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Institute helping immigrants adjust
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English Language Institute coordinator Lynn Greene speaks with international students, from left, Elizaveta Sadovnikova, from Russia; Amer Jaroo, from Iraq; Hiwa Hamid, from Iraq; Mansour Alsubaia, from Saudi Arabia while in the lower level of Youngstown State University’s Maag Library. Tunisian-born Wissam Abid, standing in striped shirt, provides English lessons. Along with the English Center, at 1806 Market St., Youngstown’s new immigrants rely on the two centers to sharpen their English skills.
ELI at YSU students
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Youngstown
Hiwa Amid was only 3 when the Kurdish Revolution in Iraq began and knows of it only through stories passed down to him.
“I have heard a lot of it from family, from relatives and other Kurdish people,” Amid said. “It was pretty bad during that time.”
Now 23, the shy civil engineering grad student at Youngstown State University is learning English at the English Language Institute.
His instructor, Tunisian-born Wissam Abid, teaches English lessons to Amid and several other students from places such as Saudi Arabia and Russia.
The classrooms are a microcosm of the wave of new immigrants coming to Youngstown since the 1980s made up of mostly Middle Eastern, Asian, Latin American and African people.
According to U.S. Census data collected by Rosemary D’Apolito, a sociology professor at YSU, those who immigrated in the last decade to the Valley increased from 1,442 to 2,358 between the 1990 and 2000 census.
Before the 1980s, the responsibility of assimilating and teaching English to the mostly Eastern European immigrants fell to the International Institute.
When funding to the institution stopped with the slowing of immigration to the Valley, it closed in 1985. Now, the new immigrants are turning to the Valley’s two learning centers: the ELI, at 1 University Plaza, and the English Center at 1806 Market St.
“One thing we say is that religion and politics stay out of the classroom,” said Leslie Kiske, co-founder of the English Center with Bobbi Grinstein.
The English Center is the last remnant of the International Institute in Youngstown, solely for teaching the language. They have seen in increase of immigrants registering for classes since it first opened in 1985.
“We have coffee breaks like you’ve never seen,” said Kiske.
Members from the 2010-2011 classes came from 33 different countries, including 29 from the Middle East and 39 from Hispanic countries. Both Kiske and Grinstein described classmates from around the world intermingling and trying to speak English to one another.
“We are finding more and more they are trying to speak English to their new friends,” Kiske said. “This is something we didn’t see at the old institute. They seem to be reaching out to one another.”
The same environment exists in a more de facto way at the ELI. The students take trips together to places like Cedar Point.
D’Apolito’s study found this integration of ethnicity to be common among new immigrants who, instead of moving into ethnic enclaves, are dispersing mostly into the Youngstown suburbs.
She said before, they would move to neighborhoods where people had similar cultures and spoke the same language. But today, there isn’t a push to assimilate and many come to America already with a grasp of English, whether strong or weak.
When the International Institute first started at the beginning of the 20th century, it was to assimilate a growing group of unrestful immigrants working in various industries, said Sherry Linkon, co-director of the Center for Working Class Studies. In Youngstown, demand for steel increased globally while the country put in place tighter immigration rules. This created longer shifts for workers. “Workers began to fight back,” Linkon said.
The country recognized a need to assimilate recent immigrants and created the International Institute in various industrial cities around the country.
“One thing the International Institute did well was helping them stay and do well without erasing the culture they came from,” Linkon said.
When the steel industry in Youngstown slowed in the 1970s, immigration stalled and the institute closed, Kiske said.
Funded partly by Youngstown schools and the International Institute Foundation, the English Center picked up where the institute left off with a class of 32 students in 1985 at the Fireline Inc. building, 300 Andrews Ave., to the 134 it taught last year at its current Market Street location.