Discussion About Discrimination in High School in the US

Introduction

An instance that I recall vividly is a debate session that was held in our school. The day chronology of events on that day is still fresh on my mind to this date. It was on a Friday morning, our English teacher came to class and announced that since it was a debate-designated day, we would take part in a debate session against a neighboring school. It was part of a program that was aimed at developing the English eloquence skills of the students. We were classified into groups and assigned different topics for each to discuss the proposal and opposing perspectives of the debate. The class patron was charged with selecting the persons to represent each group in the respective debates each with different opponents. The selection of the debaters was subject to an English vocabulary pronunciation audition that was essentially conducted on the new class members. I qualified as a new entrant in the class having arrived only three weeks prior to the subject day.

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The audition entailed the pronunciation of select English vocabulary followed by the construction of grammatically correct sentences to satisfy the threshold for the class representatives for the debate. The commencement audition was marked by ridiculing giggles among the class. I fumbled with a few complex vocabularies but the hardest to pronounce in that instance was 'tremendously'. It as one of the many words that I could not pronounce. I attributed the case to my background that is not an English-speaking society. As a result of the failure to pronounce a few words, many of which I doubt if I would have used in the debate, I was eliminated from the list of debaters to represent the class on the occasion.

Another instance of discrimination based on my broken English occurred when I was eliminated from the shortlisted students who were poised to become the class representative. It occurred two years after the debate representative elimination instance. At the school, there were various parameters that were cited in the determination of the student leaders. The first was the character of the student followed by the academic performance. In the account of the majority of the tutors bat the institution, I exemplarily behaved. Additionally, I was always among the top 20 students in the class. The other measure of the leadership capacity of the students was their willingness to contest with integrity and prove the desire to serve. I have always been respectful to authority, having gone for five semesters without a report of even the most minute mistakes that would accrue punishments. I was also willing to serve my colleague and proven the same on numerous occasions through volunteer service. However, all the contestants were subjected to a vetting process carried out by the teachers. I was one of the seven US immigrant contestants for leadership positions. Since public speaking was not one of our strongest suits, we failed the interview resoundingly. I believe it was a case of discrimination since we had satisfied all the respective criteria for the determination of leadership capacity.

Conclusion

Through my experiences in high school, I believe discrimination against individuals speaking broken English is rampant in the US. The seven of us are less than a representative sample of the victims because there are many more who are denied opportunities they deserve because of their non-English speaking backgrounds (Lippi-Green 69). It leads to denial of chances to the immigrants who qualify for them and thus, there is the need to act proactively to curb the discrimination.

Work Cited

Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an accent: Language, ideology, and discrimination in the United States. Routledge, 2012.