The Learning Curve: Immigrant Parents Speak Mind to Schools

You can’t always spot historic moments as they happen, especially when they may be unfolding on an otherwise ordinary Thursday night in the inner city.

Still, you could almost feel the buzz in the air the other night on the grounds of St. Joseph’s Church in Santa Ana--a buzz that some thought was the sound of local history being made.

Too early to make that call, so let’s just report in broad strokes that on an evening when these 100 or so working-class parents could have been home, they showed up at the parish hall to tell Santa Ana Unified School District administrators what was on their minds.

Citing flagging test scores in their children’s schools, the parents told school officials they want improvements in their children’s English proficiency. They also requested that teachers make regular home visits as a way to better engage students and their parents.

The conventional wisdom is that these parents don’t ask for things like that.

These parents--many of them non-English speaking, low-income and relatively new to America--are supposed to be lackadaisical about their kids’ educations. Even as their children’s academic scores lag, these parents are supposed to maintain distance from teachers and to look askance at any pressure that their children learn English.

That story line, already laden with much urban myth, now may be on its way to a significant overhaul.

“I think last night was definitely historic, as far as a group emerging that we’ve wanted for such a long time to emerge,” Santa Ana school board member Sal Tinajero said Friday afternoon.

“They know in order to be successful, they must master English,” Tinajero said. “It’s interesting: Maybe 20 years ago that might not have been the case. But if you look at history, every [immigrant] group matures and tries to immerse itself into the American culture.”

Tinajero grew up in a Santa Ana home where his father worked two jobs and his mother also worked. That is still common in the city’s poorer neighborhoods today, he said. He recalled his mother couldn’t pronounce his spelling words to help him with his homework.

Working Two Jobs, It’s Hard to Get Involved

Inner-city teachers long have lamented the lack of parental involvement, which they say can hinder a student’s progress. To the extent that has been true, others say it wrongly has been attributed to lack of parental interest.

“I can tell you the reason right now,” Cecelia Perez said when I raised the issue. “They’re working double jobs, double shifts.”

Perez, a stay-at-home mom with twins in the first grade at Wilson Elementary School in Santa Ana, is one of the leaders of the Santa Ana grass-roots organization that has helped mobilize inner-city parents.

She and others also cite a Mexican culture in which parents trust teachers to handle school-related matters as contributing to a hands-off approach when immigrants settle in America. Add to that an immigrant’s difficulties with English and a tendency to be intimidated by school officials, and you have a formula for noninvolvement. And some school officials simply haven’t made the parents feel welcome when they do get involved.

As complex as the issue is, the meeting Thursday wasn’t called to solve it. Completed in a snappy 90 minutes, it was called to suggest to school district officials that a new day has dawned.

Only a few parents spoke. School officials, including Supt. Al Mijares, kept their remarks short. No vote was taken, no blame cast, no grandstanding allowed.

The next day, I asked St. Joseph’s pastor, Christopher Smith, if the meeting signaled an evolutionary step for Santa Ana’s immigrant population.

“I’m not sure I’d call it natural evolution,” he said. “I think it happens when there are people working with them and encouraging them to participate. And when they see, slowly but surely, that their voice makes a difference, that encourages more and more participation.”

I’m still not certain of exactly what I saw at St. Joe’s.

But from my seat, it sure looked like yet another immigrant group connecting the dots between pursuing education and the American dream.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Readers may reach Parsons by calling (714) 966-7821 or by writing to him at The Times’ Orange County edition, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626, or by e-mail to dana.parsons@latimes.com.