TO OUR READERS

Just before we began our series on bilingual education and Proposition 227 nearly a month ago, we asked you an important question: “How did you learn English?”

The question drew on a deep wealth of experience and diversity in our community. We were truly overwhelmed by the response.

Hundreds of stories poured into the newsroom, by regular mail and e-mail, from immigrants who arrived as children in the 1920s and adults who came in the 1990s; stories about immigrants from Germany, El Salvador, China, Mexico and more than a dozen other nations.

The stories are rich with humor and often with pain. We learned how some teachers opened up your worlds to the English language and how others smacked you on the knuckles for speaking in Spanish.

Our only regret is that space allows us to print excerpts from just a handful of these amazing stories.

Thank you for sharing your stories and for participating in our dialogue on bilingual education and Prop. 227.


‘Total immersion’

I learned to speak English in the small town of Adjuntas, in Puerto Rico, over 50 years ago. It was in a small classroom with wood-slat floors, where a vibrant American named Mrs. Brink was the English teacher. This was before anyone had even heard the now-popular term “immersion.” But Mrs. Brink intuitively understood the meaning and value of immersion when it came to teaching a language to young children.

Our daily session would begin with Mrs. Brink meeting each of us at the front door of the classroom, where we had to say, “Good morning.” Too many giggles while we struggled to spit out our new language, and it was back out the door for us!

Mrs. Brink’s version of “total immersion” meant that not one word of Spanish was allowed in class. If even one word was spoken, the offending student was banished from the room, and required to stay out, until he or she felt ready to return to the classroom, and speak only English. That was “total immersion,” Mrs. Brink style.

I can now appreciate Mrs. Brink’s methods, because her insistence that we all learn and speak the English language, without the crutch of our native language, meant that I did in fact learn to read and speak English at a young age.

Cynthia Lang, Concord


Friends, TV helped

When I first came here I did not understand anything but I got help at school from two people who were very important in my learning English: Marta Urrutia and Judy Hunt — my teachers and friends. Thanks to these women, I have learned a lot.

TV helped me to learn the pronunciation of many words. By reading I could learn more and more but I think that talking, watching TV and writing in English always helped me to speak and write in English.

Aldo Renteria, Livermore


Traumatic experience

I came to the United States from the Netherlands with my parents and sister. The year was 1962, and I was 7 years old.

We moved into the housing projects. There were several immigrant families living there. As I was in the first grade, my parents enrolled me in the local Catholic school for first grade. That was when the real trauma began. My parents knew passable English, but I knew not one word. All I can remember was the isolation and confusion I felt sitting in a classroom with children and a teacher I couldn’t understand. The kids made fun of me. Even though I couldn’t understand what they were saying, I could see their faces and hear their laughter. I started to have nightmares. Terrifying nightmares where I would wake up screaming and sweating. My parents finally took me out of school.

Being out of school allowed me to be with my family, which helped me feel more secure. As time progressed I started to venture outside and explore the other children living around me. I eventually learned to speak English by being around the other children and by the end of the summer I was able to go back to school. I guess I was lucky being so young and picking up the language more easily than an adult could.

I always thought that bilingual education was wonderful. I’m sure that if I could have had some type of extra help in school to at least learn the language, it would have saved me a lot of anguish. My heart is with all the children trying to overcome the language barrier as well as the adults. Believe me, it’s not easy.

Helen Houston, Concord


Benefits and drawbacks

I am a senior at El Cerrito High School.

I came to the United States when I was 7 years old. Therefore, I was placed in a first-grade bilingual class (i.e. “ESL” ) at Dover Elementary School. I remember how difficult it was for me to start over. I had to get used to a new environment, school, people and worst of all, the language that everyone spoke except me. I would cry to my teacher Ms. Suza that I didn’t understand what people said. She spent a lot of time working with us in groups. We would sit at a table and read, read, read! Even though I didn’t know what I was reading, she taught me the ABC’s in English. I got a lot of tutoring after school. Since my teacher spoke both English and Spanish, when she was lecturing on a subject not only was I learning something new, but I was also learning English.

When I would get home, I would do the homework that was assigned by my teacher and the school’s bilingual tutor. He was great because he was very patient. He would read to us in the school library and teach us new vocabulary with flash cards.

The first three years in school were very challenging and at the same time I was so relieved that I knew that I was learning. I know that if it wasn’t for all the support from my parents and teachers, I would have gotten really depressed.

I received an English award in eighth grade. This was at Adams Middle School. That was the day when I knew that all the tutoring and help that I received in my childhood had done me well.

There is a bad side to bilingual education. I was forced to stay in an ESL program until the ninth grade. This set me back because in these bilingual classes teachers give out very easy work and it does affect one in the future, since this class is focusing in teaching you how to learn English and not teaching new material such as Shakespeare. I decided that I didn’t want to be in a sheltered class any more because I wasn’t learning any new material and I was not having any challenges. Now that I am in a regular English class, it is hard since I am so behind in new vocabulary. My grade isn’t as good as it used to be in the ESL class but at least I know that I am trying to catch up.

Adriana Cruz, Richmond


Celebrity status

I came to America from Germany, a shy and frightened 8-year-old, in 1948. My mother had been widowed at 21 when my father’s plane was shot down in 1941. I was nine months old at the time and he had seen me only twice.

My mother had remarried the year before. My new father’s home was in Provo, Utah. When I stepped off the plane, I spoke no English. Mother was still learning the language and my new father was busy with work and not available to teach me the language.

I remember my mother was very concerned how I was going to handle school and she was crying when she took me into Mrs. Jones’ classroom that first day. She needn’t have worried.

It turned out that I was a kind of celebrity because I was the only non-English-speaking child in the town. Mrs. Jones made me the class project and enlisted the class to help teach me to read and write. She labeled everything in the classroom, and she and my classmates would drill me on the words. I started at the beginning — reading the first-grade primer Dick and Jane. Back then, comic books were not the bloody, violent publications that they are today and I would read and reread “Little Lulu” and “Nancy & Sluggo” until they fell apart. But it worked. By spring, I was helping some of the slower readers in the class. Then my best friend introduced me to the library and the whole world opened up for me.

The only unfortunate thing was that as quickly as I learned English, I forgot German. I would not speak it with my mother — I wanted to be American. A few years later when my grandmother from Germany came to live with us, I could no longer communicate with her.

At the end of the year I was where I should have been academically and ready for fourth grade. I’ve thought many times through the years how different my life would have been if I’d not had a “Mrs. Jones” to help me with my struggle and when I was in my 40s I wrote a letter to her telling her how much I appreciated what she had done for me. She was in her early 90s at the time but she wrote back to me in a very strong and clear hand. She had not forgotten me either. I’m so glad I wrote when I did. Six months later she passed away.

Frieda Thorndike, Walnut Creek


Learned from children

I was born in China and before I came to this country I did not learn English but I learned some simple words from my husband.

My children grew up in America. They went to school and learned English very fast. I began to learn some English from them.

Now I have six grandchildren. They were born in this country and they didn’t know any Chinese. I want to communicate with them, so I learn their language and try to talk with them.

I went to adult English school. I learned a lot from school and the newspaper.

Now I am very happy. I am a U.S. citizen. I have to know English.

Yu Chen Ting, Danville


Grateful to nuns

I was born in Budapest, Hungary.

In 1952 my family immigrated to the United States and settled in St. Louis. During the voyage over I learned the two words “shut up.” Needless to say, this didn’t sit well with the nuns when I started the Catholic school. My entire family had to learn English. It was very difficult at first because we could not communicate with others. But we wanted to and we all studied very hard to reach this goal while still retaining the other two languages. We also kept our native traditions.

In school, I had to write every word I could not pronounce correctly. Then we were taught how to use each word in a sentence according to its proper meaning. I will always be grateful to the nuns who had the patience to help me. Later, I was enrolled in regular classes and was assigned to read one book each week to help facilitate my use and understanding of English. I made a list of any words I did not understand, and with the help of my teachers and classmates I managed to learn English.

It is my belief that we should learn the language of whatever country we may reside in. We should also continue some of our native traditions, but we need to adapt to our new surroundings and neighbors also. It’s impossible to be successful if you can’t speak the common language of the country in which you live.

Kornelia Mecham, Antioch


Scars of learning

I learned English the hard way. I learned it by physical force. If we spoke our native language (Spanish) in school, we were hit with a ruler. Corporal punishment was alive and doing well in the Texas school system back then. I still have scars from it. It was a very traumatic way to learn a language. I can remember thinking that it was safe to talk Spanish to my friends at recess while we were playing but the English speakers who heard us reported it to the teacher and we still got punished.

Learning English in a “sink or swim” fashion left a determination in me that has lasted all my life. In my first five years of school I was determined to master this language that was causing me such anguish and heartbreak. Reading and spelling became my best subjects at school. I made A’s in English and essay writing and helped other newly arrived immigrants. Some of my Spanish-speaking peers were not as quick to make the transition and they were categorized “slow learners,” when in fact, all they needed was help with their language barrier. For that I am thankful that bilingual education in California helps the non-English speakers in their native tongue before they are expected to master instruction in English.

One of the unfortunate reactions to this trauma in our early lives was that many of us from this generation vowed not to let our offspring experience this, and English became the first language of our children. We did not deny our Latino heritage nor our cultural background, but taught them English first. Therefore, my two daughters learned most of their Spanish after they went into the school system. To this day they find it hard to understand how our experience could have been so harsh.

Aurora Rodriguez, Walnut Creek


Built on vocabulary

English is my second language and English study gives me another pair of eyes and ears, and another mouth with which to communicate with the world. For years, I regarded the English language as a pool of stagnant water and I waded across it from left to right, from right to left, and back and forth until the stagnant water changed to flowing water that allows me to communicate well.

First, I consider vocabulary as bricks that can be used to build large mansions and high buildings. I have known the word “friend” for 30 years, but five years ago, I learned the word “fiend” in only 10 seconds.

These two words have a world of difference, but only because of a single letter: r. Other examples are: out and oust, stone and atone, August and august, boy and buoy, but and butt, George and gorge, day and heyday, middle and meddle, concubine and cucumber. I called all above the words “twin words.” I can easily remember them if I link them together intentionally in order to enlarge my vocabulary.

Second, a good English teacher can give me the shortcuts and know-how that allows me to get twice the results with half the effort. For English learners, it is unnecessary to remember all the conjunctions at once, but it is useful and interesting to teach student to remember some conjunctions in only one minute. A teacher once taught me that boy is not a boy, he is a conjunction because b is for but, o is for or, and y is for yet. What an extremely clever teaching it was!

Third, I am trying to wear out 10 dictionaries over the course of a lifetime in order to raise the level of my English. For years, whenever I have questions, I have a habit of looking through my dictionaries first. I read ordinary English dictionaries first and sometimes later I check a bilingual dictionary. For example: I have known the word “Alameda” as a place for eight years. But recently, I learned it as a road or boulevard after I checked my bilingual dictionary. Another example are the words “napkin” and “diaper.” When I worked at a hotel as a room service waiter, I used to pick up trays and found a customer put a diaper on it. This was the first time I saw that the diaper is quite different from a napkin. I learned the word at once by my habit of being ready at all times to learn new words.

Last, there are many ways to overcome the language barrier and learn English and Western ways. Actually, there are many new things for me to learn. I observed: “The men’s room is very different. It has two doors. One in and one out.” If I address a hotel restaurant waitress as “maid,” she is chagrined. The culture shock of modern America hit soon after I arrived in the United States. I assumed the oil and vinegar was a soup mix. I could not accept a notion about the way Americans sell dog food in supermarkets. But for seven years my eyes and ears have been taking in the life of America that unfolds around me.

I love American English. So, I write in the hope of sharing my experiences of studying English with others. I believe that in studying English, word to word, sentence to sentence, every step leaves its imprint, and constant effort yields sure success, if not at first than later on.

Hong Sheng Wang, El Cerrito


The cost of ESL

English as my second language has cost me a lot of effort to learn it.

In this program, mostly everyone speaks Spanish. Homework is given to you in Spanish and even the teacher speaks Spanish. That way it is hard to learn English fast. If everything is in your language, you don’t practice speaking English. And you don’t even try to speak English because what is the reason for you to do it if you are getting your education in your first language? That way, you don’t even bother to learn another language.

When I came to California from Mexico, I was put in the ESL program. That is why I did not learn English fast enough. When I was in Mexico, I had an English class at school, so when I came here I already knew the basic words in English. When I was put in school here, I had the same education as in Mexico. Here in school I would just have one hour of ESL and the rest of the subjects would be in Spanish. I think this is why I learned English very slowly.

Seven years have passed since I first came to the United States. I’ve been trying to improve and make myself better. I’m still at school but I have seem some changes. Right now I’m in regular classes in high school.

Eva Contreras, Pittsburg



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