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To my fellow Californians, As a committed lifelong Democrat, I have always been proud to be a member of the party which cares about the lives and families of the ordinary working people of our country. As an American of Hispanic ancestry, I was especially proud in 1992, when the Clinton-Gore Campaign asked me to lead their election drive among Hispanics on the Peninsula. The 18,000 Hispanic voters which I helped turn out contributed to Bill Clinton's victory in California, and allowed my party to regain the White House after many years of Republican rule. Now, as a Hispanic and as a Democrat, I am very proud to serve as Honorary Chairman of the Peninsula's "English for the children" initiative campaign against "bilingual education." I think that I am something of an expert on "bilingual education." All my life, I have fought hard for the equal rights of Hispanic children to receive a good education in the public schools. I fought for better educational programs while I was a private citizen, while I was on the Redwood City school board, and while I was on the Redwood City Council. I helped create our local "bilingual education" program because I believed that it would be best for Hispanic. children. But now, after many years of trying, it is obvious that bilingual education just doesn't work and we must end it. There is no shame in admitting that you once supported a program which you now see doesn't work in practice. What is shameful is that so many politicians and other officials continue to support such a program year after year, even after they see that it has failed to work and that it is harmful to the future of the young children who are in it. Unless young children are taught to read and write English in our schools, they cannot do well in our society, and children who are in "bilingual" programs just don't learn to read and write well. I hope that all Democrats and Republicans in California who care about the education of young children will join me in helping to end these programs which do so much harm. Fernando Vega,
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