Some never adopt English as second language

[Harold F. Schiffman]

Forwarded from edling at ccat.sas.upenn.edu
>>From Contra Costa Times,  Posted on Sat, Mar. 25, 2006

Some never adopt English as second language

By Nathaniel Hoffman
CONTRA COSTA TIMES

Alicia Alvarado presses two for Spanish.

Nearly everything the 44-year-old janitor needs can be had in her mother
tongue. She shops in Spanish, files police reports, talks to nurses and
teachers and voice-mail systems. For 17 years, Alvarado has lived in a
Spanish-speaking world, first in Los Angeles and now in Concord's Monument
Corridor. Her continued monolingualism stems from cultural pride, a hectic
life and the challenge of studying a foreign language. "We don't want to
lose our roots," she says. Then, she blushes and adds, "when I first moved
(to Concord), I was ashamed to attend English classes."

More than 100,000 people in Contra Costa County speak English less than
"very well," according to a 2004 Census survey. Most of them speak
Spanish, but many speak Chinese, Tagalog, Korean, Russian and French.
About 10 percent of the households in the Bay Area are considered
"linguistically isolated" with no adults speaking English proficiently.
But that does not necessarily mean they are totally isolated. Eighty
percent of the customers at the busy El Molino Tortilla Factory in Concord
are Spanish speakers, says owner Santiago Morales. Dozens of businesses up
and down Monument Boulevard cater to Spanish speaking customers. Spanish
is heard on every corner. Alvarado says she can get everything she needs
without having to speak English.

And in Chinatowns, Koreatowns and Little Italys across the Bay, a melange
of global consonants and vowels accompany their corresponding foods, art
and culture. "In this 21st century, we celebrate diversity, we recognize
diversity,"  said Assemblyman Leland Yee, D-San Francisco. "We're saying,
'you're in America, it's important to learn English, but it's also
important to preserve that culture that you came from.'" Yee said his
mother, who has lived in the United States for 50 years, would have a
richer life if she could read English newspapers and communicate better
outside of Chinatown. Yee decries the shortage of
English-as-a-second-language classes, but he also champions policies to
provide more translators and promote multiculturalism.

The seemingly contradictory message of promoting both assimilation and
multiculturalism hurts immigrants, says one researcher at the conservative
American Enterprise Institute. "I don't think it's a coherent message,"
said Jose Enrique Idler, a national research initiative fellow at the
institute. "We encourage you to become part of us, but we want to
encourage you to speak your language." Immigrants should learn English so
they can participate more in the political life of the nation, said Idler,
who was born in Venezuela.

"Unless you speak the language, at some point, you're going to hit a
ceiling," he said. Alvarado, a janitor who cleans office buildings at
night, knows about the ceilings. A few years ago, she tried to get a day
job at a senior center but was rebuffed because she couldn't speak
English. Now, her teenage son makes her change the radio station from her
cumbias to his hip hop when she picks him up from school. "When I say a
word (in English), they laugh at me," she said. Then, there was the time
she thought an English teacher was treating her son unfairly and she was
powerless to defend him.

"In that moment, I wished I could speak English because someone was
mistreating my children," she said. When Alvarado signed up for English
classes eight years ago, she was embarrassed to speak up in class and soon
dropped out. But immigrants are learning English faster than adult
education systems can handle them. "At any given time, we could probably
serve another 400 to 500 people if we had the space," said Rosemary
Slavin, ESL family literacy coordinator for Mt. Diablo Adult Education in
Concord. Within the Mt. Diablo School District last year, 4,000 adults
took the free English classes, and every session hundreds of people are
put on waiting lists.

"These are adults with very, very demanding lives," Slavin said. "They
have families, they may or may not have baby sitters, they work at several
jobs." The children of immigrants are as comfortable in English as in
their parents' tongues. "The young people, they all can speak English,"
said Joanna Huang, a clerk at Wah Hang Market in Oakland Chinatown,
another neighborhood where English is rare. The majority of older shoppers
on a weekday morning along Ninth Street throw their hands up in response
to questions from a reporter. Helen Tang, of San Leandro, was picking up
produce while her Chinese-speaking parents went to see a bilingual doctor
in Chinatown.

"They work for Chinese people, and when they go to another store where
they don't speak Chinese, they bring us with them," Tang said.
Bilingualism is increasingly important for English-speakers as well,
particularly in business. "This is the first time in America, at least in
recent years, where commerce is difficult if you are not at least
bilingual," said Molly Clark, executive director of Monument Futures, an
economic development center that mainly works with Concord's immigrant
population. Clark, who is studying Spanish, said being surrounded by many
languages poses some challenges, but it is nothing new.

"It forces us all to be a little more cosmopolitan, but it is complicated
and adds expense and makes it more difficult for people to talk to each
other." "I grew up in Ohio and there were still German speaking
communities when I grew up. And I didn't grow up in the 1860s." Places
such as the Monument Corridor and Chinatown help new immigrants settle and
adapt to life in America. "You do have these kind of permanent foreign
language enclaves," said Hans Johnson, demographer at the Public Policy
Institute of California. "Those tend to be places that tend to receive new
immigrants."

The Oakland Public Library's Asian Branch in the heart of Chinatown is the
most used library in the system. Seniors and new immigrants go there to
read Chinese papers and get help reading their bills. "There's no way to
learn English," said Victor Siu, a retired grocer who speaks Cantonese and
Spanish, but said he is too old to study English. While Spanish, Chinese
and dozens of other languages appear to be thriving in the United States,
English does not face the slightest threat, language experts agree. Still,
some residents feel threatened by the infusion of Spanish in changing
neighborhoods such as Concord's Monument Corridor.

"Why don't they speak English?" is an oft-heard refrain from people
uncomfortable with the growing Latino population. One southern California
town is considering a proposal to require business signs to be primarily
in English. A movement to make English the official language has lobbied
Congress for years. "The world is changing for them and it's hard for them
to accept those changes," said Yee, who is also a psychologist. "I
understand how these individuals feel. The reality, however, is that is
America - America was made of immigrants who came with all different
languages and customs and cultures."

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/living/science/14184957.htm