Site hosted by Angelfire.com: Build your free website today!

Stop English Immersion


Saturday, 26 February 2000
COMMENT      10A

THE ARIZONA DAILY STAR

I applaud the editorial board for its concise assessment in the Feb. 12 editorial, ``Troubled bilingual ed.''

The Star has most accurately presented the issues without succumbing to the muddled rhetoric peddled by the English-only, anti-immigrant and other similar groups. This issue is about meeting educational needs appropriately.

You state the truth: ``It's the will that's missing.'' Since the inception (1919) of the disastrous ``1C English Immersion'' program, producing a greater than 60 percent drop-out rate for Hispanics and Native Americans, the will to help these students has been missing.

But in 1968, it was the persistent will of courageous LEP advocates, Tucsonans Hank Oyama, Adalberto Guerrero and Maria Urquides, that won the first in a series of battles for LEP children nationally.

Some legislators then, like today, met court findings with resistance, believing funding for bilingual education and ESL, which is an integral part of bilingual education, was about separatism. These programs are about English.

The evidence is clear. The Arizona Department of Education again reports that students in some sort of language program out-performed English immersion. Yet this year, voters might have to face the ill-conceived Ron Unz initiative that attempts to resurrect the infamous 1C.

The vast majority of survivors of 1C and other caustic language education programs in Arizona deplore the notion of their return.

Once again, we are in need of the persistent will of courageous Navajo, Tohono O'odham, Hopi, Apache, Yaqui, Hispanic, Vietnamese, Korean, etc. and Anglo advocates from the four corners of our state to become voices for educational justice, doing just as the Star has done. This issue is about the children of our state.
Alejandra Sotomayor
Co-chair
Arizona Language Education Council



Rebuttal


As the champion defender of bilingual education, Mrs. Sotomayor continues to show little reason in her arguments against English immersion and our organization. Sotomayor's continuous diatribe on the issue of the 1-C programs and their similarity to English immersion has become most tiresome, especially for her inability to convince us of any real connection. The social atmosphere of the forties and fifties were admittedly racist and segregatory, but anyone would be hardpressed to find the same types of attitudes these days with regards to minorities. Can anyone seriously believe that the ethnic insensitivity of those days is still with us? Besides, the point of those clases, for all their iniquity, was a well-intentioned teaching of English which unfortunately developed some negative aspects. Nevertheless, we have spoken to several people who were in fact students during those days who attest to having received a great education, though to even say this to bilingual ed defenders characterizes us as a deplorably racist group.

When Sotomayor speaks about bilingual education not being about separatism, she must think that no one is watching. For thirty years bilingual ed has done nothing more effectively than to alienate Mexican students form the mainstream American culture by not providing them with adequate levels of English or academics. They consistently score at lower levels than any other ethnic group in tests, their dropout rates are higher than for any other group and they are graduating fewer from college than most groups. In the end, after twelve years of public schooling that includes forced bilingual education, these kids end up in the Mexican areas of town destined to forever remain there as laborers. In fact, Lopez And Mora have determined that Mexican children who have attended bilingual education earn up to fifty percent less than their peers who never attended bilingual ed. So much for the unqualified success of these programs!