Thread: Beyond English

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2921232

Beyond English
A close examination of the diverse languages spoken in Salt Lake County may surprise some people
By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

First in a seven-part series

Two years ago, Evelyn Uhatafe couldn't wait to move from New Zealand to the United States.

She was ready to decorate her new bedroom, make new friends and find a new Catholic church in Salt Lake City, a place she had only heard about from family members.

Today, one of the few places where she feels "a part of something" is at her new parish because it has a monthly Mass in her native language. There, she can speak Tongan, wear her traditional Tongan outfits and be with other Tongans.

"We all feel like we're family - we're one," said Uhatafe, now 14. "It makes me feel at home."

Uhatafe is among the roughly 133,000 residents in Salt Lake County who speak a language other than English at home, according to 2000 census data compiled by the Modern Language Association. Of those people, about six in 10 speak Spanish. After Spanish, the most popular languages are German, Bosnian, Vietnamese and Pacific Islander, including Tongan.

Yiddish, Gujarathi, French Creole and Miao or Hmong are among the county's least common languages.

English is the No. 1 language spoken in all of the county's 33 ZIP code zones. But now, with a growing immigrant population over the past decade, 16 percent of the county's residents speak a language other than English around the dinner table.

If you walk some of our streets, you might not get a glimpse of the diversity of cultures and languages found throughout the county. There are many neighborhoods where it's rare to see people of color or hear a language other than English.

On the county's east side, where roughly 90 percent of the residents speak English at home, minority community centers, markets, bakeries or churches are scarce. From Draper north to Big Cottonwood Canyon, grassy lots are being turned into upscale apartment complexes, big homes and strip malls with chain stores, health food shops and Starbucks.

Yet the racial and ethnic makeup of the county is changing, with a growing number of families who don't fit into the state's stereotypical Anglo culture. Some families have been here for generations but often have been unseen because of their small numbers. But as new generations are born and more immigrants arrive, a subtle shift has taken place: More and more people who speak different languages are creating their own community hubs.

On the county's west side, there are neighborhood hangouts, from Mexican meat markets and Bosnian restaurants to Chinese grocery stores and Vietnamese cafes, where it's rare to hear English. Most people come to these spots to chat with others in their native language about their new lives and the ones they left behind. These are the places that remind them of homelands thousands of miles away.

In Salt Lake City, about 25 percent of its population speaks a language other than English at home. Spanish, German, Bosnian and Pacific Islander languages are the most common.

In ZIP codes 84104 and 84116, on the city's west side, roughly half of the residents don't speak English at home. So a neighborhood parish, St. Patrick's Catholic Church, has services for the Korean, African and Tongan communities. Uhatafe and her mother, who live about a 20-minute drive from the church, said they attend St. Patrick's mostly because of its monthly Tongan Mass, the only one in the county.

Uhatafe said she grew up speaking English mostly at school and Tongan mostly at home. But, when it comes to her faith, she prefers a priest preaching and a choir singing in Tongan.

"When they speak in Tongan, you click to what they're saying," said Uhatafe, a church altar server. "You're more into it."

Other county residents go to shops and restaurants in their neighborhood where they can find products they need, speak the language they grew up with, catch a glimpse of their homeland and share stories with strangers.


Pan dulce and Spanish

Julian Magallanes, a 27-year-old welder and single father of two sons, lives on the county's east side in Cottonwood Heights, and usually drives across town about once a week to Panaderia Flores, a small Mexican bakery tucked in a neighborhood on the corner of 900 South and 900 West.

He loves the Mexican pan dulce, sweet bread, but he also comes here for the atmosphere - Mexican music plays in the parking lot as a man sells CDs from the trunk of his car, a woman sells silver jewelry from Mexico and people hang out chatting in Spanish.

"I'm here with my own people. I feel comfortable," said Magallanes, who moved from Mexico to the United States 10 years ago. "It just feels like a little bit of home."

Olga Lopez, 31, who moved from Mexico to Salt Lake City eight years ago, likes Panaderia Flores because she knows she can find her favorite Mexican treats, such as flan and pastel de tres leches (three-milk cake) and talk to the employees in Spanish.

"They know what you want," Lopez said. "They understand you."


A Vietnamese wedding

Phuc Le, 55, said he's glad there are Vietnamese businesses, such as the two East Sea restaurants on the county's west side, that cater to his community and remind him of living in his homeland. He moved from Vietnam to the Salt Lake City area 29 years ago, but he, his wife and two grown kids still speak Vietnamese at home.

Le recently gave away his niece Ha Doan at a wedding because his brother is still in Vietnam and couldn't make it. The wedding service was at a Vietnamese Catholic church and the reception was at the East Sea Restaurant in a shopping center at 120 N. 900 West. There, more than 100 guests chatted in Vietnamese and enjoyed a nine-item dinner, including soup bong ca, fish maw soup; cang cua, crab claws; and tom sao hot dieu, honey walnut shrimp. Some women wore bright orange to royal blue ao dais, traditional Vietnamese pant suits with long-fitted blouses. Big fans roared in the background as guests sang karaoke in Vietnamese.

Le said East Sea's decorations of flower bush and peacock paintings and red and gold dragons along the walls are similar to those he might find at a restaurant in Vietnam. He said he was proud to be a part of a traditional Vietnamese wedding in Utah.

"Even if we come to a new country, we need to keep our customs," Le said. "We need to keep our roots."


Bosnian jokes

In South Salt Lake, in the central part of the county, there are a few eateries where mostly Bosnians hang out. There are more than 200 people who speak Bosnian at home around here.

People head to Bosna at 3142 S. Main St. for the strong coffee and homemade cevapi, a pita bread stuffed with sausage links, and to smoke while joking around in Bosnian, said restaurant co-owner Elvis Hadzialijagic.

"It's easier to joke in Bosnian than English," said Hadzialijagic, who moved from Bosnia to the U.S. in 1994. "Speaking Bosnian gives you an edge that you actually belong somewhere."


Gossip and smoothies

On the county's west side, more and more minority small-business owners are catering to their communities by opening places where they can get a taste of their changing culture.

In West Valley City, about one in four people speak a language other than English at home.

Spanish, Vietnamese, Chinese and Pacific Islander languages are the top languages spoken around the city.

Here, within miles, visitors can get "bobas" at a Vietnamese tapioca-drink shop, eat arepas at South American restaurants or enjoy fresh-baked bread at Bosnian bakeries.

Minh Tang, 30, said in early 2003 he opened Gossip, a tapioca-smoothie cafe, in a new strip mall at 3500 South and Redwood Road because "it's like a Vietnamese town around here." In ZIP code 84119, where Gossip is located, more than 625 people - or 1 percent of the population - speak Vietnamese at home. Tang, who moved from Vietnam to Utah when he was in middle school, said he and his Asian friends never really had a cool hangout to call their own. There were trendy coffee shops, but nowhere they felt comfortable joking around in Vietnamese.

Now, Gossip is an Asian community hot spot where teenagers to grandparents gather to talk, relax and sometimes play cards and board games while enjoying their roughly $4 "bobas," or tapioca smoothies in flavors from mango to avocado. About 70 percent of Gossip's customers are Asian, Tang said.

"They feel like they can be here and talk to us," he said.

Gossip is place where most Asians feel accepted and comfortable hanging out, said Sherry Vu, a 20-year-old college student who moved from Vietnam to Utah when she was 6.

"You see familiar faces, you see your friends here," she said with blenders and Vietnamese music roaring in the background. "Here, I can be more of myself."


South American Spanish

Nearby, at El Arepazo in Taylorsville, most customers said they visit this tiny South American restaurant with only six tables because it's one of the few places in the county where they can get a Venezuelan favorite, arepas. Similar to a sandwich, an arepa is a corn-flour fried patty stuffed with beef, chicken, pork or ham.

They also said they come here to talk to the restaurant owner and his wife in Spanish and meet other people from their part of the world, where tacos and burritos are not part of the culture.

"We can speak Spanish here and it's not weird - it's normal," said Gabriela Martinez, an 18-year-old college student who moved from Argentina to Salt Lake City four years ago.

El Arepazo, which specializes in Colombian, Venezuelan and Ecuadorian dishes, opened in March 2004 in a shopping center at 4100 South and Redwood Road. Roughly 90 percent of the restaurant's customers are Latinos, and many of them speak Spanish here, said Luis Meza, who owns El Arepazo.

For Rafael Llamozas, a 24-year-old college student, El Arepazo is a must at least twice a month to fulfill his cravings for ham and cheese arepas.

He said his visits here often remind him of growing up in Venezuela before moving to Utah seven years ago.

"It's not too fancy," Llamozas said. "It's just like being at home."
jsanchez@sltrib.com

S.L. County native languages
Of Salt Lake County's 818,213 residents 84 percent (685,701) speak English at home. Here is a breakdown of the 132,512 county residents who speak a language other than English at home.

Monday
Pan dulce is the best part of Panaderia Flores, say Latino customers. It reminds them of growing up in Mexico and family members they left behind.

Local officials say they recognize the increase of non-English speaking residents and are doing their best to accommodate them.

Tuesday
Bosna, customers say, is a place where they can smoke, drink coffee and eat cevapis while joking around in Bosnian with friends. There are also times when they reminisce about the good times before the war, before they were driven out of their homeland and moved to Utah.

Wednesday
Fish balls, dry squid and duck eggs are grocery items found at Great China Market. Customers say they come here because they can speak to the owner and read signs in Chinese and buy foods that remind them of home - halfway around the world.

Thursday
St. Patrick's Catholic Church is the only Salt Lake County parish that has services in Tongan. Here, people say they prefer to pray and sing to Otua in Tongan because they can feel it deep in their soul.

Friday
Even though they moved here from Europe decades ago, some Utahns still prefer to speak their native language. Vosen's Bread Paradise is one of a handful of places in the state where they can speak in German and find bauernbrot and bienenstich.

Saturday
Not all people who speak Spanish are Mexican or eat tacos, say customers at El Arepazo. At this South American eatery, people say they feel at home here speaking with strangers in Spanish and eating arepas and teque os, favorite foods from their homeland.

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2922771

Article Last Updated: 8/08/2005 01:49 AM


Beyond English: A little bit of Mexico
Salt Lake panaderia offers Latinos some traditional food, chance to speak Spanish
By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Second in a seven-part series
Spanish at Panaderia Flores
Store 1: 904 S. 900 West, Salt Lake City
Store 2: 1625 W. 700 North, Salt Lake City
Language: Spanish
Hours: Sunday-Saturday, 8 a.m.-10 p.m.
What to expect: A Mexican bakery
Inside: A look at some of Panaderia Flores' specialties.
Tuesday: Bosna, a Bosnian cafe


Growing up in Mexico, Santiago Flores spent most days after school making pan dulce with his father at the family's bakery, Panaderia Imperial.

More than three decades later, he's running two Mexican bakeries in Salt Lake City, and he's working on opening a third Panaderia Flores.

Flores, who moved to California as a farmworker 20 years ago, says he knows how hard it is for people to move to the United States, especially when they don't speak English. So he hopes his bakeries on the city's west side are places where Latinos feel at home, and if they're looking for work, he wants to help.

"I want to work more to have more," Flores said in Spanish. "I don't want another bakery to have more money - I want to help more people with jobs."

Flores and his employees are among the more than 75,000 people - or about 1-in-10 residents - in Salt Lake County who speak Spanish at home, according to 2000 census data compiled by the Modern Language Association.

Customers said they come to Panaderia Flores store No. 1, on the corner of 900 South and 900 West, because it reminds them of their homeland. They also come for the good customer service and their favorite Mexican treats, from flan, a custard dish, to pastel de tres leches, a cake made with three kinds of milk. They enjoy hanging out in the store's parking lot, catching up with friends they run into, and buying Spanish-music CDs from a man selling them out of his trunk. Here, they are proud of their culture and feel comfortable, not embarrassed, about speaking Spanish.

"They treat you right like friends," said Sharon Ravelo, a 22-year-old Salt Lake City resident. "This place is like Mexico. I feel good here."

Latinos make up more than 12 percent of the county's population, according to the 2000 U.S. census.

Ravelo, who moved here alone from Mexico City two months ago, found out about about the bakery through friends. She said it's where she comes to get away from the English-speaking world, which makes her feel inadequate. She recently stopped by a store in the mall to get her iPod fixed and no one could help her because no one spoke Spanish.

Ravelo, who's working full time cleaning laboratory equipment and part time at the bakery, said she's determined to learn English, so she's enrolling in classes.

"If you don't speak English, you don't feel right. You can't ask for anything," she said in Spanish. "It's important to me that they understand me."

Roughly a third of residents speak Spanish at home in Salt Lake City's west side ZIP codes 84104 and 84116, home to both bakeries.

About 90 percent of the bakeries' customers are Latinos, and most speak Spanish, says Flores.

Angelina Rivera, 54, moved from Mexico to Utah four years ago to be with her three grown children. She visits the bakery about every other day for a $6 bag of orejas, a round, flaky pastry, and cuernos, sweet croissants.

Rivera, who doesn't speak English, said she comes to the bakery because it's a neighborhood spot where she knows she can ask for something and chat with the employees in Spanish. At other stores, she often has to get her 12-year-old son to translate for her.

"Here, I don't feel scared. I feel safe," she said carrying her white paper bag of pan dulce.

At bakery No. 1, where the aroma of freshly baked cookies and bread fills the air, regular customers are greeted by their nicknames. Customers walk into the tiny blue and yellow store, grab a tray and tongs, and pick their own sweet bread, which are displayed in a glass case. They can also order a birthday cake or buy Jarritos, fruit-flavored sodas, or horchata, sweet rice milk.

Outside, Spanish music plays in the parking lot, where only a handful of cars can fit comfortably at one time.

Javier Aguilar, known as "Gordo," sells $10 DVDs, $8 CDs and $1.50 Mexican-style elote - corn on the cob with mayonnaise, butter and powdered red chile - from a plastic table in the bakery's parking lot. Sometimes, even after the bakery closes at 10 p.m., customers continue to stop by for corn and snow cones.

Aguilar, a full-time cook who moved from Mexico to Utah 10 years ago, said his stand brings in the extra cash he needs to support his wife and five kids. Plus, he enjoys being surrounded by Latinos.

"The whole world is my friend here," he said with a big smile, shaking a customer's hand. "I can talk to everyone in Spanish."

Julian Magallanes, a 27-year-old single dad of two young sons, moved from Mexico to Utah 10 years ago. He said coming to the bakery with his sons reminds him of going with his mother to his neighborhood panaderia in Mexico.

Even though his sons are half-Anglo, Magallanes says he wants to make sure they speak Spanish and carry on his Mexican traditions. So the family drives about 30 minutes about once a week for pan dulce from their Cottonwood Heights house on the county's far east side, where about 90 percent of people speak English at home.

"I want to keep them close to their culture," says Magallanes, a full-time welder. "I want them to know what their dad likes to eat and where I came from."

For Flores, it was a family tradition that helped him reach his American dream - owning a home and a business.

Flores, who dropped out of middle school to help with the family bakery, says when he moved to California in 1985, he picked grapes for $4.50 an hour for about a year and later started baking at panaderias.

"I always focused on working," he says. "I never thought about having my own business."

Then, when Flores and his family moved to Salt Lake City in 1998, he started working at a Mexican bakery and bought it five years later, making it store No. 1. He also bought a five-bedroom house on the city's northwest side.

Now, two years later, Flores has opened the second bakery, and he and his wife manage about 20 employees. Flores, who works eights hours a day, seven days a week, says he'll always bake, regardless of how many stores he opens, and he thanks his employees for making his pan dulce a success.

"I can't build my business myself," Flores said wearing a white apron and black boots dusted with flour. "I need people, my workers, to help me grow my business."
jsanchez@sltrib.com
Panaderia Flores
Some menu items:
* Sponja, concha or pan de huevo: a round piece of bread topped with a sweet crust
* Marranito: thick ginger cookie in the shape of a pig
* Pastel de tres leches: moist cake topped with fresh fruit and whipped cream
* Pastel de fresa colada: moist strawberry cake topped with fresh strawberries and whipped cream


Tuesday
Bosna, customers say, is a place where they can smoke, drink coffee and eat cevapis while joking around in Bosnian with friends. There are also times when they reminisce about the good times before the war, before they were driven out of their homeland and moved to Utah.

Wednesday
Fish balls, dry squid and duck eggs are grocery items found at Great China Market. Customers say they come here because they can speak to the owner and read signs in Chinese and buy foods that remind them of home - halfway around the world.

Thursday
St. Patrick's Catholic Church is the only Salt Lake County parish that has services in Tongan. Here, people say they prefer to pray and sing to "Otua" in Tongan because they can feel it deep in their soul.

Friday
Even though they moved here from Europe decades ago, some Utahns still prefer to speak their native language, German. Vosen's Bread Paradise is one of a handful of places in the state where they can speak in German and find bauernbrot and bienenstich.


Saturday
Not all people who speak Spanish are Mexican or eat tacos, say customers at El Arepazo. At this South American eatery, people say they feel at home here speaking with strangers in Spanish and eating arepas and teque os, favorite foods from their homeland.





http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_2922770

Article Last Updated: 8/08/2005 09:33 AM

Beyond English: Utahns, officials don't always speak the same language

By Jennifer W. Sanchez
The Salt Lake Tribune
Salt Lake Tribune

Forty-year-old Mahamud Guled can't read his electricity bill, job applications or food labels at the grocery store.

The Somalian refugee, who moved to Utah with his family less than a year ago, doesn't know much English. He speaks Maimai, an African tribal language, and depends on his 20-year-old nephew to translate for him.

"It's hard for me," Guled says through his nephew. "It's not OK to be in the United States and not know English."

Guled is one of the roughly 133,000 people - or 16 percent of the population - in Salt Lake County who speak a language other than English at home, according to 2000 census data compiled by the Modern Language Association.

Salt Lake City and County government officials say they recognize the growing number of families who don't speak English and are trying their best to accommodate them when they seek public services.

About 2,000 county residents speak an African language around the kitchen table.

Guled, a full-time hotel dishwasher, says he wants to learn English, but it's difficult for him to enroll in a class when he can't get a set work schedule. Still, he says he can follow orders from English-speaking managers - sometimes, with help from his Maimai-speaking co-workers.

"I can understand, but I can't reply," he says.

Despite the diverse number of languages spoken around the county, a state law declares English the official language of Utah. The measure was approved by voters in 2000.

Under the law, state, county and city offices are not required to provide information or hold meetings in any language other than English.

"If they choose to put it in another language, that's fine, but it's not 'official,' " says Jerrold Jensen, an assistant state attorney general.

Most of the time, residents who need information bring in a friend or family member to translate, officials say.

"We might not be able to help them right away, but we'd try very hard to find a translator," says Deeda Seed, Mayor Rocky Anderson's spokeswoman.

If a translator is needed, city workers turn to a list of 72 bilingual employees, about half of whom speak Spanish. But even though 25 percent of the city's residents don't speak English, only 2 percent of employees speak another language. In West Valley City, where about 1-in-4 people don't speak English, no one keeps track of the number of employees who are bilingual, says Aaron Crim, the city's spokesman. The city does employ one full-time Spanish translator and is trying to recruit employees who are bilingual. "It can be a challenge, but we've been able to overcome it," he says of the city's growing number of non-English speaking families. "All we can do is deal with it as it comes."

On the east side of the county, where roughly 90 percent of residents speak English at home, at least one city official says translators are not necessary.

Maridene Hancock, a spokeswoman for Draper, says the city has about 100 employees and about eight of them are bilingual, including two who speak Spanish. It's rare for city departments to need translators, but there is a growing need for Spanish translators in the court system, she says.

Law enforcement officials say the need for translating services has increased the past several years, but it hasn't affected the response time of emergency services.

Gigi Smith, a training supervisor at the Salt Lake County sheriff's dispatch office, says there are about 43 county sheriff's dispatchers and a handful of them speak another language. Three speak Spanish.

When there is an emergency, there usually is someone in the house - a child, family member or neighbor - who knows English and can translate during a 911 call, Smith says. Still, she says, law enforcement officers and an ambulance are sent to the scene immediately, regardless of whether the caller knows English.

"We already have people going out, even if we don't know what [language] it is," Smith says. "We're concerned because you never want anything to happen."

If dispatchers can't understand the language during a call, they call a telephone company's translation service, which the department has used for more than 15 years, Smith says. The county spends about $700 a month on the service, says Marita Haddan, the sheriff's dispatch manager.

Detective Kevin Joiner, a Salt Lake City Police Department spokesman, says officers rarely have problems with people who don't know English because there always is someone around who can translate.

"I've never not been able to finish a job because of a language barrier," Joiner says of his 10 years of working on the city's streets.

Officers know some Spanish because they are required to take a "street-Spanish class" as part of their basic training, Joiner says. He also says 55 - or 14 percent - of the department's roughly 400 officers are bilingual. But if the department can't find an officer that speaks the language that is needed at a scene, it uses a phone-based translation service.

For Guled, a father of seven kids, emergencies are the last thing on his mind.

He says he knows how to dial "911" for help and would probably get a friend to translate. Guled, who makes $6 an hour, says he is not worried about dealing with a language barrier during an emergency because he's got bigger concerns, such as getting a higher-paying job, finding a way to learn English and providing for his children.

"I came here to get a very good life and to get these kids very educated," he says.