Thread: NY: IN PLAIN ENGLISH, HISPANICS LOSE AGAIN

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IN PLAIN ENGLISH, HISPANICS LOSE AGAIN
By Mike Levine
Times Herald-Record
January 14, 2007
Sunday, April 17, 1988 - This week, the Cochecton Town Board decided to make English the official language.

Why the Sullivan county rural outpost decided to take this action might seem puzzling. After all, only English is spoken there now.


''It was just an idea of mine, a prevention of what might come in the future,'' said board member Herman Heinle. He said that, with the passage of the English language edict, the town would not be required to print advertisements in another language.

That's funny; it isn't required to do so now.

Manuel Perez of PODER, a Hispanic advocacy group in Newburgh, doesn't think Heinle's words are hard to decode. ''People in Cochecton are saying in so many words, 'We don't want Hispanics,' '' he says.

Actually, the Cochecton decision appears straight out of the cultural paranoia of the USA English movement, a national organization that thinks our nation will be destroyed if voter registration forms are printed in Spanish.

But it's ironic that the greatest threat to the aspirations of Latinos isn't from small-town conservatives; rather, it's from a liberal educational establishment that purports to be their ally.

The culprit is bilingual education.

Bilingual education is the cornerstone of oppression against non-English speaking children.

It perpetuates a caste system in this country in which Spanish-speaking students are forced into low-wage, dead-end jobs. It fosters a cruel myth that a child doesn't have to learn English to get along in this country.

Bilingual education is different from the English as a Second Language (ESL) programs. ESL teaches English to kids new to America, while they attend English-speaking classes. That's fine.

Many new bilingual programs allow for children to be taught in two languages. Educators say this is ''an assimilation tool.''

Nice theory.

Over the past 10 years, the state has made hundreds of millions of dollars available for this type of bilingual education. New York City eats this up. It's popular outside the city as well. Where there's money, educational philosophy follows.

''The schools are happy to get the money,'' says Carole Hankin, the superintendent of Middletown schools and a critic of dual-language subject teaching.

What this has created is a system that allows Hispanic children to grow old in bilingual classes, unable to function in mainstream classes. Many never do become fluent in English. They don't hear it at home; they don't have to learn it in school.

The problem is that power in this country resides in the English language. If a child is not made to learn fluent, standard English, he can only go so far. he will not be a corporate leader or a U.S. senator. He will likely mop floors and clean toilets.

Still, the bilingual bureaucracy seeks to perpetuate itself. We now have nice-sounding puclic school programs to promote ethnic heritage to kids who can't even read a STOP sign. It's not the school's job to encourage or discourage ethnic heritage, whether it's Irish, Israeli or Puerto Rican. That's the job of family.

The school's task is to teach reading, writing and arithmetic so that all the anation's children have an opportunity to achieve their highest aspirations.

Some superintendents, like Hankin in Middletown, are rebelling against the current trends in bilingual education. They're changing the curriculum back to English as a Second Language. That's the language the student will learn in.

As borne out by the uproar over the Cochecton decision, language is always used as a tool of the powerful.

Those who would require English as a requirement to register are taking away a citizen's right to vote.

But those who don't insist Spanish-speaking kids speak English as fluently as everyone else is taking away something even more precious - a child's future.

I agree. Bilingual ed is a joke. A complete waste. The principal that hired me wanted to know what was best to help the Foreign Language Dept., mainly for hispanic students. I told him to do away with bilingual ed. Though it was a district wide program, he was not too apt to change. Very annoying!

Nice work, Sullivan county. Tackel the issue before it is a problem.

Just wanted to point out this article is confusing. Shows a 1988 date and today's date as the article being published? Not sure if they made English their language 1988 or what?

It is not bilingual ed only that causes problems but the parents who think it is their god given right to speak Spanish in public and encourage their children to do the same. When I grew up in Canada and my relatives in New York we were all taught our parent's first language and with many of us English is our second language but we were taught only to speak English in public. Every ethnic at that time taught their children that but now Hispanics teach their kids the opposite. My daughter has put up with that crap at Police Explorer meetings when they aren't being instructed. These kids are American and have no difficulty speaking English. They are just plain rude.

You are right, Swatchick. These parents lack a great deal of respect for our land. Then again, they didn't come here to respect us, they came to rob us of our tax dollars and jobs. Even some legal immigrants are pulling the same prank. It's sickening and disrespectful. It will also always make them second class citizens, at least for now.

I agree with you that legals are doing the same thing but I hear mostly Spanish here and some Kreyol due to the Hiatian population. In Sunny Isles you hear alot of Russian but that is mostly in their businesses and if they don't know you then they almost always speak English to you first. In the last several months when I hear people speaking Spanish in public my daughter and I speak Russian. It gives them a dose of their own medicine which they don't like. A woman on my floor has a Hispanic husband and he used to always speak Spanish with his friends even though she doesn't speakor understand it fluently. He had a job to do and the people there where Hiatian and spoke French. It annoyed him and he told his wife how it angered him. She told him that now you know how I feel when you speak Spanish in front of me. He has since stopped doing so.

I, for about a year, had a tough time being around spanish speakers while I was a teenager. I worked as a grocery store checker and many hispanics would come in speaking spanish. I didn't know if they were talking about me or not. I thought it was rude. Fortunately, I grew out of that phase. I still get somewhat annoyed when residents don't try, JUST TRY, to learn English. Our government, whether local, state, or federal, OR ALL, needs to step up and address this issue. English must be made the official language. These people MUST learn our language. It is far too expensive and inconvenient to not have an official language.

You got that right.

, for about a year, had a tough time being around spanish speakers while I was a teenager. I worked as a grocery store checker and many hispanics would come in speaking spanish. I didn't know if they were talking about me or not. I thought it was rude. Fortunately, I grew out of that phase

Its a phase I never grew out of I still find it rude and more than annoying. Especially, when one minute they're talking English to me until someone who speaks spanish comes along and they start talking in Spanish as if I'm invisiable. ITS RUDE!!!

You are right Cliffdid and I can't stand it. I live in Miami and will not get used to it. It is down right rude no matter what non English language it is. What sickens me even more is when they come up to me and speak it.