of the court were foreign born, and there is reason to believe that the true percentage is above 67."[50]

This preponderance of children from immigrant homes must not be taken to mean that children of foreign-born parents are naturally worse than the children of American parents. It confirms the fact that immigrant parents have special difficulties in bringing up their children and are in need of special a.s.sistance. It suggests very forcibly the danger to the community in continuing to ignore their special needs.

FOOTNOTES:

[44] Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the Home_, p.

66.

[45] See Thomas and Znaniecki, _The Polish Peasant_, vol. i.

[46] Abbott and Breckinridge, _Truancy and Nonattendance in the Chicago Schools_, chap. viii, p. 129.

[47] See Jane Addams, _Twenty Years at Hull House_, chap. xi.

[48] Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the Home_, p.

57.

[49] _Ibid._, p. 61.

[50] Breckinridge and Abbott, _The Delinquent Child and the Home_, p.

62. See _U. S. Twelfth Census Population_, vol. ii, p. 314, Table x.x.xII.

VII

IMMIGRANT ORGANIZATIONS AND FAMILY PROBLEMS

In the former chapters an attempt has been made to set out some of the difficulties encountered by foreign-born families who attempt to establish themselves in the United States. The discussion has dealt with the problem as though the community were one factor and the immigrant family another factor, and as though the solution to be arrived at could be discovered by bringing them into new relations to each other. This treatment is justified, in view of the fact that even a slight a.n.a.lysis makes it clear that certain modifications in governmental and social machinery are highly desirable. When the limitations imposed by the war on freedom of migration have been removed, the possibility of dealing more wisely and more humanely with incoming family groups must be considered.

In a very real sense, during any period when the volume of immigration is considerable, the community _is_ one factor and the immigrant _is_ another factor, and a partial solution is to be found in a new treatment of the relations.h.i.+ps between these two. But in another sense the discussion is inadequate and perhaps misleading. The relations.h.i.+p between the community and the immigrant is not mechanical, but organic. So soon as he is admitted, he is in fact a part of the community, and what will be done, what can be done, depends in part at least upon the extent to which that relations.h.i.+p is developed. The currents of the community life must flow through and both enrich and be enriched by the life of the newcomer. If these currents are obstructed, he neither shares nor contributes as he might.

These channels of intercourse, however, have often been so obstructed that contacts have been denied. That segregation and separation have characterized the life of many of the groups for considerable periods of time has become a commonplace, and it has been generally known that the life of these different foreign-born groups was separate from the general life of the community, and the life of one group separate from the life of other groups. But the fact that within these separate groups was developed often a fairly rich and highly organized life has not been so widely recognized.

SAFETY IN RACIAL AFFILIATIONS

During the war, for example, the community became aware of the fact that within these national groups there had developed more or less powerful and efficient organizations formerly active in behalf of political interests in the old country, capable, at least, of fostering a spirit of clannishness, of perpetuating the language, customs, and ideals of an alien population in the midst of American life, and of keeping alive in this country national and racial antipathies brought from Europe. Leaders in the European struggle came to these groups and obtained pecuniary support and political adherence. Recruiting for military service among the foreign born was successfully carried on.

Leaders of active societies among the different Slavic groups have stated quite freely that a spirit of unity and of nationality has been consciously fostered in America by these societies, so that, when the time came for the oppressed nation to strike for freedom in the European struggle, the representatives of the race in this country might stand solidly behind such efforts. It is impossible, after the exhibition of the generous support given among foreign-born groups during the war to the efforts of the United States, to raise the question of their loyalty; but their separateness has been far greater, their exclusion from many community efforts and activities far more complete, than the leaders among them had realized.

The leaders among the foreign born do not wholly blame the leaders of the "American" group; they seem to feel that immigrants who came at an earlier date are in part to blame. These earlier arrivals knew what immigration meant, and might have been expected to help open the way for those who came afterward, but were, in fact, chiefly concerned to get ahead and to leave old a.s.sociations behind. This was the opinion expressed by a Bohemian business man prominent in both local and national organizations. He also said that the reason that had in the past led to the formation and support of these organizations had ceased to exist; but now that the European struggle against oppression had ended for his people, and leaders understood how separate the life of the foreign-born groups had been, these very societies could be used to establish a variety of contacts and to develop among the foreign born a wider interest in the United States and its problems.

Particularly the ability to act together learned during the war should be used to develop effective co-operation.

As the organization of these societies is discussed in another volume in this series, they will not be described here, except as they affect the position of women and so exercise an influence upon the adjustment of family life.[51]

Possibly the most significant fact revealed in the course of the study has been the extent to which foreign-born groups have been inaugurating and developing educational and social movements, and establis.h.i.+ng inst.i.tutions and agencies, quite independent of the Federal, state, or local agencies at work along the same general lines. On the other hand, the national educational and welfare movements carried on by the "American people" have ignored the organization and leaders.h.i.+p in the foreign-born community. This has been the case to an amazing extent, even when the public efforts have been ostensibly based upon studies of conditions existing in cities with a population that is largely of foreign birth.

When no channels of communication between the immigrant and the larger community seem to have been established, we have been concerned to inquire how such channels can be most effectively created. The barriers that through ignorance, indifference, and misunderstanding on either side have been allowed to grow up must be broken down. We have tried to follow up such avenues of communication as have opened naturally before us, after becoming acquainted with some of the leaders in the different groups.

The organizations with which we have become somewhat acquainted are representative of the types found in all the main Slavic groups and among the Lithuanians, Hungarians, Rumanians, and Greeks. Suggestions applicable to them indicate a basis of co-operation with a very large proportion of our foreign-born population.

A list of the princ.i.p.al racial organizations in the United States is included in the Appendix. Information about local branches of these organizations can usually be secured by correspondence.

LOCAL BENEFIT SOCIETIES

The first incentive to organization among all the groups seems to have been the precarious economic situation during the years of effort to get a foothold here. The first a.s.sociation of the newly arrived immigrant is one of mutual aid. "Benefit" will be found as the basis of the important foreign-born organizations, no matter what new purposes may have been taken on with the establishment and progress of the group as a whole.

[Ill.u.s.tration: WHO WILL WELCOME THEM?]