Children of Color Theme : Language
Community Conversation Themes:
- Children and their families are discriminated against because of ethnic heritage, skin color or language skills.
"There was a mother in our community who went a hospital to have a baby and paid $500 for translator services that were available for free but she didn't know because the language barrier got in the way."
"We've talked about inequality in the schools -- what one kid gets because they live in certain community versus a kid in a different community being treated differently. These kids deserve the same thing, so it should be unacceptable that teacher can label a kid and say "I'm not going to help this kid because of where they live." We need to hold the schools accountable - kids can't be treated differently."
"Native Americans are "a needle in a haystack" -- nobody knows we're here -- we feel invisible. We have had local elected officials that didn't even know there was a Native population in southeastern Michigan. There are 30,000 of us in southeastern Michigan and 65% of Native Americans in Michigan live in urban settings".
"Language barrier - communicating with teachers is a challenge because they don't know the language well enough. The children suffer in return because they can't get the help at home that other kids get."
"We have hundreds of African American children that have witnessed violence in their neighborhoods that have never had counseling. The system does not recognize the needs of the African American experience in the same way that they do white society. Whites get services to deal with the issues, African Americans get penalized."
"It's a combination of language, cultural, social and economic issues. It's not that parents don't care - they don't have the tools. We have parents that are illiterate in their own tongue. Without adequate community resources to help, families can be trapped for generations."
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