With reference to having the children attend the public school or the school in which all instruction is given in English, it would be less than frank to ignore the difficulty often occasioned in the past by the nationalistic and separatist Church. The society may be faced with a real dilemma here, since it desires the co-operation of the Church and is loath to weaken any ties that may help in maintaining right family life. And so, when the Church conducts the school in which the mother tongue is used, and in which English is either inadequately taught or not taught at all, the relief agency may be practically forced into a policy involving the neglect of English in the case of both mother and children.
KNOWLEDGE OF BACKGROUNDS
These have been some of the fundamental difficulties in the relationship between the case-work agency and the immigrant family. The knowledge of the Old-World background and the impressions made by the experience of emigrating that should illumine all the work of the agency, are generally lacking to the case worker. Of course there are brilliant exceptions. One district superintendent of the Boston Associated Charities, for example, whose work lies in the midst of a Sicilian neighborhood, will have no visitors who are unwilling to learn the language and to inform themselves thoroughly concerning the history and the habits of the neighbors.
Her office has been equipped so that it takes on somewhat the appearance of a living room. It is made attractive with growing plants; an Italian and an American flag are conspicuous when one enters the room; a picture of Garibaldi and photographs of Italian scenes are on the wall. Books on Italy are to be found in the office, and with the aid of an Italian postal guide the superintendent has made a card index of the home towns from which her families come. From one town in Sicily of seventeen thousand inhabitants, 108 families have come to the district office. Such an index is acquired slowly and must be used with great discretion. It is of assistance to one who understands how to use it, but it may suggest hopeless blunders to workers unfamiliar with the group.
In making plans for the care of families, leading Italians, such as physicians of excellent standing, with a practice in the district, a member of the Harvard faculty who has unusual interest in his less fortunate fellow countrymen, and others who have special knowledge along certain lines, are consulted.
One of the workers connected with the Vocational Guidance Bureau in Chicago has been trying an interesting experiment in the same direction of establishing contacts with the group among which she works. Many of the children who come to the Bureau for jobs are Polish children. She is, therefore, taking lessons in the Polish language from an editor of one of the Polish papers in the city, and through his interest has secured board and room in a home for working girls that is run by one of the Polish sisterhoods. In a month's time she has learned a vocabulary of some hundred and fifty Polish words, and has gained an insight into the Polish attitudes toward some of their problems that she considers invaluable. She found the Polish people with whom she consulted as to the best means of learning the language very much interested and anxious to be helpful in any way in their power.
It is, in fact, clear that by the interpreter, or the foreign-speaking visitor, or the American visitor who learns the foreign tongue, the language difficulty must be overcome. In the case of the foreign-born visitor it should be noted that workers coming from among the various groups encounter difficulties not encountered by the American visitor. They seem to the members of their group to enjoy very real power, and they are often expected to grant favors and to exert influence. A Polish visitor in the office of a relief society in Chicago finds it very difficult to explain to her friends why they do not always receive from her fellow workers what they ask.
In another neighborhood three Italian sisters, better educated than their neighbors, have become visitors. One works for the Catholic, one for the nonsectarian, charitable agency, and one for the social-service department of the public hospital. They seem to have a real "corner" on the aid given to applicants from their groups.
TRAINING FACILITIES NEEDED
It is clear, then, that before case-work agencies can be adequately equipped to perform these services, the supply of visitors trained as has been suggested will have to be increased, and certain bodies of material with reference to the various national groups will have to be organized and made available in convenient form, both for use in courses in colleges and schools of social work and in the offices of the societies.