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Lei Li
Alesha Gayle
0812 English class
2/24/2015
The language barrier for the immigrant

Now American is the largest immigrant country in the world. There are 11% of
American population are foreign-born individuals. In addition, every year a large
number of new immigrants to immigrate to the United States. When these new
immigrants reach the United States, and faced with an unfamiliar environment, they
will inevitably encounter some challenges and problems such as employment
difficulties, language barriers, homesickness, immigration status, financial problems,
cultural conflicts, lifestyle changes and etc. In these challenges, the language barrier is
the biggest challenge that the new immigrants need to face and solve. When people
move to a new and strange environment, many people are difficult to adapt to the new
environment, they need a lot of time to adapt and integrate the new environment . In
particular, when they move to a new environment that people speak a different
language, and they dont understand this language. You can imagine how difficult
living in this new environment. You cant understand the local people speaking, you
cant communicate with them, you even cant described the disease to doctor. In short,
the language barrier is the biggest problem that immigrants faced because it brings so
many problems for immigrants .
At first, the first immigrant populations that need to face language barriers are
children, because the language barrier is a big problem that will affect their academic
performance. Most people have the general idea that is a child becomes proficiency

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using English and can communicate like other children in formal situations that need
to spent about three to five years .There are some questions whether it takes much
longer for a child to catch up with the English that they need in the classroom. So that
is problem when they are not at the same level communicating language as their
monolingual peers, they will missing out on curriculum. The LEP students
(designated as having limited English proficiency) have the low scores and were
observed to be at the greatest risk of dropping out (Zhou 89). Also, the language
barrier affect interpersonal relationships for the immigrant children. Immigrants
children like contact with other immigrants rather than with local people because they
dont understand they speaking (Zhou 89). This restricts the communication and
exchange of migrants children and local children . It slows down the process of their
integration into the American society. In general, the language barrier is a big
challenge and problem that they need to face and deal with it.
In the second place, Language Barriers will cause the biggest problem that is
inaccurate translations on Health Care for immigrant. Language barriers can cause
dangerous conditions that doctors diagnose errors, receiving preventive services at
reduced rates; and having an increased risk of non adherence to medication. Even that
it can cause tragic consequences. In Flores article, he gives a case that language
barrier led to delayed care and preventable quadriplegia for a boy because of the
misinterpretation of a single word. In this case, A Spanish-speaking 18-year-old boy
had stumbled into his girlfriend's home, and told her he was intoxicado, and
collapsed. after the girlfriend and her mother told the nonSpanish-speaking

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paramedics this word, he took it to mean intoxicated; the intended meaning was
nauseated. The hospital will treat him as a drug overdose, after more than 36 hours,
the hospital evaluated again and given a diagnosis of intracerebral hematoma with
brain-stem compression and a subdural hematoma secondary to a ruptured artery for
the comatose patient.(230) This is real tragic consequences that language barrier
caused . According to the data, in United Stated Some 49.6 million Americans (18.7
percent of US residents) speak a language other than English at home; 22.3 million
(8.4 percent) have limited English proficiency, speaking English less than very well,
according to self-ratings( Flores 230). We can not guarantee that nobody is sick. If
these people get illness, how much this will lead to tragedy because of the language
barrier caused ? So, the language barrier is a challenge for immigrant health care.
Also, the language barrier will derive some problems. Firstly, language barrier
will cause the employment difficulties for the immigrants. Because of most of
employers dont like to employ the immigrants because the new immigrants cant do
the work that need to communicate with Foreign people. So, the immigrants just can
find some jobs that native workers can not or not want to fill. Most of these jobs are
high strength and low pay, so many immigrants also do not want to do these jobs. It
cause the immigrant has employment difficulties. On the other hand, language barrier
will cause the immigrants feel homesick. As we all know, when people move to a new
environment, they are more of less feeling homesick. The language barrier will cause
the immigrants cant understand and communicate with the native people, they will
feel the alone and they are isolated from the society. In this situation, the immigrants

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will double to feel the homesick .
In conclusion, language barrier is the is the biggest challenge for the immigrants.
it derives some problems like employment difficulties, homesickness, inaccurate
translations on Health Care and etc that are closely related to immigrants daily lives.
The language barrier not only makes trouble in immigrants lives, it also has been a
serious obstacle to integrate into the American society or new immigrants and their
children. If the immigrants want to integrate into the American society as soon as
possible, they need to face and overcome the language barrier.

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Work Site :

Flores, Glenn. "Language Barriers to Health Care in the United States." The New
England journal of medicine 355.3 (2006): 229-31.
Zhou, Min. "Growing Up American: The Challenge Confronting Immigrant Children
and Children of Immigrants." Annual Review of Sociology 23.1 (1997): 6395.