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In English, please! Many wish they could

Many Americans are offended by immigrants who don't learn their language, but it's not that easy.

By DONG-PHUONG NGUYEN
Published June 12, 2006

WIMAUMA - Leonarda Aguilera came to the United States from Mexico 22 years ago. Yet when the 60-year-old grandmother goes to deposit money or pay the electric bill, she brings her daughter along to translate.

The silver-haired woman, her arms a deep bronze from years of picking oranges and tomatoes in open fields, nods and shrugs whenever anyone speaks to her in English. She calls her granddaughter Mexican slang for "white girl," because English words flow so freely from the 13-year-old's mouth, words Aguilera does not understand.

Aguilera is among 10-million U.S. residents who, according to census figures, are not fluent in English. Many of them are immigrants at the center of a debate boiling in Washington over immigration reforms. The highly charged effort included an attempt to make English the official language in the United States that remains mired between the Senate and the House of Representatives.

But the issue of the language people speak goes beyond public policy, to a visceral level that provokes emotion and anger and colors the way many Americans view the immigration debate.

There's the Tampa man whose insides burn up whenever his ATM asks him to select a language; the former educator in Palm Harbor who gripes because the instructions to her toaster oven also came in Spanish; the everyday encounters that prompt some to ask of the immigrants lobbying for more opportunity: Why don't they just learn the language?

"The bottom line is, we're American," said David Handler, a 39-year-old sales representative from Tampa who does not want to have to choose a language on his bank's ATM when he makes a deposit. "We're English-speaking."

For those who don't speak English, the explanations are many.

Aguilera, who has a third-grade education, said the language was too difficult to command when she came here in her late 30s. She also worked backbreaking hours in vegetable fields along with other migrant workers, so there was never time or a need. Work came first, to survive.

For those still struggling to learn, like Ada Ming, an immigrant from Taiwan, they say starting over in midlife is difficult and finding opportunities to practice are few. The very people who expect them to speak the language are not understanding when they stumble through words in public, which causes them to shy away even more.

"It's really hard to find somebody to talk to who is nice and will be patient," said Ming, who is taking English classes Saturday mornings at First Baptist Church of Temple Terrace. "We want to make friends, to make conversations."

The reasons English and those who speak it are the subjects of such passionate, deep-seated ire among some native speakers are complex. Fairness, patriotism and the issue of assimilation weave through their sentiments.

Their parents and grandparents learned the language and helped build this country, they say. Come to America, contribute to society and become an American. Don't make Americans learn your language.

"The whole idea of America was all these people came from where they came from to be Americans," said Handler, the sales rep. "They did everything they could to learn to be good Americans.

"The problem I have with immigration today ... is it has nothing to do with the concept of America. When they come here, they don't want to come here to be American, to learn English, to be a part of the culture. They want to come here to take advantage of America."

***

Inside a three-bedroom home on Vel Street in Wimauma in southeastern Hillsborough County, sisters Monica Vega, 13, and Vanessa Vega, 8, speak rapid-fire English. In an instant, they switch to Spanish to translate for their grandmother, who sits beside a television set tuned to Spanish programming.

Aguilera, their grandmother, feels bad she doesn't understand English, they say, translating a few phrases at a time, then pausing and turning to her so that she can continue in Spanish. Here, in this rural migrant community, she feels at home because when she goes out, many people speak Spanish.

Aguilera, who cares for the children of farm workers at the day care of Good Samaritan Mission, dropped out of third grade to help her brother maintain corn crops in Mexico.

She came to the United States for a better life, bringing money home to relatives in Guadalajara when she visits for a month each year.

At the airport, she has always found either a Spanish-speaking flight attendant or passenger to direct her to the right airplane.

Her inability to speak English has cost her: She was rejected for U.S. citizenship because of it, her son, 19-year-old David Aguilera, said.

"She would like to speak both languages," David Aguilera said, as his mother waited for him to translate, "and she prays about it. But she can't learn English."

***

Dora Cruz, who runs Good Samaritan Mission in Wimauma, said everyone's circumstances are different.

Cruz, who is Puerto Rican, said although Puerto Ricans are U.S. citizens and receive English lessons in school, some are more motivated than others to learn the language.

Meanwhile, in Mexico, she said, most do not get English language instruction in school and many also drop out at an early age to work to support their families.

Once in the United States, many immigrants, especially those from Latin American countries, fill jobs such as farm work, construction and housekeeping that may not require much knowledge of English.

"It's very difficult for them to start from scratch," Cruz said. "They don't have any knowledge of the English language. They come here to just work. They get so tired after working all day in the labor fields, they don't have a school to go to that is close by, they don't have transportation. It's very difficult for them to learn the language."

Those on the other side of the debate are passionate.

"I'm bothered by the fact that people who are not learning English are not assimilating," said Linda de Bottari, 75, of Palm Harbor. "They keep talking that immigrants made this country. That is true, but those immigrants assimilated in one generation. They were very proud to be here. They didn't consider themselves some kind of nationality, like Italian-American or German-American. They were American."

De Bottari, a retired district director of guidance for a school system in Long Island, said growing up, she watched her first-generation Italian parents and grandmother assimilate. They all spoke English at home, she said.

She concedes that English is a difficult language to master but said she watched students pick it up in one semester.

"The education interest of immigrants was very high then," she said. "It wasn't just learning English, but being educated."

***

The debate over the English question is nothing new, said F. Chris Garcia, a political science professor at the University of New Mexico who has studied ethnic policies for 35 years. Modern times are no different from decades ago, when a wave of immigration would bring out pro-American sentiment.

He thinks the issue evokes such strong emotions now because the country is at war, and the media and the wide-reaching arms of the Internet have fueled the debate even more.

"In the past, we've had large waves of immigration," he said. "But we didn't have the publicity we have now. There's also a high level of insecurity about terrorism, about foreigners, about people who don't look like what the typical American is supposed to look like. That makes us vulnerable to manifestations of differences."

A large influx of immigrants from Latin America in the past few decades has created ethnic enclaves where Spanish language use is much more prevalent, he said.

"You have Spanish media, Spanish instruction in the schools, Spanish used by businesses," he said.

Although those things might slow people in learning English, Garcia said it doesn't mean immigrants do not want to speak the language.

"All the studies show that immigrants want very badly to learn English," Garcia said. "They know they have to learn English. They make every effort to do so. They do so formally and informally."

A 2002 survey conducted by the Pew Hispanic Center/Kaiser Family Foundation found that English is the dominant language spoken by 4 percent of first-generation Latinos in the United States, but by the third generation, it jumps to 78 percent.

Conversely, Spanish is the dominant language spoken by 72 percent of first-generation Latinos but falls to 7 percent by the second generation and is wiped out by the third generation.

"This is a traditional pattern that has been happening throughout history," Garcia said. "Learning is occurring."

Times researchers Angie Holan and Cathy Wos contributed to this report. Dong-Phuong Nguyen can be reached at nguyen@sptimes.com or 813 269-5312.

[Last modified June 12, 2006, 08:55:11]