California: Bilingual Issue Drives Recall Battle

Los Angeles Times ^ | September 15, 2002

[John Jorsett]

Francisco Gonzalez was angry. All he wants, the Santa Ana father said, is for his two kids to be taught in English. And he wants to kick out of office a school board member accused of improperly supporting bilingual education.

So the burly 25-year-old got up to speak last week at a raucous board meeting of the Santa Ana Unified School District after listening to a score of fellow Latino parents call his views racist.

"I went through bilingual education and it got me nowhere," the delivery man said. Gonzalez then switched to Spanish, his voice quivering, jaw clenched.

"Don't think I'm a racist; my parents are from [the Mexican state of] Jalisco," he said, turning to a group of Latino parents. Many had come to support trustee Nativo Lopez, target of a vituperative recall campaign for his alleged defiance of a state law restricting bilingual education.

[ladylib]

"But English is the universal language and that's what [students] should be taught. If they want to work in a car wash, that's fine, but I don't think they should be relegated to only that."


SPANISH: THE LANGUAGE OF MAIDS AND GARDENERS.

[norton]

I have two neighbors who would stand alongside Mr Gonzalez in an instant:
They've both demanded English for their kids.
One is an Immigrant and the other is Kalifornia born and raised with Spanish language lessons and expectations.

[OldFriend]

Bilingual education is a way to keep 'certain' people down......far down the economic ladder. It is an ugly racist idea and needs to be stopped immediately.

I remember President Bush speaking against the idea of bilingual education to a group in Texas. They were not amused to hear his position but he stuck to his guns.

[GrandMoM]

I returned to college after I retired, and found the prejudice against white Americans absurd. Most of the instructors were immigrants and only interested in teaching other immigrants. Instructions were given in both languages, but, when asking for help, instructors sat down and explained to immigrants, yet told us Americans to read the manual, which was written in both languages. In literature, assignments from the previous day were read out loud by the immigrants while we sat there the whole period and listened to them struggle with the language, then we would just hand in our papers. It was so boring, that I was the last white American to leave the class and it wasn't even mid-term.

Now, I am not saying they don't deserve an education if they a legal, but, they should be in a class of their own. I am sure the same thing happens in K-12 , but most parents are not aware of it.

Oh, one more thing, if immigrants have children, they recieve $50.00 a week child care and the American does not!

[FITZ]

There's a lot of bilingual education in Texas and the Hispanics have a drop-out rate of 51% ---much higher than any other group. I know Americans of Hispanic descent have to fight the school to have their kids placed in English speaking classrooms. One guy I know refused to speak Spanish when he headed up his school's PTA meetings ---he held his ground but had to take a lot of grief over it. I also know people who live and work here who put their kids into bilingual classes so they can learn their culture and ways. They don't wish to assimilate at all except when it comes to money.

[Flashman_at_the_charge]

If the kids spoke only English at school they would still learn Spanish from their parents/family/music/etc. This really should be a no-brainer to any Spanish speaking parents.

[hauerf]

Ooops. This appears to be an interesting post, but I can't/won't read the whole article since it requires signing up on LA Socialist Times web site, the thought of which nearly makes me heave.

[pabianice]

"I went through bilingual education and it got me nowhere,"

This should be stapled to every bilingual scam artists running for public office.

[concentric circles]

For those who may not want to visit the web site of this increasingly irrelevant newspaper:

School board member Nativo Lopez is encouraging spanish speaking parents to seek waivers so their children are excused from English only instruction. More students requiring bilingual instruction mean more mingling of both instructional methods in individual classrooms, thus negating English immersion as a technique for mastering the language.

A drive to recall Lopez has collected 15,000 signatures, only 8,624 are required to put the recall on a ballot. Santa Ana is called one of the country's most Latino, non-English speaking cities.

There were two interesting ommisions in this story:

First, research is increasingly proving that English immersion is far superior to bilingual education for learning the language AND for mastering academic subjects.

The second omission? While the story mentioned that Natavio Lopez, in addition to sitting on the school board, is head of Hermandad Mexicana Nacional, an immigrant service organization subsidized by tax payers, the story did not mention that this is the same group that was caught illegally assisting noncitizens in REGISTERING TO VOTE! Leave it to the press to inform and educate!

[Allegra]

Oh, one more thing, if immigrants have children, they recieve $50.00 a week child care and the American does not!

No, the only thing the American gets is the pleasure of paying for that child care.

And how many immigrants do we know who don't have children? Not many!

[Polybius]

If the kids spoke only English at school they would still learn Spanish from their parents/family/music/etc. This really should be a no-brainer to any Spanish speaking parents.

Which explains why some Spanish-speaking groups succeed and others do not.

The only way to learn a language is through emersion. Sink or swim. After about a year, you pick it up.

My family has been bilingual in Spanish and English over four generations and for almost a century. When my family lived in Cuba before Castro, if a kid was not picking up English well in school in Cuba, he would be shipped off to a boarding school in the U.S. in order to be emersed in English.

When we came to the U.S. after Castro, our bilingual parents and grandparents would not allow us to speak anything but Spanish to them at home. Again, Spanish emersion at home and English emersion at school.

The results were one fluently bilingual generation after another for four generations.

By insisting on so-called "bilingual education" at school, these "Hispanics" (translation: Mexicans) are denying their children the English emersion that they need in order to be truly bilingual.

I had a true "bilingual education". These Mexican, er, sorry, excuse my Poilitical Incorrectness, er, "Hispanic" kids are getting a Spanish education with some English classes thrown in.

[Polybius]

After my emersion from the fog of typing, I saw that I meant immersion.

Oh, well, spelling ain't important as long as you can talk gooder than you spell. :-)

[cousinkoala]

The school board member who they want to recall , Nativo Lopez , is the same person who told me at an Anaheim City Council meeting ( Orange County ,Calif .) that the constitution of the United States makes no distinction between an illegal alien and a U.S. citizen ; that there is no such a person as an illegal alien .After that meeting I invited him to my church . I told him that God is love , and that God loves him . He said , " Thanks , I needed that." I sensed a man full of guilt and shame.

He is also a major pusher for drivers licenses for illegal aliens ; he had 300 protesters in front of theAnaheim City hall protesting for drivers licenses for illegal aliens ( most of them were teenagers bused in ).

He is also being sued for 17 milion $ ( See Orange County Register )by the State of California because he cannot account for the money the State of California gave his organization ' Mexican Hemanadad ' that was supposed to be used to teach citizenship classes ( the ones where they give to students the ' Working English ' words answers before the test ) on the test.

This year I saw him sitting in the back of the Anaheim Central Library , so I sat next to him . I tried to persuad him to drop his racuial divisionist promotion by saying things like . " You guys try to label Republicans as racists for standing up to illegal alienism ,and that's not true . "

I said that it is wrong for him to have his attitudes that divides , we are all people . I told him he nver went to my church as I invited him . Then the librarian said I was talking to loud . And that was the end of the conversation .