Hooker's Myth of the ESL student

In this essay, Chiristina-Hooker looks at three "ESL" students: Sergej from Poland, Misha from Russia, and Jane from Hong Kong.  It's not surprising that Sergej and Misha have differing thoughts on their education.  Sergej comes from a place of war in Serbia whereas Misha comes from a less (at least now) oppressive environment.  Hooker goes on for many pages talking especially to the former of the two because she notices that as a student he often writes or implies at isolation and otherness.  With the label "ESL" student he feels more isolated from the rest of the community and having to live in a New England ghetto hints at a previous reading of the boy Arturo makes fun of.  Sergej, therefore, is a strong supporter for her argument that the "ESL" and "ELL" and "1.5 generation" are often harmful to a student's identity rather than not.  Hooker also goes into a great deal about how a student "performs" their speech and writing where Sergej knows that even if he doesn't want to do the assignment or believe it what he says, he will lie anyways because his grades are on the line.
This is a good transition I think for Misha provides the opposition side giving a much brighter perspective on the ESL situation.  Misha is far more willing than Sergej tends to be in terms of doing the assignment and finds enrichment in the writing activities.  To me, I thought Misha was playing his role as the "good student," the one who pretends that he wants to learn so that he not only impresses his teacher, but those around him.  Though in some cases it may be genuine, Misha's attitude for the class appears to me at least a little made up.  However, his positive writing experience (unlike Sergej who hates to revise because he thinks it's non-sense) also stems from his good grade on the literacy autobiography.
I would now like to take a moment's reflection before into Jane's discussion with Hooker, which is basically the weigh-in on Misha because her experience coincides with Sergej.  But for a moment: I would like to briefly mention one ESL student I remember tutoring vs. an ELL student who was more like a 1.5 student.  The first, In Noh, was a Korean native and had never really learned English until later in his life.  When he first attended SMC (where it was my first time tutoring) he came to me for help.  He was not in an ESL course (even though they have an entire department) because he was stuck or rather put into English 1 by assessment.  His writing struggled in terms of grammar and other things ESPECIALLY the missing of a/an/the (all articles), which to me was a bit frustrating.  However, he quickly got over those problems as was able to pull off an A without hardly any help from me.  I heard from him later that he was having success by himself in English 2.  What is my point?  He was like Misha, someone who benefited from NOT being labeled an ESL student.
Another friend of mine, Jose, is currently a B.A. student at CSUDH.  He is a lot more like Jane (who I promise to discuss in a second) who did not enjoy the ESL label and is still to this day quite adamant about retaining his Mexican identity, but not without also being American.  He has an AMERICAN passport, and even though he struggled, he learned English.  In other words, he does not want the ESL identity because he feels isolated from the American identity he wishes to share.
And with that, let's move into Jane who has a complete fear of being called an ESL student.  It makes her feel like she's somehow different and so, like Jose, she either omits or does not wish to be known as the person who knows a second language.  I think for Jose (who was born in America, but raised back and forth in Mexico) learned Spanish and English; and for Jane who's a Hong Kong native implies that she was learning Cantonese at home, while also learning Madarin in school + English.  Indeed, the point is that both students learn English virtually simultaneously.  This means that they literally learned multiple first-languages at the same time.  Even though Jose seems to have English after Spanish, he's probably referring to his mastery or competency in the language.  So Hooker's study does make some good parallels, while ultimately suggesting that although we shouldn't change the ESL and ELL and 1.5 generations terms, we should always be aware of the different types of students attitudes towards being labeled something just as much as we are aware of their cultural diversity in the classroom.