Passport to a New World

Arlington Bilingual Program Teaches Immigrants the Basics and Self-Reliance

Frozen pasta with white sauce. Ballpark fat-free franks. Entire refrigerator cases of cheese — string cheese, cheese balls, cheese in a can.

It was all a little too much, really, for Alicia Rodriguez, a 34-year-old Costa Rican immigrant who recently got her first taste of a U.S. supermarket. “We don’t have so many things in Costa Rica,” she murmured, looking at the array of products in the aisles of a Safeway supermarket in Arlington. “I feel lost.”

Escorting the newly arrived Rodriguez on her first foray into suburban grocery shopping was Luz Stroh, an Arlington County outreach worker and big sister, Girl Scout and godmother rolled into one.

Stroh is among eight Arlington bilingual outreach workers and more than 100 volunteers who help the county — historically a point of resettlement for refugees and immigrants — move newcomers into the American mainstream to become self-reliant, productive members of the community.

“We don’t want to baby-sit them,” Stroh emphasized. “This is our goal: for people to adapt quickly, to learn quickly and be on their own.”

When it began nine years ago, the Bilingual Outreach Program was the first of its kind in the country. It still is one of a few in the Washington area. Its appeal is its directness: workers such as Stroh visit newcomers in their homes, acquaint them with supermarkets and counsel them in centers set up in apartments in the housing complexes where immigrants live.

Newcomers are offered everything from basic English and computer lessons to instructions on using a garbage disposal and keeping a refrigerator clean. They also are referred to county and private agencies that can help them with food, clothing and health care.

The program is free and open to anyone, no questions asked. People hear about it from neighbors or relatives, or they are referred by local agencies. Some come from nearby suburbs. County workers said that they suspect they are, in many cases, serving undocumented immigrants but that it is not their role to police them.

At a time of increasing debate nationally over how far government should go to help immigrants, Arlington officials say their efforts will not lag.

“We are not a Prop. 187 community,” County Board Chairman Albert C. Eisenberg (D) said, referring to the California measure denying benefits to undocumented immigrants. “We are a community of all colors, sizes, shapes and languages, and we work very hard to make those differences work together.”

Beginning in the late 1970s, Arlington welcomed, first, Southeast Asian and, later, Central and South American refugees and immigrants. For many groups, it was the area’s Ellis Island.

Today, one in five Arlingtonians is foreign-born. One in four speaks a language other than English at home.

The heavy flow of immigrants has placed new burdens on the schools and social services. So Arlington officials view the outreach program, which finances its $ 265,000 annual budget with county and federal money and leverages the services of volunteers and the public and private sectors, as a good way to get bang for the taxpayer’s buck.

“If the tenant can get the heat turned on or a shower repaired, if they can deal with their landlord, then we don’t have to call community inspections to resolve the problem,” Eisenberg said.

During the last nine years, the program has served more than 50,000 people and has been copied by Falls Church and Chesterfield County, Va. Inquiries about it have come from agencies in 18 other states and the District.

Through the program, five Somalian women learned to sew, bought their own machines and are hoping to start their own businesses. Several Vietnamese families who came here with nothing more than the clothes they were wearing have bought homes. A Mexican woman has mastered computers and now is volunteering, teaching other newcomers basic computer languages.

But some people say the program, although well-intentioned, is too loosely structured and too small to have much effect. “It’s an ABC program,” said tenant organizer Willians Silva, who lives in Buckingham Village, an apartment complex with many Latino immigrants. “The community needs more professional programs, programs that give you a qualification so you can get a job.”

What’s more, he said, the apartments that serve as outreach centers are too small. “It’s only one apartment. One room can hold four, five people. They have 30 people in a room.”

These days, many new immigrants have an easier time adjusting because they lived in cities in their homelands. But 10 and 15 years ago, the refugees and immigrants arriving in Arlington often did not have the first idea of contemporary apartment living, outreach workers said.

They hung fish on trees to dry, ran the air conditioner full blast with the windows open and cooked over open fires in their living rooms. Such practices, normal in their home countries, often led to tension with landlords and residents in surrounding neighborhoods.

The county responded in 1981 with an outreach program for Southeast Asians and expanded it five years later. There now are four centers in aging apartment communities where large numbers of refugees and immigrants live: Buckingham Village, Park Warren, Harvey Hall and Arna Valley. The landlords donate use of an apartment, including utilities. In exchange, they are reassured that tenants are learning to take care of their apartments, pay rent on time and become independent.

One day last week, Stroh visited the apartment of a newly arrived Bolivian woman, pointed out the mold on the chipped bathroom wall and told her to open the window after showering and to keep the shower curtain inside the stall. She noticed eggs on the counter and suggested the woman put them inside the refrigerator. Then, she gave her a lesson in coupon clipping.

Stroh also returned with Rodriguez to the Buckingham outreach center, a few minutes from Rodriguez’s home. The two women sat and chatted awhile in the cramped main classroom, once a living room.

Rodriguez has a brother here and is studying to be a beautician. For her, the center, with its makeshift tables and mismatched chairs, is a comfort zone. “I find friendship here,” she said. “I know the teacher, I know Larry, the director. I feel good here.”

Stroh smiled. “She is one of the persons who is going to adapt fast,” she said. “All the possibilities are here for any immigrant. If they really want to do better, they can.”



Comments are closed.