Hispanic Officials Speak Out Against English Initiatives
Holly Kurtz
Hispanic elected officials attending a national conference in Denver spoke out Friday against measures to force Colorado and Arizona foreign language speakers to learn English faster. "The initiatives negate the importance of a child's native language in his / her education, and promote intolerance and the erosion of our nation's cultural and linguistic resources," reads the resolution Denver City Council member Deborah Ortega presented this week to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. The resolution drew resounding applause Friday morning at a panel discussion where educators spoke out against Proposition 227, a California measure upon which the Colorado and Arizona proposals are modeled. California schools chief Sonia Hernandez denied Proposition 227 supporters' claims that non-English speakers' test scores rose in schools where the measure was strictly enforced. Sarita Brown, executive director of the White House initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanic Americans, questioned why states would consider such measures when businesses are looking for multilingual employees. Denver businesswoman Ada Diaz Kirby, who is working to put a proposition similar to California's on this fall's Colorado ballot, agrees it is beneficial for students to learn more than one language. But first and foremost, she says, they must learn English. She uses her own life as an example. When she started sixth grade in Pueblo, she spoke only Spanish. That was in the 1960s, and there were no bilingual teachers at the school or at the orphanage where she lived. By the end of the year she was earning As and Bs - in English. "Nobody," she said. "spoke Spanish. It was a sink or swim situation. Kids are totally amazing. Kids will learn so fast." Kirby says setting aside students in Spanish-speaking programs makes them feel isolated. She says she managed to feel part of her school while preserving her Spanish fluency and Cuban values. "This initiative is not preventing them at all from taking Spanish classes to make sure they continue to develop their language skills," she said. Native Spanish-speaker Elizabeth Ramos, 21, tells a different version of a similar story. She speaks of the isolation she felt attending a Colorado school where only the janitor spoke Spanish. Her brother, she said, was classified as a special education student in first grade because he spoke no English, and her parents were advised to stop speaking Spanish at home. She said she and her brother flourished only after transferring a neighboring town with an English as a Second Language program. Now they are both A and B students at the University of North Colorado. Ramos plans to teach bilingual education. But she wonders what kind of future she might have here in Colorado. "Seeing I only have nine more months until I get my degree," she said, "that's scary." |