For small-town America, new immigrants pose linguistic, cultural challengesOn a warm July evening in 2012, while Marshalltown, Iowa, celebrated Independence Day, three refugee children from Myanmar (Burma) drowned in the Iowa River. The drownings at Riverview Park cast a grim light on the challenges facing both the city and its newest immigrants, most of whom spoke little English and had scant understanding of life in their new home – including the perils, known to more established residents, of the river’s treacherous currents.
“We preach to kids all the time: You don’t swim in the river. You don’t play around the river,” says Kay Beach, president of the Marshalltown school board. “But they didn’t know that.”
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Society/2015/0314/For-small-town-America-new-immigrants-pose-linguistic-cultural-challenges
