The Delinquent Child and the Home
Chapter 3: The Child of the Immigrant: The Problem of Adjustment
Sophonisba Breckinridge and Edith Abbott
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THE first impression made upon the observer by the children who appear before the bar of the court is that of their foreign appearance, the un-American air of the mother and father who accompany them, and the strangeness to them of all their surroundings. The children may speak English, but some members of the group usually require the services of an interpreter; and the lack of intelligence with which they receive much of what is said by the judge, probation officers, and witnesses, adds to their apparent helplessness. This suggestion of foreign manners and of strangeness is not surprising when we recall the fact that in the population of Chicago more than 36 different nationalities are represented; that there are, in round numbers, more than 500,000 foreign born inhabitants and more than 700,000 who are the children of foreign born parents. In contrast with this large foreign element, there are only about 350,000 white Americans "native born of native parents," a small group to dominate in collective experience and institutional purpose.
The foreign born residents of Chicago and of other large cities of the country tend to segregate themselves in separate national groups where, in churches and schools, and in social, fraternal, and national organizations, the speech, the ideals, and to some extent the manner of life of the mother country are zealously preserved and guarded. In these large foreign colonies, which lead a more or less isolated group life, there is therefore a problem of adaptation both difficult and complex; a problem which is especially perplexing in connection with the proper discipline of the American born children. For it should be kept in mind that the
(56) institutions of the city are those developed by American experience in the working out of American ideals. The city government may rest for support upon the vote of the German, Irish, or Scandinavian colonies; but the city government is not German, Irish, or Scandinavian. The children and their parents may speak Polish, Hungarian, Russian, or Yiddish; but these same children are to be trained for a civic life that has grown out of American experience and Anglo-Saxon tradition, and for an industrial life based on new world ideas of industrial organization and commercial justice. The churches in the foreign neighborhoods, as a means of self-preservation, may attempt to maintain the national language through the parochial schools; but the child who leaves the parochial school must be fitted into an American community life in which the mastery of the English tongue is not merely a necessary tool but the only medium through which he may share the most valuable products of American civilization. The community may rob itself when it fails to realize and. appropriate the cultural contribution which may be made by these groups to the collective life which in the end they must help to work out; but it robs the individual child and the coming generation in a much greater degree when it fails to demand for every member of every foreign colony the opportunity of acquiring at the earliest possible moment the use of the English language and an understanding of American institutions.
Nor is the problem of separateness of life and ideals limited to the so-called foreign groups. Difference of language is an effective barrier, but difference of color is a more effective and a more permanent one. It is necessary, therefore, for many purposes, to class with the various foreign colonies the 30,000 native colored citizens of Chicago, who although they do not suffer from lack of a common language, are barred from the complete enjoyment of many so-called common rights by a prejudice which manifests itself in many and subtle ways.
There are, then, included in the population of Chicago, but excluded from much of the city's life, large national and racial groups which are maintaining a more or less independent community life, and the problem of the adjustment of these groups to American standards is of very great importance from the point
( 57) of view of the children. These children are held in a sense to a double standard; they are inevitably drawn to the American manners and customs which they meet in the school, on the street, and in the factory, while in their own homes the old European standards of life are strictly maintained. The importance of this problem of the children in the extra-American groups is indicated by the following table, which shows how large a proportion of the
| General Nativity | Parents of Delinquent Children | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Boys | Girls | Both | ||||
| Number | Percent | Number | Per Cent | Number | Per Cent | |
| American | ||||||
| White . | 1938 | 16.9 | 563 | 20.3 | 2501 | 17.6 |
| Colored (Negro) | 432 | 3.8 | 172 | 6.2 | 604 | 4.3 |
| Foreign . | 8467 | 74.2 | 1853 | 66.9 | 10,320 | 72.8 |
| Not reported | 1391 |
12.2 |
346 | 12.5 | 1737 | 12.2 |
| Total | 12,228 | 107.1 | 2934 | 105.9 | 15,162 | 106.9 |
| Counted twice [1] | 815 | 7.1 | 164 | 5.9 | 979 | 69 |
| Total | 1 1,413 | 100.0 | 2770 | 100.0 | 14,183 | 100.0 |
delinquent children of the court come from the foreign neighborhoods in which the difficult problem of adjustment is being worked out.
The word "foreign" as used in this table is obviously an inexact term, but the court records unfortunately do not give the exact data needed to determine the nativity of the parents. The lathers and mothers are merely described, for example, as Polish,
(58) German, Lithuanian, Italian, or American, and no clue is given as to whether the parents were really born in Poland or Germany, Lithuania or Italy, or whether they are American born children of immigrants from these countries, who perhaps still use the language and follow many of the customs of their parents, and who naturally speak of themselves as Polish or German instead of American. In the classification as presented in Table 11, therefore, the term American includes all who call themselves American, and does not correspond with the census classification " native born of native parents."[2] That is, it should be clearly understood that in this table compiled from the rather inaccurate data of the court records there are included among the Americans many who should be properly classed as " native born of foreign parents." This confusion is due to the fact that in the court no definite question regarding country of birth is asked, and the nationality that is entered on the records is therefore not likely to be strictly accurate and is determined largely by the language spoken. In a large number of cases, where the parents, or at any rate the grandparents of the child were born abroad, the court record is merely "American," and in many other cases the parents who are American born are called foreign because they have been brought up in foreign habits of life and speech. The fact that in so many cases no information regarding nationality is given, is further evidence of the inexactness of the court records. Parents whose nationality was not reported were probably English-speaking and not characteristically distinguished as members of any national group, and in these tables the majority of them could doubtless have been correctly grouped with the Americans. They were not so classified, however, because this might seem to add a further inaccuracy to those which already existed.
More accurate data from the family schedules eliminate this unknown factor and snow very plainly that the great majority of the foreign group were actually foreign born. These data, which are presented in Table 12, show that 392 fathers of delinquent boys were foreign born and that only 45 claimed to be native born of foreign parentage; that 389 mothers were actually foreign born while only 69 were native born of foreign parentage. If we
(59) add together the three groups "foreign born," "native born of foreign parents," and "other foreign," that is, all those who are not American, either white or colored, we have a total Of 478 fathers and 489 mothers who claimed to be either immigrants themselves or the children of immigrants. Of these, 392, or 82 per cent, of the fathers, and 389, or 79 per cent, of the mothers were immigrants. There is unfortunately an element of uncertainty even here; for in the case of 41 fathers and Of 31 mothers, we know only
| General Nativity | NUMBER OF | PER CENT OF | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Fathers | Mothers | Both | Fathers | Mothers | Both | |
| American | ||||||
| White | 81 | 72 | 153 | 13.9 | 12.3 | 13.1 |
| Colored (Negro) | 25 | 23 | 48 | 4.3 | 4.0 | 4.1 |
| Foreign born . | 392 | 389 | 78 1 | 67.1 | 66.6 | 66.9 |
| Native born, foreign parents | 45 | 69 | 114 | 7.7 | 11.8 | 9.8 |
| Other foreign[3] | 41 | 31 | 72 | 7.0 | 5.3 | 6.1 |
| Total. | 584 | 584 | 1168 | 100.0 | 100.0 | 100.0 |
that they were not called American. Many of these were cases where the father or mother was dead or had deserted. The children or the remaining parent whom the investigator saw might report the nationality as German or Polish, remembering the language the other parent had spoken, although they were not sure whether he had been born abroad or not. Sometimes both of the parents were dead and the children did not know their place of birth but remembered them as "foreign."
This table should also be studied in connection with Table
(60) 11 (page 57), which showed that the parents Of 74 per cent of the delinquent boys and of 67 per cent of the delinquent girls did not call themselves American and belonged, therefore, to a group which was called foreign. It was pointed out in the discussion following Table 11 that some of the parents who were entered as foreign may have been native born children of foreign parents, but it is probable that the majority were actually foreign born, since those who are of the second generation usually prefer to call themselves American. Table 12 indicates that this statement is undoubtedly correct, since the inquiry made in the homes showed that 8o per cent of those who did not call themselves Americans[4] were actually foreign born. This seems to be further evidence of the fact to which attention has already been called-that it is the practice of those who are in this country for the first generation, particularly those who retain foreign speech, to call themselves Polish or Italian or Lithuanian, as the case may be. Those of the second generation may be classified by the census in the group "native born of foreign parentage" but they call themselves "American."
It is of interest in connection with these tables dealing with the nativity of the parents of the children of the court, to ascertain how the proportion of parents in each of these groups compares with the proportion which each group forms of the married population in Chicago [5] A comparison of Table 12 with Table 13 indicates that the number of delinquent parents in the foreign
( 61) group is disproportionately large.[6] That is, Table 13 shows that the foreign born form 57 per cent of the married population of Chicago, while according to Table 12, at least 67 per cent of the parents of the delinquent boys of the court were foreign born, and there is
(62) reason to believe that the true percentage is above 67. This must not of course be taken to mean that children of foreign born parents are "worse" than children of native born parents; it only means that the difference in the amount and kind of protection offered to children of the foreign group brings them more easily within reach of the court. The offenses of American children may be much more flagrant than those of immigrant children, but the wrongdoing of the child of American parents is not so likely to be discovered outside of the family. The child in a crowded immi-
| General Nativity | Number | Per Cent |
|---|---|---|
| Native white, native parents | 102,582 | 18 |
| Native white, foreign parents | 129,202 | 23 |
| Foreign born white | 319.892 | 57 |
| Total colored | 12,953 [9] | 2 |
| Total | 564,629 | 100 |
-grant quarter who does wrong, quickly comes to the attention of neighbors, police, and probation officers; and his offense, though perhaps more trivial than the American child's, may involve much more serious consequences.
Not only is it true that a disproportionately large number of these parents are immigrants, but many of them are immigrants who did not come to this country when they were young, and it is obvious that the difficulty of adjustment confronting members of the foreign group is greater for those who come over comparatively late in life than for those who come over in early childhood.
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| Age at Immigration | Fathers | Mothers | Both | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Under 5 years | 4 | 5 | 9 | |||
| 5 years and under 10 years | 13 | 16 | 29 | |||
| 10 years and under 15 years | 10 | 22 | 32 | |||
| 15 years and under 20 years | 61 | Over 15 years 345 (92.7%) | 84 | Over 15 years 319 (88.1%) | 1451 | Over 15 years 664 (90.5%) |
| 20 years and under 25 years | 110 | 107 | 217 | |||
| 25 years and over | 174 | 128 | 302 | |||
| Total for whom information is given | 362 | 734 | ||||
Data in the family schedules relating to parents' age at immigration, presented in Table 14, show that out of 372 foreign born fathers and 362 foreign born mothers for whom this information was secured, 93 per cent of the fathers and 88 per cent of the mothers passed the first fifteen years of their life in the countries from which they immigrated, and that 47 per cent of the fathers and 35 per cent of the mothers did not come over until they were twenty-five.
| Number of Parents | Fathers | Mothers |
|---|---|---|
| Unable to speak, read, or write English . | 42 | 79 |
| Able to speak English but unable to read or write . | 98 | 115 |
| Able to speak and read English but unable to write | 21 | 27 |
| Able to speak, read, and write English . | . 117 | 59 |
| Total for whom information was given[11] | . 278 | 280 |
One result of this late immigration which presents an additional obstacle in the way of adjustment to American life is the . r failure to learn English. From a study of Table 15, which shows the number of parents able to speak, read, or write English, it appears that 42, or 15 per cent, of the fathers and 79, or 28 per
(64) cent, of the mothers about whom information was obtained spoke only their native tongue and knew no English at all, while a very considerable number of the others, although able to speak brokenly, could neither read nor write.
With so many cases of late immigration among the parents, it is to be expected that a considerable number of children should be themselves foreign born; but unfortunately the court records do not furnish any data on this point. Such information was obtained, however, for those boys whose families were visited by the investigators, and the schedules show that 65 out of 584 were born in Europe. The limitations implied in the fact that the child is not even of American birth can be better understood perhaps in the later discussion of the problem of the school in relation to the needs of the immigrant child. The great majority of our more recent immigrants are from countries where education is limited in scope and is still in large measure the privilege of a few;[12] and it is necessarily difficult for them to realize its importance in a country where it is both free and compulsory. It is clear, however, that there must inevitably be from time to time pathetic cases of foreign born children brought to court as delinquents who were really in every sense dependent. There is, for example, the case of two little Italian boys who were brought to court for stealing some berries from a wagon on South Water Street. One of the boys had no home and had never been in school. His parents still lived in Italy, and he had come over with an older brother, who was not a good man and took no care of him. The other boy had come over with his poverty stricken parents and was one of four children living in a miserable home. He was, however, little better off than the boy who came alone. The family had immigrated when he was ten years old, neither the father nor mother could speak English, and this boy did not go to school until he was thirteen. The father was a common laborer, usually un
(65) employed, and the family lived in one room. If these children of illiterate immigrant parents cannot be placed in school soon after their arrival in this country, the way to delinquency through dependency is sure to be open to them.
One of the most important facts to be noted with regard to the foreign group with which the court is concerned is that it is also a rural group. The most casual observation in the court room gives the impression that the parents who stand with their children before the judge are country people. And this impression is confirmed by the data in the family schedules,[13] which show that 64 per cent of the fathers and 69 per cent of the mothers of delinquent boys, whose place of residence before immigration could be learned, lived in the country or in very small towns, and that only about one-third of the parents came from what they called cities. The answers to the questions asking for the occupations of the parents before immigration threw further light upon this point. The family schedules showed the employment before immigration of 194 fathers of delinquent boys, and of these 95, or 49 per cent, had been farmers or farm laborers in the old country. And what was of equal importance as further evidence of the difficulty of adjustment, was the fact that in no single instance was any one of these men engaged in a pursuit connected with agriculture in this country.
The rural habit of thought which the immigrant brings with him naturally manifests itself in many ways. Country people
( 66) are on the whole less adaptable than city people, less flexible, and less accustomed to responding to a large variety of stimuli. New forms of neighborly relationship, new forms of property, new forms of social intercourse, are more slowly understood in their full significance.
It is clear then that in these foreign groups there are numerous influences at work which tend to delay the process of Americanization; and this delay must in many cases have serious consequences for the children of the family. The point of view of the parents with regard to much that is considered essential to the proper up bringing of the child often remains singularly un-American. For example, the immigrant child frequently suffers from the fact that the parents do not understand that the community has a right to say that children under a certain age must be kept in school. It seems, for example, unimportant to the Italian peasant, who as a gloriously paid street laborer begins to cherish a vision of prosperity, whether his little girls go to school or not. It is, on the contrary, of great importance that a sufficient dower be accumulated to get them good husbands; and to take them from school and put them to work is, therefore, only an attempt to help them accomplish this desirable end. In cases of this sort the probation officer proves an invaluable friend to the girl or boy whose parents do not understand how necessary education is to the child. Thus, one boy who came from a clean, pleasant home of eight rooms, whose father was a baker owning his house and earning a good income, was brought into court at the age of twelve for breaking into a store and stealing, and was put on probation. When he was thirteen he was confirmed and his parents thought that he ought to stop school and go to work, although they did not need the money. He was brought into court again, this time for truancy, and was again put on probation. He was paroled to one of the probation officers, and her relations with the boy were very friendly. According to the schedule, "the parents were bitter against the officer at first because she compelled the boy to go to school, but afterwards they saw that it was for the boy's own good."
Not only in the matter of compulsory education, but in many other ways, the slow Americanization of the parents reacts injuriously upon the children. Obviously, many things which are
( 67) familiar to the child in the facts of daily intercourse, in the street, or in the school, will remain unknown or unintelligible to the father and mother. It has become a commonplace that this cheap wisdom on the part of the boy or girl leads to a reversal of the usual relationship between parent and child. The child who knows English is the interpreter who makes the necessary explanations for the mother to the landlord, the grocer, the sanitary inspector, the charity visitor, and the teacher or truant officer. It is the child again who often interviews the "boss," finds the father a job, and sees him through the onerous task of " joining the union." The father and mother grow accustomed to trusting the child's version of what "they all do in America" and gradually find themselves at a great disadvantage in trying to maintain parental control. The child develops a sense of superiority towards the parent and a resulting disregard of those parental warnings which, although they are not based on American experience, rest on common notions of right and wrong, and would, if heeded, safeguard the child. In the case of a little Italian boy who was first brought into court at the age of nine and has developed into a persistent "repeater," appearing there fairly regularly once a year ever since, the child was described as undersized and underfed, without care or discipline. The record, however, also shows that the mother, a home "finisher" who had been deserted by her husband, could speak no English and was very dependent on the boy, who in turn was "very bossy" with her although he gave her all his wages.
It is clear that family friction often results from the difference in understanding between the foreign parent and the American child, and that many times the waywardness of the child grows out of such misunderstandings. A little Russian boy, who also developed into a repeater, was first brought to court because he had stolen a dollar from his father's vest, and his father said that he had stolen other small sums at different times. The comments made in his case were that the family did not understand the boy and taunted him with having been arrested. It is of interest, however, that according to the record "the mother speaks very little English and thinks that in America boys want to be men too soon, and that the parents ought to control them until they get to be twenty years old."
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Often the parent, because he has failed to understand his new surroundings and has been unable to adjust himself, cannot appreciate fully the perils that surround his child or adequately protect him from such as are apprehended. To understand the circumstances which are bringing many of these children into court, to see things if possible as they see them, there should be especially kept in mind the fact that it is difficult for peasants from Southern Europe to adjust their rustic standards to the conditions of life in the tenement quarters of one of our great cities.
For these immigrants who have not yet parted with their European habits of thought and life, there must be special difficulty in appreciating different forms of property where conditions are in some respects analogous to those prevailing in the old country. There, in a rural district, when a wagonload of farm produce passes by and drops vegetables or fruit or grain, the articles left along the road are abandoned, and the road being public, no trespass is committed by one who goes along and picks them up. Or, after the harvesters have gone over the field, if the peasants go along to glean, they are welcome to what they gather. There was, too, in the older days, the common of estovers, or right to take the wood from the lord's land for repair or fuel.
It is, therefore, obviously difficult for these children or their parents to understand why the sweepings from the empty freight cars should not be appropriated to feed the chickens or pigeons at home; or why coal dropped from uncovered cars should not be carried home. On the railroad tracks, however, trespass is committed by anyone who goes upon them for purposes not connected with the business of the company; and if a boy or a number of boys, in the absence of all facilities for play, find there not only the desired space, but the excitement growing out of the sense of being on forbidden territory, they are not only endangering their lives and limbs, but committing a legal wrong, even if the nature of it is not clear to them.
Coal left on sidings in uncovered cars, grain left to be unloaded, unguarded cars loaded with valuable freight left where groups of little boys can readily gain access to them, make depredations easy. By such means a constant and often irresistible temptation is offered to these simple people, who are pressed with
(69) need, unintelligent as to their new surroundings, and confused with the problems of a crowded neighborhood through which, or in the midst of which, the great conveyances pass or linger in tantalizing suggestion of a plenty in which the tempted may not share.
If one studies the old European peasant background of the lives of our recent immigrants, it is not difficult to understand why their children should be brought to court in disproportionately large numbers as delinquent boys and girls. If the immigrant parents in leaving the old for the strangely new home have not come to new standards of right and wrong, they have come to such new conditions of life and work, to such new relationships, that confusion of the old standards may easily result. Even the old simple virtues seem to lead to disaster; thrift often means sacrificing the children's education, and parental discipline after the European fashion alienates the affection of the Americanized child.
It is, of course, never possible to say to what extent the child's experience may bear on his delinquency, but when the parents are thus unable to adjust themselves to their surroundings, when the child becomes a precocious and an unnatural family interpreter or spokesman, and the normal restraints are in large measure removed, the child has no instructor, no guide, no guardian in the intricate relationships thrust upon him.
The appearance in court, which often seems to be his misfortune, may not infrequently be the child's salvation if the probation officer is able to lead both the child and the family to a better understanding of what the community is at once asking of them and offering to them. The probation officer is also of special service in helping to keep the immigrant child in school. It has already been pointed out that the problem of getting the children of newly arrived immigrants into the schools is one of pressing importance. Those children especially who are near the age of fourteen, will, unless their parents or guardians are promptly made to understand the compulsory education law, lose what is perhaps their only chance of schooling, and what is certainly their best chance of initiation into American life, and their best introduction to those new conditions with which they must become familiar.
