The case-work agencies in some cities with large foreign-born
populations come in contact with many of the foreign-born families in
distress, but not in sufficiently large numbers to take the entire
time of a visitor. In other cities, however, a large part of the work
is with foreign-speaking families. In Stamford, Connecticut, for
example, 70 per cent of the families cared for are foreign born, and
44 per cent are Italian. In Paterson, New Jersey, 120 of the 840
families were Italian.
Eleven case-work agencies did employ foreign-born or foreign-speaking
visitors. Eight of these were in cities of over 100,000
population--New York City, Philadelphia, Boston, Cleveland,
Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, Cambridge, and Grand Rapids. The other three
were in smaller places; Waterbury, with a population of 73,000, El
Paso with 39,000, and Kenosha with 21,000. While these 11 agencies do
employ foreign-speaking workers, it appears in every case that they
either do not have workers of all the groups with which they work, or
do not have enough foreign-language workers to do all the work with
the foreign-speaking groups. New York City, for instance, has 5
workers who speak Italian, of whom only 1 is an Italian and served in
the course of a year over 1,000 Italian families. Philadelphia has
only 1 foreign-speaking worker, who speaks Italian and some Polish. It
reports the number of families as 526 Italian, 229 Polish, 69 Russian,
and 43 other Slav.
There is, however, a decided difference of opinion as to the value of
the visitor from the foreign-born group. All the agencies testify to
the difficulty of getting workers with the same education and training
demanded of the English-speaking visitor. One of the district
superintendents of the United Charities of Chicago, who in despair of
her work with interpreters began to use foreign-born visitors, speaks
of success with exceptional individuals, but says:
For the most part the foreign workers we have had have gained
a certain facility in handling the general run of cases, but
there is a discouraging lack of initiative or daring in their
efforts. They seem to go just so far. It has seemed hard,
too, to strike the happy medium in their attitude toward
their own people; they seem either blindly sympathetic or
peculiarly indifferent. In part I feel that this is an
impression they give as a result of their lack of power of
self-expression, and lack of confidence in themselves--this
would undoubtedly be remedied by further education.
As a result of my efforts with about ten foreign workers I
have traveled a complete circle in my way of thinking. I have
come back to the conclusion that we cannot get satisfactory
results if we accept very much less in the way of scholastic
training or life experience, than is required of other
workers.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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