High School
Bullies Target English Learners
By Carolyn Ji Jong
Goossen
Pacific News Service
Oakland, CA: Li Jiang Hui is tired of being pushed
around. The Skyline High School freshman has been
bullied ever since he stepped on campus last September.
Some would call him an easy target: he’s
short, small boned, sweet-faced and a freshman.
He is also a recent immigrant from Hong Kong who
is learning English at school, a fact that may
be making him and other English learners on campus
prime targets for bullying.
In the past three months Li has been verbally
threatened and physically harassed in the hallway;
had his pockets frisked and his bag searched in
the bathroom; and had his bus pass stolen.
“The last time, two bullies threatened me
and went through my bag in the school bathroom,
while their friend stood outside the door to make
sure no one was coming,” Li says.
There were 212 English-learner students at Skyline
last year, and 46 of them were Chinese-speaking.
Eleven of these Chinese-speaking students and
their parents came forward last month, saying
they have been repeatedly bullied. Li and his
friends were among the group.
While the targeting of English learner students
reveals the ongoing problem of bullying, the hopelessness
and frustration these students and their parents
feel exposes another reality: the lack of support
services and resources for non-English speaking
immigrant families whose children have been bullied.
Twenty-five percent of public high school students
in California are English learners, and many of
them are also in schools that don’t have
bilingual staff or specialized resources.
Bullying is not a new phenomenon. Its prevalence
in high schools has been widely reported, and
it is perceived by most to be an unfortunate yet
unavoidable part of growing up. According to the
last national analysis done on school bullying,
14 percent of high school students in the United
States report being victims of bullying.
Some experts claim, however, that this number
is much higher for Asian-American students. Isami
Arifuku, a researcher with the Asian Pacific Islander
Youth Violence Prevention Center in Oakland, says
that one out of three Asian students involved
with their organization report being bullied.
A recent report by The Coalition for Asian American
Children and Families found that harassment of
Asian-American students in schools is greatly
underreported. Due to fear and a lack of trust,
students and parents do not report bullying, especially
those students who are recent immigrants and limited
English-proficient, according to the report.
Li and his 10 bullied friends did not turn to
administrators or to their teachers at Skyline
for help. Their interaction with teachers and
counselors was very limited, and they didn’t
think it would make a difference if their teachers
knew, Li says, so they decided to turn to each
other. Together, they tried to devise ways to
avoid being bullied, but when it continued, they
eventually turned to their parents.
The teens’ parents attempted repeatedly
to have a meeting with school administrators about
the issue, but felt they were brushed aside.
Frustrated, the non-English speaking parents turned
to another Skyline parent for help, who was also
the Chinese-speaking family liaison at their children’s
former middle school. The liaison became the spokeswoman
for the Skyline parents. “They didn’t
listen to us, so I contacted the Singtao newspaper,”
says the parent, who wishes to remain anonymous.
The Chinese-language newspaper she contacted covered
the story, and administrators agreed to a meeting
the following week.
Parents and students voiced their frustration
at not having an in-language liaison to turn to
for help. They also wanted to understand why their
children were being picked on by African-American
students. Administrators decided to bring in Youth
Together, an on-campus youth advocacy group, to
help temper tensions between the Chinese students
and the African-American students who were bullying
them.
The school also suspended several bullies and
is considering expelling them.
Tommy Reed, a staff organizer with Youth Together
and a former Skyline student, cautions people
to not look at bullies and bullied students as
two separate groups. “Some of the students
who are bullying [students] on this campus were
bullied,” he says. “I was an African-American
student at this campus, I was bullied, and I had
to bully back, just to survive. People are going
to do what’s done to them.”
Abigail Sims-Evelyn, a life skills and history
teacher at Skyline, believes that the targeting
of Asian students by African-American students
has to do with a mutual lack of knowledge. “It
has a lot to do with what I call good old ignorance.
There is a disconnect,” she says.
Skyline junior Antwan Carminer, a friend of one
of the accused bullies and an admitted former
bully himself, doesn’t think the issue is
race. “It’s not about blacks robbing
Asians. It’s about money. Some people are
poor, and some are fortunate. Asians, they have
money,” he says.
Speaking little English may be the primary reason
students are targeted. “If you’re
going to rob somebody, you don’t want to
get told on,” Antwan says. “So If
they can’t speak English, and they don’t
understand, they will be targeted if they have
money.”
As a result of the disclosure by the 11 bullied
students at Skyline, changes are underway to address
the lack of resources for limited-English students
and parents, as well as the tension between different
groups of students. Youth Together is campaigning
for both a Spanish-speaking and a Cantonese-speaking
parent liaison, for more buses and adult supervisors
on the buses, and for the development of workshops
about Asian and African-American history.
Skills coach Sims-Evelyn says that students don’t
know “the history of solidarity between
African-Americans and Asians... Until we fill
in those gaps and help children understand on
that level, then we will have this kind of reactionary
behavior.”
Li, however, has only one request: that the kids
who bullied him never come back to school.
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