Summer break typically entails employment for many young New Yorkers, a summer course, or spending time with friends in the city. This summer, 13-year-old Vanessa worked alongside her mother selling fruit treats outside a midtown Manhattan subway station. Slices of mango, pieces of watermelon, and cucumber sticks. Vanessa just came from Ecuador. She is currently applying for asylum in the United States. In order to protect their family back home, Alejandra, her mother, requested that their last name not be used. “They are killing people there. There are kidnappings, rapes. I had to take the kids out.”
Vanessa’s daily routine in the city is going to change because school has started and the summer has ended. She will be beginning the eighth grade and will be one of about 20,000 migrant children who have registered in public schools in New York this month. Around 100,000 individuals have arrived in the city in the past several years alone, as part of a surge of migration.
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Regardless of their immigration status, schools are required to admit all students, according to officials. They have also pushed migrant families to send their children. The financial expense of enrolling a family member who could otherwise be working is often well worth it. Alejandra acknowledges, “It’s hard for us” I noted that many families struggle because New York is so costly. However, she claims that she does not want to take her child out on the streets with her. She shared that as a youngster in Ecuador, she herself was unable to attend school. She noted that if she was in a better situation then, she would have been more fortunate.
Despite the joy, several families revealed to NPR that they are also worried. Immigrant families have gathered outside the Department of Education buildings in Queens on a hot September morning. They are looking for a place to send their kids. Pedro Delgado Vega only three days earlier flew from Ecuador to New York. The family’s initial action was to enroll Delgado in high school. In a few days, he will begin the eleventh grade. Delgado exclaims, “I feel very happy.” “This is a new opportunity.” But he also claims to be anxious. He hopes it will be a bilingual school even if he is unsure of which one he will attend. He admitted that he struggles with English. He claimed, “I don’t know how people will react. This makes me nervous.”
His anxiety is shared by others. Parents in New York said they are concerned about the ability of the educational system to handle a significant inflow of pupils who speak English as a second language (ENL). Maude Maron the elected head of the consultative Manhattan Community Education Council, which includes parents and locals stated, “Compassion dictates that you want to try and figure out, ‘they’re here now, what are we going to do with these kids that are here?’ ” She added, “but there should also be the question of, what is the impact on the children that are already here? Kids who have suffered many times over a year of learning loss from COVID shutdowns. These are kids who are already very far behind. And now they’re gonna have classrooms, filled to the brim with migrant kids that teachers are unprepared and in some cases incapable of teaching.”
Maron claims she hasn’t received any communication from the Department of Education regarding how to handle the current predicament. She is concerned that there are too many international pupils for New York’s schools to handle. Not when there are only 3,400 English as a second language instructors employed.
The New York Department of Education’s chief of staff, Melissa Aviles Ramos, begs to disagree. “We can handle it. We always have handled it. This is a massive increase that we’ve [never] seen before, and it is not without challenge. this is a real opportunity for our teachers, our admin, and all of our staff to really step up and not only accept but embrace the difference in language and cultures.”
Local instructors were interviewed by NPR. Christopher, who asked that his last name be withheld for fear of retaliation from his employment, stated that “the department is vastly under-resourced for everything.” He is a teacher at a Brooklyn school. He said it’s a pleasure to be among the newcomers. Until now, ” every kid we’ve had so far has been incredibly eager to learn. They just want to be kids. They want to be children.”
Christopher believes that the children are being used as a scapegoat for a problem that predates their arrival. He noted, “I mean you could take all of these new students out, and there’s still … there’s no money.”
According to NPR interviews with other instructors, the scenario might significantly improve education in New York City. Rosie Frascella noted, “This is an opportunity to also diversify our schools.” He claimed, “New York City is one of the most segregated school districts in the country.” In addition to being a parent of two children, Frascella teaches English to speakers of other languages. “There’s a really strong need in the United States for us to be multilingual. Most of the world is multilingual.”
The 13-year-old Ecuadorian Vanessa claims that she has a lifelong desire to become a lawyer while standing in the middle of midtown Manhattan’s traffic, far from the discussions.
She is content for the time being to return to school, though. For her, the summer was quite long. She also wants a break.
