Part 20 (1/2)
For the most part the foreign workers we have had have gained a certain facility in handling the general run of cases, but there is a discouraging lack of initiative or daring in their efforts. They seem to go just so far. It has seemed hard, too, to strike the happy medium in their att.i.tude toward their own people; they seem either blindly sympathetic or peculiarly indifferent. In part I feel that this is an impression they give as a result of their lack of power of self-expression, and lack of confidence in themselves--this would undoubtedly be remedied by further education.
As a result of my efforts with about ten foreign workers I have traveled a complete circle in my way of thinking. I have come back to the conclusion that we cannot get satisfactory results if we accept very much less in the way of scholastic training or life experience, than is required of other workers.
Most of the agencies that have tried foreign-speaking visitors feel that in spite of these disadvantages it is a gain to the agency to have such visitors on the staff. This is especially true with those agencies that have or have had visitors with educational equipment that is comparable with that of most of their English-speaking visitors. One agency, for example, has only one foreign-born visitor, a Russian who speaks several languages and had a teacher's-training course in Russia. The superintendent reports her ”gratifyingly successful in her work with foreign families.”
The Charity Organization Society in another city is divided in opinion about the foreign-born visitor. During the panic of 1914-15 they had a Russian man who had had a good technical education at the University of St. Petersburg, and two years in a medical school in this country.
The a.s.sistant case supervisor of that organization reports that he not only accomplished a great deal with the unemployed men in the district, but also helped the district workers to understand the Russian, Slavic, Lithuanian, and Bohemian families in the district, and ”demonstrated what the possibilities might be if we could have foreign-speaking people with requisite training and the proper spirit to work intensively with the families.” On the other hand, the superintendent of this organization, who was not with them in 1915, says that their experience with foreign-born case workers has not been successful, and suggests as an alternative the instruction of American case workers in foreign languages.
The New York society agrees that better results are obtained by having native-born case workers learn the language of the group with which they are to work. They have found it possible to have native-born workers learn Italian, and have found them better workers than any Italians they have employed who were people of less background and training.
STANDARDS OF LIVING
Secondly, there is the problem of building up in the family asking and receiving aid, domestic standards appropriate to the life in the community. This raises, first, the question of the responsibility of the case-work agency for the adjustment of the family life to such standards in household management and in child care as might be formulated on the basis of expert knowledge of community needs; secondly, the question as to ways in which such adjustment may be accomplished if the agency feels under an obligation to undertake it.
A number of the thirty-three case-work agencies which discussed this subject indicated that they thought this task one that should not be a.s.sumed by the case-work agency. Four agencies said they were doing nothing in this direction, though one of these was looking forward to the employment of a visiting housekeeper. One agency said that there was no difference in this respect between the care of native born and foreign born, and that all families were given such instruction as occasion demanded.
Seven agencies met the problem by co-operating with some of the public-health nursing organizations, especially the baby clinics, and one of the agencies said that the nurses were doing all the educational work possible. Four other agencies supplied milk and co-operated with the public-health organizations of the community and also with visiting housekeepers in the service of settlements.
Two supplied milk where it seemed necessary, and three co-operated with agencies teaching food conservation. One of these supplied interpreters, organized cla.s.ses, and helped the agent of the County Council of Defense to make contact with women in their homes. Another co-operated with a cla.s.s of college students who were making a dietary study. The third had its own organization, which taught the use of subst.i.tutes and their preparation, in war time. Its work differed from that of others in that it was not organized for war-emergency purposes and was under the control of the case-work agency.
Several agencies mentioned the fact that their visitors gave advice as the case required, and it is probable that this is done in other cities also. Such advice, of course, would not necessarily conform to the standards formulated by home economics experts, but rather to the common-sense standards of the community at large, or rather that circle of the community from which the majority of charity visitors come. The difficulties inherent in such a situation were recognized by the secretary of one society, who wrote, ”Our staff has made an effort to become somewhat familiar with dietetics, but is having difficulty with foreign families because of failures thoroughly to understand their customs and the values of the food to which they are accustomed.”
Other agencies are not so definite in their view of the problem. Thus one reports that they are not successful in their work on the diet problem because ”the Italians, Polish, and Lithuanians prefer their own food and methods of preparing it.” Another says, ”They seem to know their own tastes and _will_ do their own way mostly.”
In Chicago some of the superintendents explain their difficulties in raising housekeeping standards by characterizing the women as ”stubborn,” ”indifferent,” ”inert,” ”obstinate,” ”lazy,” ”difficult but responsible,” ”easy but s.h.i.+ftless, and not performing what they undertake.” It is only fair to state that these were usually given as contributing causes of difficulties. Most of the superintendents saw clearly that the main difficulties were in the circ.u.mstances under which the people had to live, and the defects in their own organization, which was handicapped by lack of funds and workers.
[Ill.u.s.tration: A CASE-WORK AGENCY FOUND FOUR GIRLS AND EIGHTEEN MEN BOARDING WITH THIS POLISH FAMILY IN FOUR ROOMS]
There is little that need be said about the work of these agencies as to other phases of the problem of housekeeping. Only one does anything to help the women buy more intelligently, except in the way of such spasmodic efforts as are made by visitors who have only their own practical experience to guide them. Similarly, little is done to teach buying or making of clothing except that in some instances women are urged to join cla.s.ses in sewing. One agency speaks of teaching the planning of expenditure by the use of a budget.
Most of the agencies that leave the problem of diet to the public-health nurse leave to her also the problem of cleanliness, personal hygiene, and sanitation. The majority of the agencies report, however, that their visitors are continually trying to inculcate higher standards. One agency says it is the stock subject of conversation at every visit. No agency reports any attempt to reach the women in a more systematic way than by ”preaching.” One agency only, that in Topeka, Kansas, reports anything that shows a realization of the peculiar problems of the foreign-born woman in this subject. In Topeka, American methods of laundry are taught to Mexican women in the office of the a.s.sociated Charities.
VISITING HOUSEKEEPERS
On the other hand, there are twelve agencies that approach the problem, or at least attempt to approach the problem of household management from a scientific standpoint, so that the work done shall be a serious attempt to adjust the standards of the foreign-born women to the standards formulated by the home economics experts for families ”under care.” There are several methods used in this work.
The first and most common is the employment of visiting housekeepers by the case-work agency; another is that of referring families to another agency especially organized to give instruction in the household arts, such as the Visiting Housekeepers' a.s.sociation in Detroit; a third is the one used in New York City, that of a Department of Home Economics within the organization, and still another, used in Boston, is a Dietetic Bureau.
The cities in which there are visiting housekeepers in connection with the case-work agency are Chicago, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Worcester, Fall River, Cambridge, Stamford, and Springfield, Illinois. In Brooklyn the visiting housekeepers are not employed by the case-work agencies, but are student volunteers from Pratt Inst.i.tute. The visiting housekeeper in Springfield has worked almost exclusively with English-speaking families, and the one in Worcester ”has had at different times foreign-speaking families.” In other words, in two cities with large foreign-speaking populations the visiting housekeepers only occasionally helped immigrant families to adjust their standards and methods of housekeeping to the new conditions found in this country.
The work that is expected of a visiting housekeeper has been frequently described. As it demands the combined qualifications of a case worker and a skilled worker in home economics, an attempt was made to learn the education and training of the various workers in the field. Information was available in only a few cases, but these cases seem to point to the fact that the visiting housekeeper is usually trained for one phase of her work only--either as a case worker or as a home economics expert. In either case she can be expected to give the type of service her position demands only in the field in which her interest and training lie.
Interviews with the five visiting housekeepers employed by the two largest relief agencies in Chicago in general bear out the impressions obtained from the statements of the agencies in other cities. None of those in Chicago speaks the language of the people with whom she works, though one agency is now training a young Italian girl to be a visiting housekeeper.
Most of the visiting housekeepers claimed very slight knowledge of what the diet of the family was in the old country, although they had considerable knowledge as to what was customarily eaten here. They had made very little study of the habits and tastes of their group; and although they were agreed that in most families the diet was inadequate, they had apparently not looked far for the cause.
Ignorance of food values and ways of preparing food seemed to them the chief reason; poverty, racial prejudice, and laziness might be secondary features.
Since the visiting housekeepers deal almost entirely with dependent families under the care of a relief agency, their work in helping the women provide for the clothing needs of the family is quite largely concerned with making over old clothing.
In the effort to raise the standards of cleanliness and sanitation the visiting housekeepers meet with great difficulty. One thinks the greatest difficulty is indifference on the part of the housewife and a lack of anything to which the visitor can appeal; another thinks that her greatest difficulties are that the mothers are usually overworked, that frequently they are kept worn out by having one child after another in close succession, and sometimes a woman has had to contend with a drunken husband. These cases she finds especially difficult to deal with. Some of them lay stress on the economic factor and point to the fact that most of these families are deprived of the conveniences which would make housekeeping a comparatively simple task. As one of the visiting housekeepers has said: