Bilingual Education In The Latino Community

Spanish is spoken by a diverse range of cultures—however, these cultures come together, united by their shared values, to create what we know as the Latino community. Though learning the language is principal in a Spanish class, learning about the culture of that language is almost equally as important. If you do not understand a culture, you can never fully understand its language. Therefore, knowing the significance and effectiveness of bilingual education and the fundamental characteristics of the Latino community is a perfect way to begin a journey into the depths of the Spanish language and the culture surrounding it. To begin, before high school, I knew next-to-nothing about the Hispanic population nor Latino culture in the United
States. In high school, however, I took my first Spanish class and learned about the distinct scope of Hispanic culture. Additionally, during my freshman year of high school, I met my boyfriend, a Mexican-born U.S. immigrant, and gained new insight into Latino culture. Because of what I learned from my Spanish teacher, I have always questioned bilingual education in the U.S., but have still continuously strived to learn Spanish. Though many of the shared characteristics between the groups that combine to make up the broad term of “Latino,” may seem stereotypical to an outsider, they describe aspects that many Latinos see as fundamental characteristics of their lives and culture. From knowing my boyfriend for over four years, I believe one of these characteristics, familismo, is incredibly accurate; though it may not speak for the entire Latino population, my boyfriend views his family as the most important things in his life. Moreover, he has contributed financially to his family from a young age and is a father figure to his two younger siblings. I see familismo as one of the most beautiful things about Latino culture; because my family has never been very close-knit, I think the closeness of Latino families is genuinely inspiring—they truly always have someone to depend on.
On the contrary, one more detrimental attribute of Latino culture that stuck out to me is machismo. In today’s culture, traditional gender roles are rapidly becoming viewed as nothing more than antiquated ways of making children conform to something that is seen as “normal.” Boys being brought up into thinking that they must be strong, nearly indestructible, protectors of the family, unfazed by their own emotions can be damaging to someone’s emotional well-being. Nevertheless, though I, as an outsider, may see machismo attitudes as deleterious, they are still a significant and generally accepted part of Latino culture. Trying to understand these viewpoints instead of rejecting them can help us gain familiarity of the inner-workings of Latino culture.
To continue, the multitude of benefits Dr.
Potowski listed makes me question why there is such a huge opposition to bilingualism in the U.S.; the encouragement of monolingualism is obvious, yet there are no apparent benefits that stem from becoming a monolingual country. So, why are people in the U.S. so adamant that everyone who comes here must learn to speak English and only English? Why are other languages met with such distaste? To be direct, I believe that it may be that people in the U.S. are simply ignorant to other culture; as a country, we are “stuck in our ways” and we seemingly ignore the overwhelming evidence of the advantages that stem from bilingual education. Even I was dumbfounded when Potowski mentioned that there are programs where 90% of the school day is taught in Spanish. Nevertheless, because of my newfound knowledge, I sincerely think that the U.S. should consider expanding bilingual education; the research is clear: bilingual education has many advantages that cannot and should not be
ignored.
Unfortunately, the growing influence of Latinos in the U.S. is sometimes ignored. To illustrate, as stated by Salinas, there is a “lack of understanding of the importance of the Latino community”; similarly, Ramos states that “sometimes [Latinos] are invisible.” Why is everyone the U.S. is so clueless about the Latino community? Generally speaking, it seems that the U.S. is afraid of diversity; the privileged majorities of the U.S. simply do not want to take the time to learn about minorities’ culture and are ignorant of their plight. In today’s political climate, Latinos are unceasingly targeted and rebuked for immigrating to the U.S. Because of this, as said by Ramos and Salinas, this issue unifies the Latino community. As a whole, I believe we should not chastise those who have come here; we should celebrate our diversity instead of destroying it, always remaining open and accepting to all.
After expanding my knowledge of the Latino community and bilingual education, I thought of four questions to ask my community and found four people willing to participate in my questionnaire. Participant one is from Watsonville, California, and is Mexican-born immigrant who came to the United States when he was eight with his mother; he is not a U.S. citizen. He is a twenty-one-year-old high school graduate and lives with his two younger siblings and mother. Participant two is from Elizabethton, Tennessee, and attended both Unicoi and Carter Country schools; she is a 19-year-old White-American and high school graduate who lives with her father and step-mother. Participant three is twenty-years old is from Kingsport, Tennessee and is a sophomore at East Tennessee State University; she graduated from Dobyns-Bennett High School. Participant number four is from Hampton, Tennessee, and graduated from Hampton High School; she is nineteen years old and attended Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania for a semester before returning home.
First, I asked what they thought the number one problem that the Latino population in the U.S. faces today is. Participant one said, “From my experience and what I’ve seen in my community, immigration and the process of becoming a U.S. citizen is what affects the Latino population the most. Most businesses will not hire someone undocumented and they cannot receive unemployment. Furthermore, the process of becoming a U.S. citizen takes way too long; my mom has had a pending application for well over a decade.” On the other hand, participant two said that the number one problem Latinos face is “the hard labor they have to endure, like working in crop fields and being underpaid for the work they do.” Moreover, participant three said, “Latinos face a lot of inequality and hostility in the U.S.; in my Spanish class, I remember people trying to learn ways to insult Hispanic people in Spanish and make fun of them in general.” Participant four’s answer was short: “institutional racism and stereotyping.” Fortunately, these answers show that not everyone is completely uninformed of the Latino populations’ struggles, but the difference in answers between someone from the Latino community and the others signify that outsiders still have more to learn.
Secondly, I asked, “If a bilingual schooling program was available in your community (like a program where 80-90% of the school day was taught in Spanish, up until 4th grade), would you want your children (or younger siblings, etc.) to attend that program? Why or why not?” Participant one said, “I live in a community where this is done and it’s great. Both me and my siblings are bilingual because of a program like this.” On the contrary, Participant 2 said “No, I feel that it may be confusing for them to speak Spanish at school and English at home at such a young age. It would be hard for parents who do not know Spanish to communicate with their children and teach them what they need to know in English.” Similarly, participant three also said no, but defended her answer differently, saying, “I think something more close to 50% Spanish and 50% English would be better and I’d be open to that.” Participant four said yes, stating that “learning Spanish from a young age has been proven to ‘stick’ more than it does to teach students later in life.” In general, those who said yes to bilingual education programs were generally more educated on their benefits; the more they seemed to know about bilingual education, the more open they were to the program.
Thirdly, I asked, “Do you think the foreign language program in your school was effective?
How much of that language do you remember? Do you think you could communicate basic things in that language if needed?” Participant one, who took French in high school, stated, “It was okay, but could have been way better. I remember some of what I learned. If I somehow ended up in France, I could ask for directions, choose a meal, and ask where the bathroom is.” On the contrary, Participant two said, “No, I don’t remember most of what I learned in high school Spanish… I could probably only ask you how you are.” Participant three said “I think my teacher teaching in an unconventional way helped me retain a lot of the language and I was able to build upon what I learned in high school.” Participant four stated “It was done to the best of my school’s ability. My school was not very focused on foreign language. I only remember very basic things.” In my opinion, the variation in answers expresses the U.S.’s ever-growing need to standardize and improve foreign language
education.
Lastly, I asked if each participant thought bilingual education in the U.S. needed to be improved and if they could think of any steps we could take to improve it. Participant one said that “Yes; bilingual education should be available from the moment children begin to read and write. It only provides them with future benefits.” Participant two said, “Yes, bilingual education needs to be improved,” but did not know how it could be improved. Similarly, participant three said “Yes, but we should not force anyone to learn Spanish if they do not want to… I learned more Spanish just because I wanted to than when I had to take it in high school.” Participant four also said yes because she believes that “students are barely picking up on second languages because we start teaching too them late.” Strikingly, though their experiences in their high school foreign language classes differed, they all resoundingly agreed that bilingual education needs improvement.
By and large, understanding Latino culture whilst learning Spanish is essential; you can never fully understand a language without first understanding the culture from within which it comes from. If you understand the culture of that language, your communication with people from these cultures could be greatly aided. Acknowledging the underlying characteristics of a culture can allow you to fully understand the values of the people around you; without knowing them, you could easily say something offensive to a Spanish-speaker. As I learned from Ramos and Salinas, many people don’t understand Latinos at all—in turn, this makes them feel invisible—and no one should ever feel invisible. I also learned about the many benefits of bilingual education, leading me to seriously contemplate putting my children through bilingual schooling, especially because my boyfriend is a native Spanish speaker—I would never want that heritage language to be lost or for them to be unable to communicate with their grandparents. Through this reflection, I have gained valuable insight into bilingual education and the Latino community.