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Yes, they are important to our future!
Many of tomorrow’s workers and business owners are the children of today’s
immigrants. More than 40% of the growth of our labor force in the late 1990s was
due to immigrants, and since immigration WILL continue, they are important to our
future growth.
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A concern is certainly that many of today’s Hispanic/Latino immigrants are
uneducated and unskilled: this could mean that their children will not fit into our
knowledge-based and high-tech economy.
Often when parents are uneducated,
they have lower expectations and don’t encourage their children to stay in high
school and go on to college. These parents very often need their children to work in
the shops they own or contribute to the household income with outside jobs. Many
of their children must drop out of high school to help the family survive financially.
Twenty five percent of the children under the age of six in the U.S. are children of
immigrants, the majority in poor families. If these children went to preschool, it
would dramatically change their lives, especially if there were also some services
available for their parents. If these parents could go to nearby ESL classes and learn
some tips on early child rearing, and be shown how important it is for their children
to get an education, it would help tremendously in the children’s later public school
years.
Children who get preschool education are much more likely to do well in school and
less likely to drop out or get into trouble. This is true for immigrant children and
any other children who are living in poverty.
It would be wonderful if all parents could get some of this training, but poor parents
need it most, especially if they don’t speak English at home or if they don’t have
much education themselves.
Blue-collar jobs are on the decline in many parts of the U.S. Factories and textile
mills are closing and moving to other countries, shocking many people who were
born here and have worked in these factories for decades. Money is often spent to
re-educate these workers, yet many of them are unable to learn the computers well
enough for these high tech jobs because of their age or their own education
shortcomings.
Immigrants’ children who have dropped out of school and have no training in these
high-tech positions will have the same problem. Immigrants with limited skills will
always work at whatever job they can find; this probably means they will always
work at low paying jobs and never get out of poverty. If they are forced to raise their
own children in poverty, the cycle continues.
Once they are fluent in English and learn U.S. laws, they have a much greater chance
of getting better jobs, although the wage gap between them and people born here
may still be quite wide.
Undocumented Hispanic teens who are in our public schools may have lower
educational aspirations and not try to finish high school, even when their parents do
not need their income. They often feel discouraged because they don’t think they
can get a college education, or if they do get one, that they won’t be eligible to work
here.
Some states are allowing undocumented students who have attended and graduated
from their high schools to attend public state colleges at in-state rates. If these
teens have lived in that state for years, have received a good education in those
schools and have graduated, why shouldn’t they be allowed to continue their
education there without paying the higher non-resident rates?
If they gradute from college, they should be able to apply for citizenship and use
their degree to get a high paying job in this country. These workers will contribute
to their community, start businesses, buy houses and be wonderful Americans. The
money that was spent by the state to educate them to grade 12 will be repaid many
times over.
We need skilled and highly trained workers, why would we want these kids to stop
their schooling and be forced to work in low paying jobs the rest of their lives? That
does not help any of us.
Article Source: Donna Poisl, EzineArticles.com
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