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.