The social case-work agency is faced, then, with several quite
different and quite difficult problems in equipment. There is first
the question of overcoming the language difficulty. The use of the
foreign-speaking trained visitor would probably be regarded as the
best way of doing this. The supply is so inadequate that the choice
has been generally between a person speaking the language and a person
knowing something of methods of case work. And unless the visitor is a
fairly competent case worker she would probably better be used as an
interpreter and not be given responsibility or allowed to make
decisions.
The use of an interpreter gives rise to many difficulties.[73] Because
these difficulties are so universal and so important to the full use
of the opportunities lying before the case-work agency, an attempt was
made to obtain information as to the practice and as to the desires of
a number of case workers. Case-work agencies, the district
superintendents and visiting housekeepers in the United Charities, the
Jewish Aid, the Juvenile Court in Chicago, relief societies in other
cities, and the Red Cross chapters throughout the country, were
consulted.
Six of the ten districts of the United Charities had foreign-speaking
visitors. There were 14 in all--3 Italian, 8 Polish, 2 Bohemian, and 1
Hungarian. Nine of these speak other languages besides their own. All
the Jewish Aid Society visitors speak Yiddish. The Funds to Parents'
Department of the Juvenile Court has no foreign-born workers, but the
Probation Department has 3--Polish, Italian, and Bohemian.
The five Red Cross chapters answering the questionnaire--New York,
Brooklyn, Rochester, Buffalo, and Philadelphia--all employ
foreign-speaking visitors--11 Italian, 8 Polish, 8 Yiddish, and 2
Russian.
Sixty-one of the members of the American Association for Family
Welfare Work replied to questions about their methods of work and the
devices they had found successful. Twenty-eight of these were not
doing work with foreign born or were not doing work along the line
indicated. The other 33 described their work and their difficulties,
and made suggestions.
Twenty-two of the thirty-three agencies did not make use of the
foreign-language visitor, although Fall River in the case of the
French, and Topeka in the case of the Mexicans, overcame the language
barrier by the fact that their secretaries spoke the language of their
largest foreign-born group. Three others did not have foreign-born
visitors on their staff, but reported that they had foreign-born
volunteers. It is interesting to note that among the 22 cities without
foreign-language visitors there are 9 cities with over 100,000
inhabitants, and all but 2 of them have large immigrant populations.
The other 13 cities on the list are all places of less than 100,000
inhabitants, and it is probable that the case-work agencies in most of
them do not have more than one worker.
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.
Most of the agencies that have tried foreign-speaking visitors feel
that in spite of these disadvantages it is a gain to the agency to
have such visitors on the staff. This is especially true with those
agencies that have or have had visitors with educational equipment
that is comparable with that of most of their English-speaking
visitors. One agency, for example, has only one foreign-born visitor,
a Russian who speaks several languages and had a teacher's-training
course in Russia. The superintendent reports her "gratifyingly
successful in her work with foreign families."
The Charity Organization Society in another city is divided in opinion
about the foreign-born visitor. During the panic of 1914-15 they had a
Russian man who had had a good technical education at the University
of St. Petersburg, and two years in a medical school in this country.
The assistant case supervisor of that organization reports that he not
only accomplished a great deal with the unemployed men in the
district, but also helped the district workers to understand the
Russian, Slavic, Lithuanian, and Bohemian families in the district,
and "demonstrated what the possibilities might be if we could have
foreign-speaking people with requisite training and the proper spirit
to work intensively with the families." On the other hand, the
superintendent of this organization, who was not with them in 1915,
says that their experience with foreign-born case workers has not been
successful, and suggests as an alternative the instruction of American
case workers in foreign languages.
The New York society agrees that better results are obtained by having
native-born case workers learn the language of the group with which
they are to work. They have found it possible to have native-born
workers learn Italian, and have found them better workers than any
Italians they have employed who were people of less background and
training.