The largest wave of immigration since WWII is flowing into the United States. Many immigrants will settle in ethnic community enclaves, leading to racial and ethnic tensions and the perception that they “”do not want to become American”". How can they become better connected to public life and the broad mainstream of society?
As we begin the next century, the nation needs contemporary versions of older “”mediating institutions”" that once tied waves of immigrants to American democracy– tapping into their rich cultural traditions and releasing their potential to help build the nation. The Jane Addams School for Democracy, a community-based education and action initiative, offers a promising experiment.
Today, immigrant policy accents service delivery– be it of language classes, job training, or welfare provisions. In this approach immigrants are perceived as deficient, needy, and powerless. The role of organizations is to provide services for them.
Mediating institutions such as Jane Addams’ Hull House settlement in Chicago — which worked with immigrants from Eastern and Southern Europe and Mexico in the early decades of the 20th century — once taught something quite different. They inculcated new Americans with a sense of the importance of building, contributing to, and improving the nation.
Such institutions helped immigrants develop what can be called “”public identities”" — teaching the skills of give and take, instilling the importance of working with people different from oneself, fostering a commitment to democracy, and holding citizens accountable to common standards. While even at their best they excluded many people, they provided a reserve of civic capital that the nation could draw on. For immigrants, they created pride in being American citizens and highlighted the ways in which immigrant cultures could enrich America.
The Jane Addams School for Democracy — located in Neighborhood House, a 100-year-old settlement on the West Side of St. Paul — takes the best of this forgotten spirit and updates it for a new era. It was created as a partnership among Hmong and Latino residents, Neighborhood House, the College of St. Catherine, the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the Humphrey Institute, and the College of Liberal Arts at the University of Minnesota. The founding idea was to develop a community partnership through which college students and immigrants alike could learn and work together.
The theme of the Jane Addams School is “”everyone is a learner, everyone a teacher”". New immigrants and their children join with high school and college students in learning about citizenship and democracy (including preparing for the US Citizenship Exam), the English language, and American culture. Now, after two and a half years, nearly 200 people are learning and working together on public projects. Young people and adults have undertaken farming projects, community gardens, plays, skits, a history book, a health and wellness project, and other work. The school has initiated an annual community-wide “”Freedom Festival”" celebrating diverse contributions to liberty and democracy. In addition, more than 50 immigrants have passed the citizenship exam and many have returned to the School both to continue learning and to help other immigrants learn the ways of American citizenship.
The work of the school has made vivid the traditions of productive citizenship that immigrants bring to this country. In the words of one Jane Addams School participant, Mai Neng Moua: “”America is in the making. It isn’t a complete picture, and whoever comes adds to it.”" Organizations like the School can help all citizens draw a brighter and more vivid picture of a united nation and a re-energized democracy.
Excerpted from “”The Jane Addams School for Democracy”" by Harry C. Boyte and Jennifer O’Donoghue for Bluprint Magazine, April 1, 1999
