In a Polish district, for instance, the people in the vicinity of one
of the most completely equipped parks in the city have come to regard
it with suspicion as the source of a type of Americanization
propaganda too suggestive of the Prussians they have sought to escape.
In a Lithuanian district, officers of societies which make use of
clubrooms in the recreation centers say they prefer the rooms to any
they can rent in the vicinity, but they often feel in the way and that
their use of the building entails more work than attendants are
willing to give. The Lithuanians, too, speak of feeling out of place
in the parks. There has been little evidence that in any section of
the city people of foreign birth feel that as community centers these
parks are in a sense their own.
The social settlement, which shares with public recreation centers the
functions of providing for the social life and recreation of immigrant
communities, is confronted by many of the same problems, often
rendered the more difficult from the fact that it is usually regarded
as even more alien to the life of the group than the park, and its
purposes are less understood. Members of Polish, Lithuanian, Italian,
and Ukrainian groups, who have expressed their own appreciation of the
aims of the social settlement, and the highest personal regard for
settlement residents whom they have known, believe that the "American"
settlement can never reach the masses of people most in need of the
type of service it offers. Repression under autocratic government in
Europe and exploitation in America have made them suspicious, and they
are apt to avoid whatever they cannot understand.
It is believed that these types of service, undertaken with a more
thorough knowledge of the point of view of the immigrant and with the
indorsement and co-operation of recognized leaders of the groups to be
served, would much more nearly meet the needs of the people least able
to adjust themselves to the new situations.
FOOTNOTES:
[53] See Abbott, _The Immigrant and the Community_, chap. i; _Report
of the Massachusetts Immigration Commission_, 1914; _Reports of the
Immigrants' Protective League of Chicago_.
[54] As is contemplated in the Act creating the New York Bureau of
Immigration and Industry. See Birdseye, Cummin's and Gilbert's
_Consolidated Laws of New York Supplement, 1913_, vol. ii, p. 1589,
sec. 153; and _Laws of 1915_, chap. 674, sec. 7, vol. iii, p. 2271.
[55] See Frank V. Thompson, _Schooling of the Immigrant_.
[56] _Statutes of California, 1915_, chap. xxxvii. The home teacher
should not be confused with the visiting teacher; a device in social
case work.
[57] _A Manual for Home Teachers_ (published by the State Commission
of Immigration and Housing), 1919, p. 13.
[58] _Ibid._, p. 19.
[59] _A Manual for Home Teachers_, 1919, p. 8.
[60] See also Report of the Children's Bureau on "Children's Year" and
"Back to School Drive."
[61] 38 U. S. Statutes at Large, p. 372 (May 8, 1914).
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