Thread: Use of English touchy subject here on border

Use of English touchy subject here on border
BY BLAKE SCHMIDT, SUN STAFF WRITER

Mindy McClain has attended the same state-sponsored child-care training program for years.

But this year, when she signed up and paid her $20 fee, she was told that the program, which is funded through the Arizona Department of Economic Security, would be presented in Spanish instead of English for the first time. If she wanted to hear it in English, she would be provided with a translating device.

"I'm like, excuse me ... I don't think so," said McClain, the director of the Children's Center preschool in Yuma.

She and 10 other women demanded their money back and promised not to attend.

"I feel very offended," McClain said.

Since then, the DES has given in to pressure from McClain and a few others, and the program will be held in English, despite the fact that 85 percent of those attending will be Spanish-speaking caregivers, according to Lourdes Encinas, who helped organize the event.

"It's bad enough that with a bachelor's degree, I can't go out and get a well-paying job with benefits I'm qualified for because I don't speak Spanish in my own country," McClain said.

The use of English is not only an issue locally, but also nationally.

Last week in his visit to Yuma, President George W. Bush said one of the five components of his immigration-reform plan would be to encourage immigrants to learn English. Soon afterward, the U.S. Senate approved amendments to an immigration bill that would establish English as America's "national language," a move that has drawn criticism from parts of the Hispanic community.

Also, a group of U.S. House Republicans is pushing to drop a section of the 1965 Voting Rights Act which requires certain states and counties to provide bilingual ballots for voters.

Yuma County was one of the first counties in Arizona that was required to provide Spanish instructions at the polls under the law, according to Yuma County Elections Director Patti Madrill.

Linda Elliott-Nelson, a Spanish professor and division chair of modern languages at AWC, said it makes sense for the government to look for one "commonality" that would bring Americans together, adding that translation can be expensive.

And yet she said it is understandable why immigrants would want to hold on to their own languages.

"People identify themselves very strongly with their language," she said, adding that diversity brings an "energy" to American culture.

Flash Sharrar, the co-founder of the Yuma Patriots, a local civilian border patrol group, said those who learn English have a better opportunities, which is why English should be made the national language.

"When you go to Mexico, if you don't speak Spanish you get screwed over, don't you? Well that's what's happening when they're coming here," Sharrar said.

Yuma Mayor Larry Nelson said he thinks English should be the official language, but that people shouldn't be restricted from learning or using other languages.

"It's a good thing and it's well past time" that English was made the nation's official language, said Barb Sutton, director of the Yuma Reading Council, a literacy center that receives federal funds to give free English classes.

Sutton said there are weekslong waiting lists at the Reading Council to take English classes, but that a lack of funding for English instruction and a lack of motivation on the part of non-English speakers keeps the numbers of those taking classes way below what the need is.

"Why are there not 10,000 people in line (to take English)? Think about it. Yuma County is what, 140,000 people? How many times do you go out in the course of a day and see people that seemingly do not speak English? It just happened to me at Wal-Mart," Sutton said.

San Luis, Ariz., resident Jorge Gallegos said if the government wants everyone to learn English, it needs to provide the means for people to do it.

The problem, he said, is that many immigrants are working long hours and preoccupied with meeting basic needs and so have little time to learn English.

"Imagine the people that work in the fields ... how do they have time to learn a language?" he asked. Gallegos speaks English, but his wife Guadalupe doesn't, despite having lived in the U.S. for over two decades.

"My children still scold me for it," she said, while working in her family-owned butcher shop in San Luis.

"Practically speaking, people are going to speak the language they need to speak when they need to speak it and where they need to speak it," said County Supervisor Tony Reyes, adding that efforts to make English the national language are "more symbolic than real."

At supervisors’ meetings, Reyes speaks English. But when he is conducting business as director of Comite De Bien Estar, a nonprofit housing corporation in San Luis, he often speaks Spanish.

In San Luis and Yuma, it is not unusual for businesses to assist customers in Spanish. Classified employment ads in The Sun often ask for bilingual employees.

According to U.S. Census data, about half of Yuma County residents are Hispanic and nearly half of county residents speak a language other than English at home.

But the vice chairman of the Yuma County Republican Party, David Lara, said that while Spanish is commonly spoken in San Luis businesses, it is "just a corner" of the United States where many consumers come from south of the border.

He said English should be the official language of the United States.

Lara said as a child he used to translate for his mother, an immigrant from Mexico who did not speak English.

"But my mother never demanded that they had somebody who speaks Spanish. She always made the best effort to speak English. That stuck with me," he said.

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Blake Schmidt can be reached at bschmidt@yumasun.com or 539-6852.

http://sun.yumasun.com/artman/publi...story_24494.php
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The problem, he said, is that many immigrants are working long hours and preoccupied with meeting basic needs and so have little time to learn English.

That's a bunch of BS. I was a divorced mom, which worked full time and I went to college at night. They have plenty of time to learn English. I learned German.
Das ist nicht recht. Ich lerne Deutch aus der Schule.

That's a classic case of excuse abuse.
Dixie

"Imagine the people that work in the fields ... how do they have time to learn a language?" he asked. Gallegos speaks English, but his wife Guadalupe doesn't, despite having lived in the U.S. for over two decades.

Over twenty years and can't speak English? Just how many hours does Guadalupe work in the fields each day?

Yes siree, these people are sure trying to assimilate as quickly as possible.