Hidden Borders Analysis

The Hidden Borders in the United States Educational System The United States is often referred to as the melting pot of the world, however I believe this metaphor is outdated. The U.S. census bureau wrote a book called Celebrating our nation's diversity: a teaching supplement for grades K-12, it discusses how the initial thought behind the metaphor was a notion that people from different cultures/ethnicities would come together and lose their own distinction (2). The authors continue on to give examples of other metaphors that are perhaps more accurate, such as a tossed salad due to individuals having their own characteristics that build the whole. These notions and metaphors are great positive propaganda for the U.S., but there are issues

Dr. Chris Faltis, a scholar on bilingual practices, race-radical vision in bilingual education and immigration theory, brings into light the discrimination that many Mexican immigrant families face in his article Eradicating Borders: An Exploration of ScholArtistry for Embracing Mexican Immigrant Children and Youth in Education. In the article he discusses the history of Mexican immigrants and America and how the Mexican immigrants during WWII “[worked] in the fields of Arizona and California, tended the fields that fed the nation, while living in deplorable conditions.” (51). He claims that metropolitan cities like Las Vegas would not have been able to achieve the levels of growth they were able to achieve without the labor Mexican immigrants provided (51). Faltis links the Mexican anti-immigrant behavior to 9/11 as well as the collapse of the housing industries (52). It is clear that Faltis is against the physical border between Mexico and the United States, highlighting that the border between the United States and Canada is non-existent (54). But the real issue that he tries to highlight is the language border that some states are imposing by eliminating the use of Spanish in schools in order to ensure that English is the dominant language for immigrant children (55). He also discusses how immigrant children grow up in America and only know the American way of life but often times are denied citizenship or even permanent residency, they are also denied access to financial aid which inhibits them from accessing higher education (57). Faltis also warns educators about the potential creation of another border with new Common Core State Standards and other standardized tests that focus on language to demonstrate knowledge (59). He states that “[i]t is imperative that teachers and teacher educators learn much more about language