Thread: Hablan español at City Hall

Hablan español at City Hall

By Ari B. Bloomekatz and Francisco Vara-Orta, Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
April 14, 2008

It's Monday afternoon at City Hall, and Councilwoman Jan Perry is sneaking an hour between meetings to read a novel by Isabel Allende, the prolific Chilean writer. In the original Spanish.

"¿Almohada?" she asks her tutor in the middle of a sentence.

"Pillow," Oscar Szmuch responds.

Perry hired Szmuch a year ago. He has helped her learn Spanish well enough to converse with native speakers.

Nearly 40% of Los Angeles County residents older than age 5 speak Spanish at home -- about 3.7 million people, according to 2006 estimates by the U.S. Census Bureau. Until recently, however, only a handful of City Council members were bilingual.

Now, council President Eric Garcetti gives almost all of his news conferences bilingually. City Controller Laura Chick and City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo, who is Latino, have participated in Spanish-language immersion programs in Mexico. Perry started holding her news conferences in Spanish and English a few years ago. Her office issues most of its public documents in both languages.

Although far from fluent, Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who represents parts of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, increasingly uses Spanish in official business.

"I think people appreciate that you try," Greuel said. "My staff always reminds me to slow down. You do get nervous, particularly wanting to know that your pronunciation is correct."

The city's Spanish-speakers fully appreciate the significance of their native language's penetrating the top levels of city government. But that doesn't stop them from wincing as officials stammer over rolled double r's -- erres -- and struggle with pronunciations.

When she speaks, Perry fearlessly stumbles around, saying lo siento -- "I'm sorry" -- whenever she gets something wrong. She said she can comprehend what someone is saying but sometimes trips up in her eagerness to respond.

A few years ago, she learned one lesson the hard way in front of the television cameras.

"I remember at a press conference saying '¡Estoy muy excitada! '"Excitada, which sounds like "excited" in English, means "sexually aroused."

"Oh, my God!" Perry recalled saying afterward. "I just said that on TV!"

That was a lesson in "false friends," the term linguists use to describe words that sound the same in different languages but have different meanings. For example, the word embarazada, which sounds like "embarrassed" in English, means "pregnant."

"It only took me once to make that mistake," said Perry, 52. "If I was embarazada at my age, it would be a miracle."

On the day of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, then-City Council President Alex Padilla was in charge while Mayor James K. Hahn was in Washington, D.C.

With each police update, Padilla would call a news conference. Hoping to reach as many people as possible, he spoke in English and Spanish.

"That was one of the watershed moments," said Councilman Jose Huizar, whose district includes Boyle Heights and parts of East Los Angeles.

"I think from that point on it was even more accepted for elected officials to speak in Spanish."

A year later, the City Council hired translators for all public meetings. Latino council members increasingly held bilingual news conferences, and a greater emphasis was placed on providing council literature in multiple languages.

Padilla, now a state senator, said using Spanish is politically good for the council members, "but it's great for their constituents."

"It's not just East L.A.," Padilla said of the spread of Spanish. "It's not just California anymore. It's the rest of the nation."

But English-only proponents contend that the increasing use of Spanish in the public sphere undermines the goal of building a unified people.

"It's not healthy for a society to be divided in which a big segment does not speak the language of the majority," said K.C. McAlpin, executive director of the national language organization ProEnglish. "What has worked for this country, and what has made it the most successful multi-ethnic country in the world, has been the melting-pot idea: That you can be a full participant in American citizenship by learning our national language and assimilating."

McAlpin said cities should better fund English as a Second Language programs and praised the 30 states that have adopted "Official English" amendments to their constitutions, including California. A number of cities have also declared English as their official language, including Fillmore, Calif., Pahrump, Nev., Hazelton, Pa., Taneytown, Md., and Oak Point, Texas.

Resolutions or not, many California politicians see votes piling up among Spanish-speakers. According to the Pew Hispanic Research Center, the state's 5 million voting Latinos make up one-fourth of the nation's total Latino vote.

Thus it's no surprise that non-Latino politicians are trying to learn Spanish, said Otto Santa Ana, who researches the sociology of language at UCLA.

"There's now a real recognition," Santa Ana said, "that there's a whole other language and civilization at your doorstep."

The real challenge for politicians, said Christina Rodriguez, a professor studying immigration law and policy at New York University's School of Law, is to follow up their new language skills with substantive policies that serve their Spanish-speaking constituents.

"Once voters reach a certain point, they expect much more than just a cultural nod," Rodriguez said. "They would expect it to be backed up in an expression of interest in what the population's concerns actually are."

Greuel said her linguistic ambition is modest: to converse more freely in Spanish with native speakers. But her real concern, she said, is her 4 1/2-year-old son Thomas, whom she is trying to raise bilingually with help from her Latina child-care workers.

Each night, Greuel and Thomas learn a new Spanish word. One night it was ojos (eyes); another it was puerta (door).

On a rainy morning early this year at Nevin Elementary School just south of downtown, Perry swung by a parent-council meeting to congratulate the school for raising its academic performance index by 28 points.

The school has 800 students, about 90% of whom are Latino, and the parent-council meetings are held in Spanish, with English translation. Perry spoke in both English and Spanish, with some prepared talking points.

But the moment of truth came during a 10-minute question-and-answer session, when the councilwoman was subjected to native Spanish-speakers' fast and easy command of the language.

Felicina Villanueva, whose son and daughter both attend Nevin, complained to Perry that cars parked overnight on the street in front of the school create morning traffic headaches when parents try to drop off their kids.

"¿Adónde?" Where? Perry said.

"Alredador de la escuela." Around the school, Villanueva said.

"¿En que dÃ*a?" On what days? Perry said.

"En la mañana, todos los dias." In the morning, every day, Villanueva said.

"¿Oeste o norte de la escuela? A la derecha or izquerida?" West or north of the school's entrance? To the right or left of it? Perry said.

"Es enfrente." It's in front, Villanueva said.

"OK, I'll look into it," Perry said.

Villanueva later said she was surprised by Perry's Spanish skills.

"I think she did pretty well," Villanueva said. "It's not perfect, but it works."

Perry said she doesn't know when she'll stop her tutoring lessons, but she shakes off the idea of traveling to Latin America as her colleagues did to participate in a Spanish immersion program.

"I don't need to," she said. "I just walk into my district."

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me ... 6989.story

Just another case of a pol putting on the knee pads for votes

Perry said she doesn't know when she'll stop her tutoring lessons, but she shakes off the idea of traveling to Latin America as her colleagues did to participate in a Spanish immersion program.

"I don't need to," she said. "I just walk into my district."

Quite telling...

PATHETIC PANDERERS!!!

I speak Spanish and let me tell you it is a sexist language. For example, the word embarazada shows what the culture thinks of pregnant women. If only one man is present in a room of 1,000,000 females, they must be referred to as a group of males.
I was laughed at in Spain for not knowing if objects were male or female. There is no predicting based on function. Most vessels are female, but locks are male and keys are female! The sun is male of course, and the moon is female. I got sick of having to know these fine distinctions. (Other languages do this too). Then you have to know the "polite" conjugations of the verbs and it's disrespectful to use the "familiar." This is cumbersome to learn, especially the irregular verbs, which cover most daily life. Also, the great variety of words English uses to describe concepts like colors and emotions is not available in Spanish. As we learned from the book 1984, the availability of words defines our thoughts. I think the English language is imperfect but beautifully descriptive and it is accepted around the world for scientific discussion - why? - partially because English speakers invented many of the scientific contributions to the world and so they named them in English. Germans, Russians, Indians and many others learn English as a second language because it is the language of commerce. I would love to see Esperanto or something like it adopted by educated people so we can all speak freely to each other. But we don't have such a universal language yet, and English serves that function right now. I learned Spanish because it is the #2 language spoken in the most different countries. I didn't plan on living in any of them, and I definitely did not plan on seeking social services while there illegally.
Learn English you dimwits!!!!
Sorry for the rant. I had two cups of coffee instead of the usual one.

"I think people appreciate that you try," Greuel said.

I absolutely agree. When might we expect them to attempt English?