DICK FEAGLER: Hispanics speak up for speaking English
Usually it's the pipe-dream experts who are heard from. They have college degrees, think-tank grants and nice, cozy jobs as "spokesmen" or "fellows." The kind of jobs that keep their underarms dry, their club dues paid and their mouths never far from a microphone.
For quite a while, these spokesmen and fellows have been busy bashing the idea that, in America, English should be officially regarded as the mother tongue. This notion, they say, is racist, bigoted and anti-immigrant.
In 40 years or so, they claim, America will be such a churning mixture of diverse cultures that the so-called mother tongue will lose language custody and nobody will know the difference between Plymouth Rock and acid rock.
This may be the wave of the future. I won't be around to see it, so if it happens, you'll have to let me know. Probably the best way to reach me will be to holler down a well.
But while we are still floundering through the waves of the present, it is helpful to seek a linguistic opinion from those closest to the question. What do new Americans who can barely speak English think of English?
The Los Angeles Times polled Latino parents in Orange County and discovered that these parents took a dim view of bilingual education in grade school. Eighty-three percent of the parents polled said they wanted their children to be taught in English as soon as they started school. Only 17 percent favored having their children taught in their native language.
Alice Callaghan, an Episcopalian priest who directs a Hispanic community center, penned a piece in the New York Times the other day which sheds light on this attitude.
"With little exposure to English in the primary grades, few (children) successfully learn it later," she wrote. "Seventy poor immigrant families joined a school boycott... insisting their children be allowed out of the city's bilingual program WHICH WOULD NOT TEACH ENGLISH TO CHILDREN FROM SPANISH-SPEAKING HOMES UNTIL THEY LEARNED HOW TO READ AND WRITE IN SPANISH." (Emphasis mine.)
California, which surprisingly seems to be leading the way back toward common sense lately, is collecting signatures for a ballot initiative that could end bilingual education for most students in the state. But it's an uphill fight and Ms. Callaghan tells us why.
"One reason bilingual education is so entrenched is money," she writes. Bilingual teachers are paid extra, up to $5000-a-year. Schools and school districts receive hundreds of dollars for each child who is designated as having limited proficiency in English. About $400 million in state and federal money supports bilingual education programs. Because such money is not readily relinquished, students languish in Spanish language classes."
The Latino parents who demanded the schools teach their kids English are the linguistic experts who count. They are the real experts -- reality experts. Most of them, Callaghan tells us, work in low-paying garment district jobs, wait tables or clean offices.
They know what wave after wave of immigrant parents have always known. That the way to a better future is through the school house door. That their children will be judged based not just on what they know but on how they speak and dress and act.
The employer sits behind his desk and when the kid walks in and opens his mouth a decision is often made in seconds. The barriers of race and ethnicity can be broken or dented. But there's not much affirmative action available for somebody who can't speak clearly and understandably. And the real experts know it.
America was built by waves of people who came here wanting to be Americans. They knew that a combination of hard work, education and common sense would lead them to their goal.
The Spanish-speaking immigrants are willing to supply the hard work and the common sense. They look to America to supply the education. But they are trapped between teachers who speak only Spanish and experts who speak only nonsense.
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