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My Story, for what it's Worth

Eugenia (Lunardini) Evander-Parker
May 19, 1998

For what it's worth - the following story is a testimonial as to why English should be taught English from the first day in school.

In 1923, when I started first grade at the Sarah B. Cooper school in San Francisco, I and several other youngsters, although all natives of California, spoke no English. We spoke the language of our family - some Italian, some Spanish, some French - but not one word of English. To make matters worse, same nationals could not even understand one another for each spoke a different dialect. Among the Italians, there was Tuscan, Sicilian, Genoese, Milanese, etc. etc. etc. I, for one, spoke pure Italian and knowing neither dialect or English, could not communicate with my classmates. Out of a class of about 20, 7of us youngsters were all in the same boat - an uncommunicative world and it was not a comfortable situation.

Necessity is a good teacher and ours was a good one. She was patient and kind. For us, Miss Hoagland was the most beautiful woman in the whole wide world - next to our mother. We listened to our teacher and we began to feel comfortable. We had a great need - the need to communicate with each other and in no time, two weeks I believe, we began to talk and point and play together in a language different than the one we had known from birth and as we gained confidence in this new language, we ran and played and even learned the Pledge of Allegiance. Finally we belonged and it felt good. What was so good was that we now could converse in English as well as in our mother tongue.

The moral of this very true story is that if we could learn so well back in 1923, the immigrant children of the 1990's can do it too. Let's not sell them short. We owe them the right to belong and achieve the ultimate heights of education.

Eugenia Evander-Parker (nee Lunardini)