Something to Talk About

Some Families Push Bilingual Education

Luckily for Minsou and Mohee Strickland, they speak Korean. The children of Myung Eun Strickland had no trouble making friends and impressing shopkeepers on a trip to their mother’s native country.

“They just blended in right away,” said the Omaha woman. “And they were excited to put the language into practice.”

Myung Eun is like many immigrant parents who are retaining their native language and passing it on to their children. Although the debate continues about whether English should be the only language in the United States, bilingualism is becoming more appreciated as globalization reaches into all parts of the country. One expert, however, says it still is not as valued as it should be.

“We have an idea that in America we are only allowed to speak English,” Alvino E. Fantini said from his office at the School for International Training in Brattleboro, Vt. “It is ingrained somehow in our attitudes.”

Fantini, who grew up in an Italian immigrant family, has a Ph.D in applied linguistics, and teaches courses in bilingual multicultural education, Spanish applied linguistics, intercultural communications and language acquisition and learning.

Society and the education process, he said, don’t often support or encourage families to preserve one or both parents’ native language.

When these families lose a language, he said, their children suffer most. “Raising the child only in one language cuts them off from everything important to you,” Fantini said.

Sudanese immigrant Johnson Thach became concerned when he noticed that his and other Sudanese children spoke mostly English.

Thach, who came to Omaha in 1998, decided to reinforce their native Nuer language by developing a class for his children and other immigrants. He teaches the course at the Southern Sudan Community Association.

Thach said that while he advises all immigrants to learn to speak English well, he encourages them to not forget Nuer. “It is a part of our culture. If you are Nuer you should know the language.”

Inez Reyes wishes she would have done that with her children.

Reyes and her husband, Manuel, who live in south Omaha, are bilingual but spoke only English to their children.

Their parents immigrated to the U.S. from Mexico in the early 1900s and spoke fluent Spanish. But the only time Inez and Manuel spoke Spanish was to their parents and relatives.

“I don’t know why. It wasn’t because we were ashamed of our language,” she said.

Everyone just spoke English, said their daughter, 43-year-old Cyndy Reyes-Barrientos. “It really didn’t matter then.”

In fact, Reyes-Barrientos said, English was the dominant language in the other Hispanic households in the south Omaha neighborhood where she grew up and still lives today.

But with the growing number of new Hispanic immigrants in south Omaha, Reyes-Barrientos said, she wishes she knew how to speak Spanish. She recalled one frustrating and embarrassing incident she encountered in a Mexican grocery store.

“When I went up to the deli counter the person helping me didn’t know English,” she said. “But since I look Mexican they just started speaking in Spanish to me.”

Reyes-Barrientos is currently taking a course in Spanish at Iowa Western Community College because she wants to be able to communicate with her south Omaha neighbors.

Fantini said bilingual parents shouldn’t hesitate to speak in their native language from the day their child is born. That way they establish a bond in both cultural and linguistic terms, he said.

The only thing holding some parents back, said Fantini, is the myth that the child will become confused.

“Children who are exposed to different languages in a clear and consistent manner will demonstrate the ability to use both languages,” he said.

Eugene Elkin and his wife, Julia, speak Russian exclusively in their Papillion home.

Elkin, who immigrated with his wife and two daughters to the United States in 1992, said he knew they would learn English. But he also wanted to ensure that they would speak and understand Russian.

His daughter, Michelle, who was born shortly after the family came to America, switched with ease from Russian to English when she was only a year old, Elkin said.

“When I would pick her up from child care, she would turn to me and say something in Russian,” he said, “then she would turn to her teacher and say something in English.”



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