It’s hard to talk about how things have been without thinking of how things will be. This page of the website will include the personal histories of three amazing women and their relationship with language in schools, and it will also include their views and those of researchers on how education should be more supportive of bilingualism.
The Ladies
Irene Santos
Irene Santos was born April 5th, 1931 in Crystal City, Texas. Her parents were migrant workers who moved with their family to Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1943, where settled permanently in 1965. She only attended school until the 5th grade, she tells the Somos Latinas project, as she was needed in the fields to earn money more than in the classroom. [1] Though her time in school was relatively short, she has one painful memory that has lasted her a lifetime. When she was still in Texas, in second grade, there was a teacher who would beat students with a big wooden paddle. She would target Irene because she couldn’t recite all the colors (forgetting purple every time). [2] About fifty years after this, and after numerous positions within the Spanish-speaking community in Kenosha and Racine, she began to go to the school board in Kenosha, along with the Urban League in the city, to push for bilingual education, on account of the rising Spanish-speaking population. [3]
Irene Santos was born April 5th, 1931 in Crystal City, Texas. Her parents were migrant workers who moved with their family to Kenosha, Wisconsin in 1943, where settled permanently in 1965. She only attended school until the 5th grade, she tells the Somos Latinas project, as she was needed in the fields to earn money more than in the classroom. [1] Though her time in school was relatively short, she has one painful memory that has lasted her a lifetime. When she was still in Texas, in second grade, there was a teacher who would beat students with a big wooden paddle. She would target Irene because she couldn’t recite all the colors (forgetting purple every time). [2] About fifty years after this, and after numerous positions within the Spanish-speaking community in Kenosha and Racine, she began to go to the school board in Kenosha, along with the Urban League in the city, to push for bilingual education, on account of the rising Spanish-speaking population. [3]
Mary Godoy
Mary Godoy was born August 15th, 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her mother worked many different jobs during her life and her father was a butcher of some sort in a factory-farm setting. Mary attended high school in Milwaukee with a high enrollment of Spanish-speaking students. She, and other students like her, felt the differences between themselves and the white students, which she describes in her interview with the Somos Latinas oral histories project: “We were always aware that we were kinda second-hand citizens… the white students would always get encouraged to take the harder classes and… you always knew that they were going to college… But [Spanish-speaking students] were… ‘whatever’, we were just… there.” [4] As a result of the increase of Spanish-speakers moving to the city, the high school decided to introduce “bilingual programming”, as she puts it. [5] Unfortunately, many white people didn’t like this change and would stage walk-outs in protest. They also had a phone number to call to complain: “I remember there was a phone number you could call… it was about the Hispanics in the school… about how they were ‘taking over’… and it was kinda like a white supremacist hotline.” [6] Mary was able to survive the dissenting white supremacists and their hotline of hate and went to UW-Madison at the ripe old age of seventeen. There, she joined a cultural group and attended many protests. And, though she reflects fondly on her time at Madison, Mary remembers a night where she and her friend were attacked by a group of men in a truck who catcalled them. [7] She explains why she thought they were attacked: “You get… people [in Madison] that just don’t like you because you’re foreign… I got attacked… because we were foreign, because we weren’t ‘white’.” [8] This encounter didn’t get to her, and she moved on to become an integral part in the Spanish-speaking community in Milwaukee.
Mary Godoy was born August 15th, 1956 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Her mother worked many different jobs during her life and her father was a butcher of some sort in a factory-farm setting. Mary attended high school in Milwaukee with a high enrollment of Spanish-speaking students. She, and other students like her, felt the differences between themselves and the white students, which she describes in her interview with the Somos Latinas oral histories project: “We were always aware that we were kinda second-hand citizens… the white students would always get encouraged to take the harder classes and… you always knew that they were going to college… But [Spanish-speaking students] were… ‘whatever’, we were just… there.” [4] As a result of the increase of Spanish-speakers moving to the city, the high school decided to introduce “bilingual programming”, as she puts it. [5] Unfortunately, many white people didn’t like this change and would stage walk-outs in protest. They also had a phone number to call to complain: “I remember there was a phone number you could call… it was about the Hispanics in the school… about how they were ‘taking over’… and it was kinda like a white supremacist hotline.” [6] Mary was able to survive the dissenting white supremacists and their hotline of hate and went to UW-Madison at the ripe old age of seventeen. There, she joined a cultural group and attended many protests. And, though she reflects fondly on her time at Madison, Mary remembers a night where she and her friend were attacked by a group of men in a truck who catcalled them. [7] She explains why she thought they were attacked: “You get… people [in Madison] that just don’t like you because you’re foreign… I got attacked… because we were foreign, because we weren’t ‘white’.” [8] This encounter didn’t get to her, and she moved on to become an integral part in the Spanish-speaking community in Milwaukee.
Maria Elena White
Maria Elena starts her interview with the Somos Latinas oral histories project with telling them that her name, as she considers it, is Maria Elena Santian Victorica. She then says that she is only Maria Elena White because Immigration didn't ask her whether she wanted to keep her last name (she had gotten married to an American in Mexico before coming to the U.S.), and decided for her that she was going to take her (now ex-) husband's name. [9] Maria Elena was born May 13th, 1959 in Mexico City, Mexico. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a “full-time mother”, then a secretary, and then a director of purchase for the Mexican Department of Health. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology (focusing on art and dancing) from the National University of Mexico City. She studied English (and French) for five years in university, but that wasn’t enough for her to get by in America, as the curriculum focused mainly on comprehension and translation instead of speaking. After moving to Beloit, Wisconsin and the birth of her daughter, she decided to enroll herself in the English classes being offered at the local technical college. After a while, she was confronted by her instructors: “So the [instructors] old me ‘Okay, so we know that you can speak Spanish very well and we know that you [went to] high school and that you are a sociologist… but we need to prove that you can do [the work in your field] in English… You’re going to take the GED class.’” [10] So, Maria Elena took the class, and passed the exam with flying colors (except the math portion, but she doesn’t really care about that). But that still wasn’t enough. Then her instructors told her: “'Now it’s time for you to go to university and keep going.’” [11] She went to Whitewater, where she got her master’s degree in communication. As one can clearly see, the lack of understanding of Maria Elena’s needs as an ELS student and the inability to let her choose what she wanted to do on her own, resulted in her going to Whitewater. While she was fruitful in her endeavors there, she would not have gone if her English instructors at the technical college hadn’t told her that she needed to continue with her already functional English. After this, though, during the 1990s she began to build up the Spanish-speaking community in Beloit. [12]
[23]
Maria Elena starts her interview with the Somos Latinas oral histories project with telling them that her name, as she considers it, is Maria Elena Santian Victorica. She then says that she is only Maria Elena White because Immigration didn't ask her whether she wanted to keep her last name (she had gotten married to an American in Mexico before coming to the U.S.), and decided for her that she was going to take her (now ex-) husband's name. [9] Maria Elena was born May 13th, 1959 in Mexico City, Mexico. Her father was a lawyer, and her mother was a “full-time mother”, then a secretary, and then a director of purchase for the Mexican Department of Health. She graduated with a bachelor’s degree in sociology (focusing on art and dancing) from the National University of Mexico City. She studied English (and French) for five years in university, but that wasn’t enough for her to get by in America, as the curriculum focused mainly on comprehension and translation instead of speaking. After moving to Beloit, Wisconsin and the birth of her daughter, she decided to enroll herself in the English classes being offered at the local technical college. After a while, she was confronted by her instructors: “So the [instructors] old me ‘Okay, so we know that you can speak Spanish very well and we know that you [went to] high school and that you are a sociologist… but we need to prove that you can do [the work in your field] in English… You’re going to take the GED class.’” [10] So, Maria Elena took the class, and passed the exam with flying colors (except the math portion, but she doesn’t really care about that). But that still wasn’t enough. Then her instructors told her: “'Now it’s time for you to go to university and keep going.’” [11] She went to Whitewater, where she got her master’s degree in communication. As one can clearly see, the lack of understanding of Maria Elena’s needs as an ELS student and the inability to let her choose what she wanted to do on her own, resulted in her going to Whitewater. While she was fruitful in her endeavors there, she would not have gone if her English instructors at the technical college hadn’t told her that she needed to continue with her already functional English. After this, though, during the 1990s she began to build up the Spanish-speaking community in Beloit. [12]
[23]
The Plan
Maria Elena runs many of the bilingual outreach organizations, events, and everything in between in Beloit for the Spanish-speaking community there. She believes in developing both English and Spanish within students’ lives to combat the extreme imbalance between the two languages in schools across the Midwest. This is due to the fact that there is, as The Latina/o Midwest Reader puts it, a “… tremendous pressure from hegemonic U.S. forces against languages that are not English,” [13] which pushes for English to dominate the “public life” of those students who would be properly bilingual (fluent in both languages). Sylvia Puente, a Latino Policy Forum executive director, says in the Reader that there are “three factors that can contribute to three improved outcomes for Latina/o children: increased access to quality preschool programs; training for teachers…; and quality teachers, more of whom are themselves Latina/o.” [14]
The Reader provides another way to help children in Spanish-speaking communities hold onto their language, and their culture, is to provide “easily accessible reading material” for “maintenance and educational development.” [15] Maria Elena is already working on that in Beloit as the Beloit library’s bilingual outreach coordinator. [16] She would have “story times” for Latinx children, reading to them in Spanish. Unfortunately, many of the Spanish-speaking families there (like those across the U.S.) decided that their children don’t need to be taught Spanish because they’ll pick it up at home. This, combined with the (presumably) white families who sent their children to these story times to learn Spanish, made it difficult for Maria Elena and her team to interact with the heritage speakers (a term used in the Reader) solely in Spanish. [17] Because the white children coming in don’t speak any Spanish, in order to communicate with them at all, the story times must be conducted in both Spanish and English.
This, though, actually helps the heritage speakers. The Reader presents rulings from a study that says dual language immersion is much more effective than single language: “Dual language is also designed to rebalance power imbalances…” [18] Just as Maria Elena has set out to do. In addition to this, dual language immersion also allows for the preservation of the heritage/minority language (in this case, Spanish) and it teaches the children of the majority language (English) the heritage/minority language. [19] A win-win.
In her interview, Maria Elena said that her goal was not only to instruct heritage speakers of Spanish to speak it fluently, but to also help them grab onto their heritage and culture, which is why she uses Mexican-centered books in Spanish in her story times (as the Mexican immigrant group is the largest in Beloit). [20] She is right to do this, because according to the Reader, “Sociolinguistic studies around the world have shown that language is a key component of how ethnicity is experienced and expressed.” [21]
As supported by the studies above, language and culture go hand-in-hand, and if something isn’t done to maintain the heritage language of descendants of immigrants, valuable knowledge, ways of life, stories, etc., will be lost.
The Reader provides another way to help children in Spanish-speaking communities hold onto their language, and their culture, is to provide “easily accessible reading material” for “maintenance and educational development.” [15] Maria Elena is already working on that in Beloit as the Beloit library’s bilingual outreach coordinator. [16] She would have “story times” for Latinx children, reading to them in Spanish. Unfortunately, many of the Spanish-speaking families there (like those across the U.S.) decided that their children don’t need to be taught Spanish because they’ll pick it up at home. This, combined with the (presumably) white families who sent their children to these story times to learn Spanish, made it difficult for Maria Elena and her team to interact with the heritage speakers (a term used in the Reader) solely in Spanish. [17] Because the white children coming in don’t speak any Spanish, in order to communicate with them at all, the story times must be conducted in both Spanish and English.
This, though, actually helps the heritage speakers. The Reader presents rulings from a study that says dual language immersion is much more effective than single language: “Dual language is also designed to rebalance power imbalances…” [18] Just as Maria Elena has set out to do. In addition to this, dual language immersion also allows for the preservation of the heritage/minority language (in this case, Spanish) and it teaches the children of the majority language (English) the heritage/minority language. [19] A win-win.
In her interview, Maria Elena said that her goal was not only to instruct heritage speakers of Spanish to speak it fluently, but to also help them grab onto their heritage and culture, which is why she uses Mexican-centered books in Spanish in her story times (as the Mexican immigrant group is the largest in Beloit). [20] She is right to do this, because according to the Reader, “Sociolinguistic studies around the world have shown that language is a key component of how ethnicity is experienced and expressed.” [21]
As supported by the studies above, language and culture go hand-in-hand, and if something isn’t done to maintain the heritage language of descendants of immigrants, valuable knowledge, ways of life, stories, etc., will be lost.