FYI: Article RE: immigrant language learning by immigrants in FL

[sm167]

Following is an article from the Orlando Sentinel in which Dave Edwards
(from JNCL-NCLIS) commented on the adaptation of English by immigrants.

Non-English speakers find adaptation elusive
--------------------

By Kelly Brewington
Sentinel Staff Writer

July 1, 2002

Five years ago, Maria Aguilar was a bank manager in Cali, Colombia, with a
staff of 20 people and two banks in her charge. Today she's a secretary in
an Orlando doctor's office, filing patients' charts and logging appointments.

Although she earned master's degrees in business administration and finance
from a Colombian university, when the 30-year-old moved to Orlando, she was
forced to start at the opposite end of the corporate ladder.

"I've never been a secretary," she said in accented English. "I used to have
people reporting to me."

She hopes to get a management position, but that must wait until she masters
English. Spanish is the language she thinks and dreams in.

Aguilar is among the more than 420,000 residents in Central Florida's six
counties who speak a language other than English at home, according to the
2000 U.S. Census. It's a figure that has more than doubled from 194,000 in
1990.

A third of Osceola County's population speaks a language other than English
at home, and one in four people does so in Orange.

As the region became a magnet for immigrants and other non-English speakers
in the 1990s, Central Florida grew increasingly multilingual. In Orange
County, students speak 150 languages, and adults are flooding English
classes faster than the courses can meet the demand.

While newcomers strive to command their new language, ethnic enclaves have
emerged in Central Florida neighborhoods where people go about their daily
lives rarely using English.

In neighborhoods such as Oak Ridge in southwest Orlando, a kaleidoscope of
nationalities gathers at Le Mana Bakery, where employees take orders in
Spanish and English, while customers dine on Caribbean food and chat in
Creole and Portuguese.

Even so, demographers don't expect Central Florida to be the next Miami or
New York, with its entrenched ethnic neighborhoods. Central Florida's
communities are diverse and spread across the region -- and blending in
appears a common goal, experts say.

"I think that the linguistic isolation happens when there is a big
concentration of an ethnic group or when a new immigrant group arrives in a
small community in North Carolina or Kansas. Orlando is really a melting-pot
city," said William Frey, a University of Michigan demographer. "It's a
growing area. People are moving there to improve their lives and move up the
ladder. For a lot of those places, they are looking to assimilate."

As more languages are spoken in Central Florida's neighborhoods, the
debate                                      rages about whether non-English
speakers should hold on to their mother tongues or learn English and speak
it exclusively.

No shortage of eagerness

Arriving after a full day of work, a dozen students including Aguilar huddle
over English workbooks in a classroom at Valencia Community College. In
speech tinged with accents varying from Spanish and Portuguese to Italian
and French, they pepper the instructor with questions on spelling and word
meaning.

"What did you call that piece of paper -- a handout?" asks one.

Linguists say it takes at least five years to master English, but Aguilar
and her classmates don't want to wait that long. Many hope to be fluent by
the end of the 10-week course and often challenge the class instructor to
increase the workload.

"Sometimes you want to say things, but the words don't come out right," said
Najia Elmansori, 23, a hostess at a hotel restaurant on International Drive,
who studied marketing in her native Fez, Morocco.

The response to a new language-learning program at Valencia's Center for
Global Languages was so great that department officials couldn't return the
more than 1,000 calls about the new courses.

"You often hear people say, 'I don't understand why they don't all speak
English,' " said Beth Larson, who heads Seminole Community College's English
for Speakers of Other Languages department. "Well, I know a lot of them who
are trying every day."

Others insist on learning English while passing along their native language
to their children to preserve their culture. In certain Central Florida
communities, Spanish, Creole or Vietnamese are the languages of business
transactions, homeowners-association meetings and even children asking for
their allowance. Some may know English but choose to speak their mother
tongue among family and neighbors out of custom and familiarity.

It's a touchy and passionate issue for some who want all Americans to speak
English.

Political debate rages

"It's rude to speak a language others don't understand in front of them.
Rightly or wrongly you will think they are talking about you," said Jim
Boulet Jr., executive director of English First, a national group that
supports a federal constitutional amendment making English the official
language of government.

An English-only movement was full steam in the late 1980s, when Florida
voters approved an amendment to the state constitution making English the
state's official language. But that amendment has been largely symbolic.

"By offering services in other languages, the message is, 'Don't bother
learning English; we'll take care of you,' " Boulet said. "We are a nation
of immigrants; a common language helps bring us together."

The U.S. Constitution doesn't designate an official language, and many say
it's not needed.

It's an emotional debate that deals more with immigration and cultural
distinctions than language, said J. David Edwards, executive director of the
Joint National Committee for Languages in Washington.

"What some of these groups cite is the political problems, such as those in
Quebec, where it's a political issue and about sovereignty," he said,
referring to the French-English debate in that Canadian province. "It's not
about language but what language represents."

Jobs hinge on language

In an ever-growing global marketplace, fluency in a second language is one
of the greatest assets in nearly every employment sector, Edwards said.

"We have all these wonderful resources -- people coming into this country
speaking these languages," Edwards said. "But the school districts and the
whole government system treat these people as a problem, not a resource.
It's almost as if our policy has been, 'Come to the U.S., learn English,
lose your language, then go to college and learn it again.' "

With its patchwork of cultures, 59 percent of residents along Oak Ridge Road
in southwest Orlando speak languages other than English with their families,
the highest figure in Central Florida, according to the 2000 census. Hialeah
Gardens in Miami-Dade County has the highest percentage in the state, with
96 percent. Statewide, the average is 23 percent.

With a range of nationalities from Moroccan and Jamaican to Mexican and
Vietnamese, the Oak Ridge neighborhood is considered the most ethnically
diverse in the state.

For the area's tightknit Korean community, Oak Ridge is where residents can
find a network of stores, restaurants and churches where Korean is the
dominant language.

Jun and Sook Kang, who own Lotte Oriental Market, arrived in Florida from
South Korea 12 years ago and have struggled with the language ever since.
Their son James Kang, 28, a computer programmer, handles their bills and
translates when his parents don't feel comfortable speaking English.

"Sometimes it feels like the parental roles have been reversed," James Kang
said. "They have tried to learn, but they are older and they kind of get
used to using someone else's help like mine. And they can shop and go to
church without speaking English."

Across town in Azalea Park, the Cafeteria Latina is a local meeting place,
where a television blasts Spanish soap operas and Spanish-language
newspapers and fliers clutter the lunch counter.

Next door is a travel agent, a doctor's office and a Christian bookstore
called Libreria Espiritu Santo -- Holy Ghost Bookshop.

Azalea Park is 39 percent Hispanic, and 40 percent of the population speaks
a language other than English.

Time is of the essence

For six years, Leticia Morales, 30, who is Mexican, lived in Fresno,
Callif., where Spanish was spoken virtually everywhere.

"It was very difficult moving here," she says in English. "My brothers know
English and they help me, but for the most part I have had to teach myself."

She'd like to learn more, but between working as a cook in a restaurant off
Semoran Boulevard and caring for three school-age daughters, her spare time
is limited.

While Morales shops and socializes in a world where English is rarely
spoken, she is constantly picking up English words from her daughters.
Researchers say language proficiency increases for second- and
third-generation immigrants.

Morales struggled to put together her thoughts in English:

"I'm so proud of my daughters that they can speak both," she said. "It is
really important for them. They will have better opportunities."