Los Angeles: a second language at city hall

Fri Apr 18 14:10:12 UTC 2008

In L.A., a second language at city hall

Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES - 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 percent 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 Attorney
Rocky Delgadillo, who is Hispanic, 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 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, 2001,
terrorist attacks, then-City Council President Alex Padilla was in
charge while then-Mayor Jim 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.
"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. Hispanic 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 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 Hispanics make up one-fourth of the
nation's total Hispanic vote.

Thus it's no surprise that non-Hispanic 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 4½-year-old son Thomas, whom she is trying to raise bilingually
with help from her Hispanic 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 Los Angeles, Perry swung by a parent-council meeting
to congratulate the school for raising its state standardized test
score by 28 points.

The school has 800 students, about 90 percent of whom are Hispanic,
and the parent-council meetings are held in Spanish, with English
translation. Perry spoke in 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 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.

"¿Adonde?" Where? Perry said.

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

"¿En que dia?" 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 o izquierda?" 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.azcentral.com/news/articles/2008/04/17/20080417bilingual0417-ON.html

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