Friday, September 04, 2009
Helping new immigrants settle in
Vivian Sanchez Jones helps young immigrants adapt to and thrive in public schools.
KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times
Vivian Sanchez Jones (left) helps Cuban refugees Anisnaisi Hernandez Vazquez, 10, and her mother, Julia Vazquez, fill out paperwork to enroll Anisnaisi at Virginia Heights Elementary School in Roanoke. As a liaison for Refugee and Immigration Services, Sanchez Jones helps young immigrants adapt to their new schools.
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Most questions Vivian Sanchez Jones gets are simple: What school supplies does my daughter need? Where will the bus pick her up?
But she also gets queries such as the one from a 10-year-old Cuban refugee she registered at a Roanoke elementary school Tuesday.
Anisnaisi Hernandez Vazquez dangled her feet off a chair in Virginia Heights Elementary's main office, held a list of subjects in front of her and mumbled in Spanish: "How am I going to understand all this?"
Officially, Sanchez Jones' job with Refugee and Immigration Services is to guide newly arrived parents and their children through the intricacies of public schools. Unofficially, she and colleague Tina Moore are a gateway for families from countries such as Honduras, Nepal and Somalia to America's bureaucracies and customs.
The school liaison program served about 1,200 students during the academic year that ended in June and was funded in part by the Roanoke and Roanoke County school systems, according to the Roanoke RIS office. A walkathon is scheduled for Monday in Wasena Park to raise money for the program, which is free for the families.
"We do it because the people who come don't want to be a burden to the community," Sanchez Jones said. "They want to be a part of the community."
Sanchez Jones, herself an immigrant from the Dominican Republic, collects and translates health forms for families and takes students who may have come from a one-room schoolhouse on tours of their new classrooms, cafeterias and libraries. She also gives cultural orientations to school staffs and helps teachers reach shellshocked parents with whom communication may be difficult.
Several teachers of English as a Second Language say that thanks to Sanchez Jones, students get more from school and assimilate more quickly, and that teachers have more time to teach because they're not spending it breaking through cultural barriers.
"The school liaison is invaluable," said Barbara Carper, director of the Language Learners' Program for Roanoke schools. "Without them, many responsibilities would fall on the school division and there's no way the school division could handle that."
Outside of school, the job can get more complex. Sanchez Jones has found herself explaining that stewing beans in a lead pot is unhealthy and that learning English is necessary to finding a well-paying job.
But it all starts in school. On Tuesday, she interpreted for Anisnaisi , the 10-year-old, during a tour of the school.
As they walked out of the school, the girl said to Sanchez Jones: "I can't wait to start school."
