Amelia St. School, City
January 19, 1921.
Mr. Harry M. Shafer,
Assistant Superintendent,
Los Angeles City Public Schools,
Los Angeles, California.
Dear Mr. Shafer:
My general observation has been that given anything of an equal chance, children are children, human nature is human nature, and brains are brains—whatever the mother tongue may be. Compared with our other foreign children, or with other children born in America of foreign parentage not Japanese, keeping in mind the differences in social position that exist in all classes, whatever the nationality may be, I cannot see much difference along any line between our Japanese children and our Mexicans, our French and our Italians; nor do I think any of them differ radically from what we are apt to term “American” children. Few families are many generations away from some foreign ancestors....
Our Japanese children are called brighter and more studious, sometimes, than the others. I think this is due to the fact that they have, in many cases, ambitious, educated parents who follow school work up very closely in the home. Where home restrictions are lifted, such conditions do not always prevail, any more than in cases of other neglected children. They must be studious. Discipline of American-born Japanese children is not so close in the home as it seems to be with children born in Japan and reared along Japanese lines, yet such children show much more initiative in all of their work at school. They catch the American spirit.
As summary, I would say that physically, mentally, morally, given the same chance, there does not seem to me to be a great difference among children of the different nationalities, but this difference is most readily noticed. The other nationalities do assimilate quickly, and lose, to a great extent, their parents’ national traits in short time; but it is exceedingly hard to get the same results with our Japanese children. They cling to one another, to their own ways, and to their own language, even after many years of work in public schools, where most social barriers are broken down. My personal feeling in the matter is that this condition is the result of lack of American education in the Japanese homes and lack of American touch with the Japanese mothers.
Our Home teachers are doing much to help along this line, but it is slow work, and work that takes much time, and requires great tact on part of the workers.
Most important to me is the work our public schools are doing with the Japanese girls, the mothers of tomorrow.
Yours respectfully,
Mary A. Henderson.