Elgin High to host workshops for immigrant families

For first-generation immigrant families, the anxiety of being isolated and separated from family members, dealing with cultural shock, and navigating new laws and a new public school system can be traumatic.

Helping immigrant families develop the emotional strength to deal with such challenges and bridge the communication gap with their adopted communities is key to the success of immigrant children, said Raul Castillo, a Mexican immigrant and Spanish teacher in the World Languages Department at Elgin High School.

For the first time in its history, Elgin Area School District U-46 will host two days of workshops this weekend in Spanish to help first-generation immigrant families deal with assimilation issues. They will be held 6:30 p.m. Friday and 11 a.m. Saturday at Elgin High School, 1200 Maroon Drive.

The workshops will be led by Jesus Escalera Díaz, a psychologist from Mexico, who will provide participants tools and experiences to engage and learn to develop that emotional strength.

Of Elgin High's roughly 2,500 students, 71 percent are Latino.

"At least half of them or even more are first-generation (immigrants)," said Castillo, who reached out to Díaz after recognizing the unmet emotional needs of his students and their parents. "I know that they get depressed many times. This presentation is targeted at parents who come here as immigrants for a better life for their children. They don't get thoroughly acculturized. They don't understand the school system, local laws, traffic laws ... they don't know how to deal with these kinds of issues.

"In terms of depression, they don't feel complete because sometimes they come and they leave their brothers and sisters, mom and dad in Mexico," Castillo said. "Sometimes, they don't even have a farewell time with these people."

He added, some families may be undocumented and therefore cannot go back when family members back home are ill, which takes a toll emotionally and psychologically.

Díaz has been to the United States several times, but this is his first workshop here. He typically counsels people who get deported from this country back to Mexico, Castillo said.

Over the years, the district has offered workshops for parents focused on academics, but nothing that deals with helping improve parents' emotional health, Castillo said.

"It's not for the school only. It's for the whole school district and even for other neighboring districts," he added.

The workshops also will serve as a fundraiser to help with the expenses of an educational field trip to Mexico in June for six Elgin High students taking Spanish. The students will be visiting Mexico City and southern Mexico to see Mayan and Aztec ruins. Though admission is free, donations of $10 are welcomed.

"It can benefit not only the parents who come, but also some students for the first time," Castillo said.