Tollefson's Immigration Study

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TopicsLocal PurposeSociety

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Passage

Most studies of recent Southeast Asian immigrants to the United States have focused on their adjustment to life in their adopted country and on the effects of leaving their homelands. James Tollefson’s Alien Winds examines the resettlement process from a different perspective by investigating the educational programs offered in immigrant processing centers. amount and variety of documentation in making his arguments about processing centers’ educational programs.

Tollefson’s main contention is that the emphasis placed on immediate employment and on teaching the values, attitudes, and behaviors that the training personnel think will help the immigrants adjust more easily to life in the United States is often counterproductive and demoralizing. Because of concerns that the immigrants be self-supporting as soon and characteristics of their adopted country if they wish to enter fully into the national life.

Tollefson notes that the ideological nature of these educational programs has roots in the turn-of-the-century educational programs designed to assimilate European immigrants into United States society. Tollefson provides a concise history of the assimilationist movement in immigrant education, in which European immigrants were encouraged to leave behind adopt instead the principles and practices of the New World.

Tollefson ably shows that the issues demanding real attention in the educational programs for Southeast Asian immigrants are not merely employment rates and government funding, but also the assumptions underpinning the educational values in the programs. He recommends many improvements for the programs, including giving the immigrants a stronger voice in determining could be carried out, despite his own descriptions of the complicated bureaucratic nature of the programs.

What this question is testing

Local Purpose

Your task

Identify why the author included the referenced detail at that point in the passage — its function, not its content.

Common trap

Answers that merely repeat or summarize the topic of the detail instead of describing the role it plays.

Winning move

Ask what job the detail does for the paragraph, then for the passage's broader point.

Reading along? Open the full official question in LawHub — we show a fragment here and keep the reasoning in our own words.

The question

27.

The author of the passage refers to Tollefson’s descriptions of the bureaucratic nature of the immigrant educational programs in the fourth paragraph most

Answer choices

Opposite3% picked this
criticize Tollefson’s decision to combine a description of the bureaucracies with
The author is criticizing Tollefson for not combining a description of the bureaucracies with (enough) suggestions for improvement.
3%
Correct65% picked this
emphasize the author’s disappointment in Tollefson’s overly general recommendations for improvements
Why this is right
This answer does what we expect most Local Purpose answers to do -- it sounds like the bigger claim right before the detail. Unfortunately = disappointingly Tollefson doesn't offer enough concrete solutions = specific recommendations how reforms could = for improvements be carried out to the programs How does mentioning T's descriptions of complicated bureaucracies emphasize the author's disappointment with T's lack of concrete solutions? I think the idea they're going for is, "why didn't T have specific solutions if T has such specific knowledge of the inner workings", but it could also be "why didn't T have specific solutions if T enumerated specific problems with the bureaucracy?"
Skill tested: Local Purpose · how this choice captures the passage's function is the move to repeat next time.
65%
Opposite13% picked this
point out the irony of Tollefson concluding his study with suggestions for drastic changes
Tollefson doesn't conclude his study with (enough) concrete suggestions. That's the author's whole gripe in this final sentence.
13%
Out of Scope9% picked this
support a contention that Tollefson’s recommendations for improvements do not focus on the real sources
Out of Scope: not the real sources The author agrees with Tollefson's diagnosis of the problem. The beginning of the last paragraph is saying "Tollefson ably shows that [these are the issues demanding real attention". The author is only upset that Tollefson doesn't give us a clearer roadmap for what our next steps would be.
9%
Out of Scope: parallel complexity10% picked this
suggest a parallel between the complexity of the bureaucracies and the complexity
The author has never portrayed Tollefson's arguments as complex. This trap answer is doing something common on Local Purpose -- it's focused on the wording of the detail itself, rather than the bigger claim nearby.
10%

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