Speaker 1: Dear Latino USA listener, President Donald Trump has signed an
Speaker 1: executive order making English the official language of the United
Speaker 1: States for the first time in almost two hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty years. The order says it quote recognizes and celebrates
Speaker 1: the long tradition of multi lingual American citizens who have
Speaker 1: learned English and passed it to their children for generations
Speaker 1: to come. More than sixty million people in the United
Speaker 1: States speak a language other than English at home, which
Speaker 1: Spanish being that other language for over forty million residents
Speaker 1: of this country. At Latino USA, where I and many
Speaker 1: members of our staff speak Spanish at home, we celebrate
Speaker 1: bilingualism and we're proud to pass our mother language on
Speaker 1: to our children. Which is why, today, dear listener, we
Speaker 1: want to bring you a very fitting story that celebrates
Speaker 1: the preservation of language and culture. Here's a story called
Speaker 1: bilingual Is My Superpower. It originally aired in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: I am in the studio with a very special guest
Speaker 1: who I haven't seen in.
Speaker 2: A long time.
Speaker 3: Hello, Hi, Maria.
Speaker 2: I'm Mardine. It's so good to see you.
Speaker 1: S see yose To Norie. Our very special guest is
Speaker 1: the son of our producer Gini.
Speaker 2: Montalvo say, let the t shirt, baby.
Speaker 1: I think I need to know what your t shirt says,
Speaker 1: because it's really cool.
Speaker 2: I'll read it for you. It says I'm bilingual. What's
Speaker 2: your superpower?
Speaker 3: I speak to languagees Spanish and English.
Speaker 1: It is kind of like a superpower, don't you think?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 1: And guess what I'm by lingual too, Bud. So it
Speaker 1: was back in twenty eighteen, Genie, that we did a
Speaker 1: podcast that really looked at bilingualism and your family.
Speaker 2: Yes, you would have heard my son babbling at the time.
Speaker 2: Martine was like seven months at that point. Last so cute.
Speaker 1: And we talked about you and your brother, and we
Speaker 1: talked about my kids, your kids, and we were talking
Speaker 1: about language. Right, what is our first language when we
Speaker 1: introduced another language? And so all right, here we are
Speaker 1: five years later and I'm having full blown conversations with
Speaker 1: your son in English and in Spanish. It's like adorable.
Speaker 1: Which language do you like better? English or Spanish?
Speaker 3: Spanish? Perro Quierro, I said, English is Spanish?
Speaker 2: Losos? I think that's great. And guess what you can't? Yes?
Speaker 2: And our decision. Last time you and I spoke, Maria
Speaker 2: was one hundred percent Spanish at home, and so Martin did,
Speaker 2: in fact, when in Spanish first, like me and your
Speaker 2: kids and so many others borget espano.
Speaker 3: Ismas bonito qu yota spico.
Speaker 1: So the good news is he got the Spanish since
Speaker 1: he was little, and that really is so fabulous. But
Speaker 1: what else has happened in these past several years?
Speaker 2: We moved out of Queens to the Burbs and Martin
Speaker 2: has a little sister, Syamrandi. Oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 2: So is she speaking Spanish too correct? Here? She is
Speaker 2: reading bluna? Oh? Yes, So we felt like this was
Speaker 2: a big parenting win. They got the Spanish check But
Speaker 2: plot twist from Martin. Something happened in March of twenty twenty,
Speaker 2: right the pandemic, Yeah, exactly. Never in our wildest dreams
Speaker 2: we have imagined that Martine would get stuck at home
Speaker 2: with us with nothing but a window to a street
Speaker 2: in Queen's. Martin was in a Spanish immersion program at
Speaker 2: that time, so, along with zooms and FaceTime with the abuelos,
Speaker 2: for all he knew then at two and a half,
Speaker 2: the world operated in Spanish. And well, because of that,
Speaker 2: it meant Martin actually never learned English.
Speaker 1: From Futuro Media and pr X. It's Latino Usa. I'm
Speaker 1: marieno Hosa today. Bilingual is my superpower. GINI is going
Speaker 1: to pick up the story from here.
Speaker 2: Is normal. My husband at n Esto and I have
Speaker 2: always spoken Spanish to each other. He immigrated from Peru
Speaker 2: in two thousand and nine, and I'm the child of
Speaker 2: Dominican parents, so we just knew we would speak Spanish
Speaker 2: to our kids. But nothing could have prepared us for
Speaker 2: what our decision would mean amongst a pandemic and lockdown.
Speaker 2: And We're not the only ones. So many children that
Speaker 2: were forced to stay home for the past three years
Speaker 2: were impacted by the loss of in person instruction. Kids
Speaker 2: who were making progress and programs for English Language learners
Speaker 2: as it's called in New York were now suddenly thrust
Speaker 2: into virtual learning, back with their home language with little
Speaker 2: to no support. In our case, moving to the urbs
Speaker 2: with a newborn and a three year old brought its
Speaker 2: own challenges, but in twenty twenty one, we decided it
Speaker 2: was time to get Mutting out of the house. He
Speaker 2: needed to socialize with other children, and at this point
Speaker 2: he was three and a half, so kindergarten was on
Speaker 2: the horizon. I personally never intended for Muchding to need
Speaker 2: bilingual education or any English support. I was more prepared
Speaker 2: for the day I would have to force him to
Speaker 2: keep speaking Spanish. It was very important to me, a
Speaker 2: child of immigrants with a bilingual upbringing, that he learned
Speaker 2: English before kindergarten. I went through the public school system
Speaker 2: in the South. I didn't take any tests, I didn't
Speaker 2: have bilingual education, but I knew English by the time
Speaker 2: I got to kindergarten because of where we lived. So
Speaker 2: I just wanted him to be solid before he got there.
Speaker 2: So we did what people have been doing for decades.
Speaker 2: We put him in daycare in English. Two weeks after
Speaker 2: starting full time, we got called to a meeting. You guys,
Speaker 2: educators have The director began to share their concern Medding
Speaker 2: repeats with the staff. Says, and we don't see that
Speaker 2: in his age, he's acting out, he's hitting people, and
Speaker 2: that he hums. Though that's my husband at NISTO incredibly
Speaker 2: surprised that humming is an issue because we're both musicians
Speaker 2: and that for my being at least the humming seemed
Speaker 2: to be a product of that. But the humming in
Speaker 2: conjunction with the other behavior, the pushing, the hitting, the repetition.
Speaker 2: The staff was suggesting that maybe he was on the
Speaker 2: spectrum all the time.
Speaker 5: We'll do as well as pictorum.
Speaker 2: Matting has always had issues with change. He takes longer
Speaker 2: to adapt to things. In this case, we moved, he
Speaker 2: had a new sister, and he's in a new daycare
Speaker 2: where he doesn't speak the language. We had explicitly told
Speaker 2: this daycare when we first approached the school that Martin
Speaker 2: did not speak English. They assured us that they were
Speaker 2: equipped to handle bilingual children. And look, we would be
Speaker 2: naive to say that Matting is perfect. He can be
Speaker 2: a handful, but we knew in our hearts Martin wasn't
Speaker 2: on the spectrum because before the pandemic he had been
Speaker 2: in a Spanish immersion school and did fine. At the
Speaker 2: same time, we've never been opposed to having our son evaluated.
Speaker 2: We were in constant communication with our pediatricians, but things
Speaker 2: pediatrician and queens even told us he'd been receiving calls
Speaker 2: like this almost weekly because of the return to in
Speaker 2: person care. He said, imagine, it's like you dropped your
Speaker 2: kid in a daycare in China, it's like that drastic
Speaker 2: of a change. He's been home for an entire year.
Speaker 2: He does not know how to socialize. He's not seen
Speaker 2: another kid at his age for an entire year. None
Speaker 2: of the other kids were bilingual, and honestly, no two
Speaker 2: toddlers are going to react the same way to things.
Speaker 2: So the daycare solution was to put us on a
Speaker 2: behavioral plan, which was a plan to put specific techniques
Speaker 2: in place and monitor progress. Yet they didn't give us
Speaker 2: time to show progress because we were traveling for the
Speaker 2: bulk of the time frame. Even though they knew that,
Speaker 2: they said they could no longer work with us after
Speaker 2: a certain date. In essence, they wanted a three year
Speaker 2: old to show progress in one week. We knew this
Speaker 2: wouldn't work. Thus it just became clear they didn't want
Speaker 2: to help him and they didn't want us there. We
Speaker 2: still had a full year and a half before we
Speaker 2: entered the public school system, which at that point I
Speaker 2: believed had systems in place to help him. But what
Speaker 2: were we supposed to do until then? When my thing
Speaker 2: was born, I didn't know that this journey would be
Speaker 2: so hard, But as I've found with many parenting decisions.
Speaker 2: It would require a lot of introspection. Am I doing
Speaker 2: the right thing for my child? Is this happening because
Speaker 2: he can't speak English? Is my decision going to affect
Speaker 2: him negatively? Is there actually something wrong with him and
Speaker 2: maybe two languages are holding him back? And so I
Speaker 2: at least left the meeting feeling defeated, stressed, and worried
Speaker 2: about what was next. I couldn't believe this was twenty
Speaker 2: twenty one and we were still in multicultural New York.
Speaker 2: This wasn't supposed to happen here. New York is supposed
Speaker 2: to be different. So I started to look for answers
Speaker 2: for me. That meant looking through history. And it all
Speaker 2: started when I heard an episode of The Bowery Boys
Speaker 2: podcast on the New Yorrekan migration.
Speaker 6: Ominously, the New York State Chamber of Commerce took aim
Speaker 6: at Puerto Rican children, commissioning intelligence tests, then determining that
Speaker 6: Puerto Rican children were sub normal and would quote deteriorate
Speaker 6: standards already so seriously impaired by mass immigration of the
Speaker 6: lowest levels of populations of many nations unquote.
Speaker 2: What struck me was that these children were given tests
Speaker 2: in a language they could barely speak, and because they
Speaker 2: didn't perform well on the tests, they were labeled subnormal.
Speaker 2: Here I was, nearly a century later, being told there
Speaker 2: was something wrong with our child simply because of a
Speaker 2: language barrier, and he was on the verge of being
Speaker 2: kicked out because of it. The study and its ripple
Speaker 2: effects I learned thereafter became my security blanket, and so
Speaker 2: I continued deeper into Spanish speaking New York and bilingual
Speaker 2: education history, hoping that somewhere in that history was the
Speaker 2: answer to how to properly teach your kiddle language.
Speaker 7: My parents came from Puerto Rico, going into the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 7: They married in nineteen thirty five, and I was born
Speaker 7: the year after.
Speaker 2: Virginia Sanchez Corole is Professor Emerita at the Department of
Speaker 2: Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College, Virginia entered
Speaker 2: the school system a couple of years after the study
Speaker 2: was published.
Speaker 7: We all spoke Spanish. The school was the place where
Speaker 7: you were suddenly introduced to English.
Speaker 2: There was validation. Even almost one hundred years ago, people
Speaker 2: were dropping their kids in school to learn English. So
Speaker 2: we had done nothing wrong as parents back then and
Speaker 2: today these communities easily thrived and functioned fully in Spanish.
Speaker 2: If you know a bit about the history of New
Speaker 2: York's you'll know that the city has been home to
Speaker 2: waves of immigration from all over the globe, German, Irish, Italian,
Speaker 2: Eastern European, you name it. They all passed through Ellis Island,
Speaker 2: and in the late nineteen twenties, through the Great Depression,
Speaker 2: the city also received Spanish speaking residents, namely from Puerto Rico.
Speaker 2: So receiving people who speak different languages is nothing new
Speaker 2: for the city, and yet at the same time, psychological
Speaker 2: tests were accepted tools for improving the educational process.
Speaker 7: IQ tests were geared too an American ideal, and for
Speaker 7: kids that were coming from different parts of the world,
Speaker 7: they did not recognize elements of American culture that might
Speaker 7: appear on the test.
Speaker 2: The tests were biased because you could score incorrectly on
Speaker 2: a question for something you may have never seen in
Speaker 2: your life, and you may also not even speak the language.
Speaker 7: You have to look at the atmosphere and the ambiance
Speaker 7: which these people are operating. You have to factor that
Speaker 7: into whatever tests are being given to students and schools.
Speaker 5: Intelligence tests have been used in very negative ways against
Speaker 5: groups of people.
Speaker 2: Doctor Ada Nevades Latore is Associate professor and Chair of
Speaker 2: the Curriculum and Teaching Division at Fortum's Graduate School of Education.
Speaker 2: Her research focuses on multi lingual education to.
Speaker 5: Keep them oppressed, to deny opportunities to grow and to develop,
Speaker 5: and to really enact the promise of being individuals that
Speaker 5: can contribute to this society.
Speaker 2: The US enacted a law to limit immigration in those
Speaker 2: early decades, but Puerto Ricans were US citizens, and so
Speaker 2: this country was going to find another way to make
Speaker 2: their case for limiting entry to this group of people,
Speaker 2: like this study that caught my attention on the Bowery
Speaker 2: Boys podcast. Nineteen thirty five, a Special Committee on Immigration
Speaker 2: and Naturalization published its reaction and results to a study
Speaker 2: done on Puerto Rican children from the previous year. It
Speaker 2: gave IQ test to over two hundred children at one
Speaker 2: specific school in Spanish Harlem. The researchers intended to give
Speaker 2: a non verbal test since they knew language would be
Speaker 2: a factor, but for some one hundred children, they use
Speaker 2: the verbal test because it was allegedly more accurate.
Speaker 5: Any verbal tests or even non verbal tests given to
Speaker 5: non speakers of the language of a test becomes a
Speaker 5: language test, not an intelligence test. If students do not
Speaker 5: understand what's being asked for them to answer, then you're
Speaker 5: not testing intelligence. What you're testing is language proficiency, because
Speaker 5: before they can do the task, they have to understand
Speaker 5: the language.
Speaker 2: The IQ tests were an appendix and a larger study
Speaker 2: dealing with immigration control. The committee in the nineteen thirties
Speaker 2: was looking to prove that Puerto Rico was not sending
Speaker 2: its best, they were bringing crime. It reminded me a
Speaker 2: bit of the rhetoric we've been hearing today. I started
Speaker 2: to zoom out a bit and reflect on what all
Speaker 2: this meant. These tests, like I said, were designed to
Speaker 2: set the students up for failure. As a parent, it's
Speaker 2: disappointing to hear that whatever agenda these people had, they
Speaker 2: decided the best way to make their case was through children,
Speaker 2: children who want to learn and grow. And never did
Speaker 2: anything to these people except exist exist in Spanish. Despite
Speaker 2: the obvious issues with the study itself, the final blanket
Speaker 2: statement was that these Spanish speaking students were inferior, they
Speaker 2: were below their uspers, and they should not be allowed
Speaker 2: entry to the United States. And like we heard earlier,
Speaker 2: they don't want them to quote to tear or eight
Speaker 2: standards already impaired by mass immigration. Here's Virginia again.
Speaker 7: The adjustment issues became prominent in the school system because
Speaker 7: the school system had to find a way to deal
Speaker 7: with this influx of new students.
Speaker 2: When Virginia entered the school system in the early forties,
Speaker 2: there was no bilingual education. Then we knew we had
Speaker 2: to assimilate.
Speaker 7: It was kind of a hidden way of telling you
Speaker 7: that the language and the culture that you were born
Speaker 7: into and that the language as you spoke was inferior.
Speaker 7: You had to get rid of it. That was the
Speaker 7: only way that you were going to succeed.
Speaker 2: The kids who couldn't assimilate, or didn't test well on
Speaker 2: the IQ test, or simply didn't do well in the
Speaker 2: classroom because of language.
Speaker 7: Teachers began to recommend that these kids who had a
Speaker 7: language issue would be put into remediation classes.
Speaker 2: Virginia told me remediation classes for what we would consider
Speaker 2: special education today. While special education classes were a needed
Speaker 2: resource for many children, it also became a funnel point
Speaker 2: for children deemed problematic or simply those who needed better
Speaker 2: English instruction, and the teacher suggested it because it was
Speaker 2: easier because it was the only thing they knew to do.
Speaker 2: Doctor Latore, again, they do.
Speaker 5: Not understand acquisition of a language other than English. They
Speaker 5: take hold of the first thing or the explanation that
Speaker 5: is closest to them, rather than continue to investigate.
Speaker 2: And so we've arrived at this idea that instead of
Speaker 2: considering language or why a child may be having difficulty,
Speaker 2: we jump to the conclusion that a child needs special education,
Speaker 2: rather than try to meet this child where they are
Speaker 2: and dig to find out what is the issue at hand.
Speaker 2: This sadly starts to sound familiar with what we were
Speaker 2: going through with Martin. He wasn't like this before, you know,
Speaker 2: and then he didn't have him until he started coming here.
Speaker 2: So I don't really know what to tell you. Our
Speaker 2: original daycare called us on the Monday after our meeting
Speaker 2: to pick up Martin because they couldn't take care of
Speaker 2: him that day. We don't know what we talk from about.
Speaker 2: After it became clear that they were not a good
Speaker 2: fit for us, we decided to pull Martin from the program.
Speaker 2: Here we are the day after Arnesta and I went
Speaker 2: in and gave the director a piece of our mind.
Speaker 2: Instead of this being a devastating moment, we were confident.
Speaker 2: We had spoken to his doctors and educational psychologists. The
Speaker 2: consensus was, in fact, that Martin was acting out because
Speaker 2: he couldn't communicate with the other children, and this behavior
Speaker 2: was how he communicated. It wasn't right, but he didn't
Speaker 2: know otherwise. We knew that Martin's behavior wasn't a reflection
Speaker 2: of his ability to learn or his intelligence. Intelligence isn't
Speaker 2: based on the ability to speak English. Kind of like
Speaker 2: Sophia Ergara said in Modern Family.
Speaker 1: You know how frustrating it is to have to translate
Speaker 1: everything in my head before I say it?
Speaker 2: Do you even know how smart I am in Spanish?
Speaker 2: Deciding to pull Martin from his daycare was still scary,
Speaker 2: but it was the only option for us. We no
Speaker 2: longer felt comfortable taking our son there, But here we were.
Speaker 2: We still needed childcare and Martin still needed to learn English.
Speaker 2: Was there a light at the end of the tunnel
Speaker 2: for us and the kids? In my history? Lesson? Coming
Speaker 2: up on that?
Speaker 1: You know us say, how does New York's history help
Speaker 1: Genie navigate the school system? As Martine embraces English as
Speaker 1: a new language, stay with us not Bayes, Hey, We're back,
Speaker 1: and Before the Break, producer Genie Montalbo explained the unexpected
Speaker 1: challenges her son Martine faced as a Spanish speaking child
Speaker 1: entering school in New York City. To better navigate the system,
Speaker 1: Genie went on a trip through history and was surprised
Speaker 1: by what she found.
Speaker 2: She's going to pick up the story from here. I
Speaker 2: don't know about the rest of you bilingual folks, but
Speaker 2: for me, it's very weird to speak Spanish or English
Speaker 2: to specific people. Why I can't speak English to my
Speaker 2: husband and I can't speak Spanish to my brother, and
Speaker 2: so the same thing now happens with my kids. It's
Speaker 2: weird for me to speak in anything but Spanish to
Speaker 2: them and English.
Speaker 3: No perun school is in English, lacasa is.
Speaker 2: So it was no surprise to me the day that
Speaker 2: I sat down to try to help Martin with his
Speaker 2: homework that he had some strong feelings.
Speaker 8: No an englis simbri alo espanol aki.
Speaker 2: He's become mega ultraspecific about when and where we speak
Speaker 2: either language, almost like the one parent, one language technique
Speaker 2: to teach your child the language. Martin now associates Spanish
Speaker 2: with home and English with school. He's even at the
Speaker 2: extreme that he won't let us watch movies in English.
Speaker 2: I grew up on English language content. You couldn't change
Speaker 2: the language on your streaming device. I have had to
Speaker 2: rewatch every single movie and Disney movie in Spanish. All
Speaker 2: I want to do is seeing Tomorrow from Annie Mamma
Speaker 2: Ryana Yera, but I've had to relearn it all in Spanish.
Speaker 2: This process has been hard for me as well, because
Speaker 2: at some point in my life the English took over
Speaker 2: and became more dominant. I actively chose Spanish on a
Speaker 2: daily basis. Anyone who's flipped languages knows this can be exhausting,
Speaker 2: but I do it because I want to keep my
Speaker 2: own fluency and because I want my kids to be solid.
Speaker 2: Like I said, I'm preparing myself for that day they
Speaker 2: say to me, I don't want to speak Spanish because
Speaker 2: I'm sure that day will come, and if it does,
Speaker 2: it's okay. But until then this will all be good
Speaker 2: for me and us. But things vocabulary in Spanish is
Speaker 2: often better than mine. That day we were at the
Speaker 2: kitchen table. He told me English was only for school,
Speaker 2: so I asked him how he was going to learn
Speaker 2: to read.
Speaker 8: In las cuela, No aki solo no ipa ig cordita
Speaker 8: solon in ascueila.
Speaker 2: Mom and dad and sister, we're not allowed to speak
Speaker 2: English at home, and I guess that's how we'll operate
Speaker 2: until we decide otherwise. I had a lot of mom
Speaker 2: guilt surrounding dropping my thing into the deep end of
Speaker 2: the pool. It made everything that was going on in
Speaker 2: the daycare worse because on some level it felt like
Speaker 2: we had chosen that for him, and that's why he
Speaker 2: was having a hard time. My only consolation was that
Speaker 2: a century of people I was learning about had done
Speaker 2: exactly that, and they were all functioning adults. It made
Speaker 2: me feel less alone in this journey. But how did
Speaker 2: we get there? What happened after that infamous study In
Speaker 2: the thirties, I thought English was taught separately, like some
Speaker 2: of the transitional bilingual ED classes today. That model was
Speaker 2: something I learned was used a lot in the fifties
Speaker 2: and the sixties. The thinking was if you taught Spanish
Speaker 2: speaking students English first, then you could move them into
Speaker 2: the classroom. Doctor Latore, Again.
Speaker 5: When you do that, students are not learning about science,
Speaker 5: mass social studies.
Speaker 2: How again are we acquiring language when you separate it
Speaker 2: from classroom content. Even the language you use at home
Speaker 2: is different when you use it at school, kind of
Speaker 2: like how Martin compartmentalized language spoken at home versus school.
Speaker 2: And so in the past, when those kids returned to
Speaker 2: the classroom because now they supposedly knew English, they.
Speaker 5: Were quiet again. Why because they had not learned in
Speaker 5: that language classroom.
Speaker 2: And because the teachers weren't actually trained in how language develops.
Speaker 5: Many teachers saw, but wait a second. This child knows
Speaker 5: English because he can communicate perfectly with me, but he
Speaker 5: cannot learn math. He's behind in science, he cannot write
Speaker 5: a composition in English language arts. So therefore there must
Speaker 5: be something wrong with their brain.
Speaker 2: Even kids who speak one language can have issues in
Speaker 2: the classroom. Academic language is tough. I lost one of
Speaker 2: the top spots in the spelling Bee in fourth grade
Speaker 2: because of the word desecrete. Who uses that in a
Speaker 2: sentence every day?
Speaker 5: Just because they were thrown into an English speaking classroom,
Speaker 5: that doesn't mean that on their own, those students were
Speaker 5: being supported to learn English.
Speaker 2: And we know for a fact that many of.
Speaker 5: Those students decided to leave school. These students were intelligent
Speaker 5: and say, wait a second, I'm wasting my time in
Speaker 5: a classroom that number one, I do not understand. Number two,
Speaker 5: the teacher doesn't seem to care about me to spend
Speaker 5: time to learn who I am, where I come from,
Speaker 5: and what my learning needs are. Why am in here
Speaker 5: if I can be out there supporting my family with
Speaker 5: a job.
Speaker 2: This was all happening at a time when the Puerto
Speaker 2: Rican population in New York City had increased by twelve times,
Speaker 2: with the press claiming these students allegedly continue to overcrowd
Speaker 2: and that their delinquents who are deteriorating the public school system.
Speaker 2: In certain outlets, it was labeled the Puerto Rican problem Virginia.
Speaker 7: Again, this idea of a Puerto Rican problem took into
Speaker 7: account the fact that kids were scoring poorly on school exams,
Speaker 7: but there were no resources to help.
Speaker 2: But during this decade, when the tensions with Puerto Ricans
Speaker 2: in the city were at its height, is where I
Speaker 2: start to see some changes in advocacy start to pop up.
Speaker 2: The Board of Education felt it was time to assess
Speaker 2: what was in place. Since there wasn't a proper way
Speaker 2: to test intelligence in non English speakers, so schools couldn't
Speaker 2: create or improve programs, and so they started something called
Speaker 2: the Puerto Rican Study in nineteen fifty three. It was
Speaker 2: a major investigation. The study developed techniques, teaching materials, detailed
Speaker 2: adding positions. Even the language used in this study is
Speaker 2: vastly different from the rhetoric that was being spread in
Speaker 2: the media. Here's a quote from the director of the study,
Speaker 2: doctor J. K. Morrison, read by our senior production manager,
Speaker 2: Mike Sargent. We see them not.
Speaker 9: As problems, not as statistics, but as tiny individuals, each
Speaker 9: in his own way, working towards adjustment in a culture
Speaker 9: new and strange.
Speaker 2: Here it was the bones of bilingual education mapped out.
Speaker 2: When the study was released in nineteen fifty nine. It
Speaker 2: cost one million dollars in the nineteen fifties, that's like
Speaker 2: twelve million today. Surely this all led to the basis
Speaker 2: of what we have today. Except all this work never
Speaker 2: really went anywhere. And I knew that because the New
Speaker 2: York Board of Education would be sued by a Puerto
Speaker 2: Rican youth organization in the seventies. The funny thing when
Speaker 2: you learn about history is you know how it ends,
Speaker 2: no matter how many times you watch Titanic in my case,
Speaker 2: thirteen the ship will always sink. So when I eventually
Speaker 2: went to the municipal building downtown to review all these materials,
Speaker 2: I was a little shocked. How do you spend so
Speaker 2: much money on developing something to help a group of
Speaker 2: people and then don't put it into practice? And the
Speaker 2: answer to that brings us back to understanding our surroundings
Speaker 2: so called Puerto Rican problem, to quote the study's next steps.
Speaker 2: A study, however, good never solves problems. At best, it
Speaker 2: finds solutions that will work. To put the proposals into
Speaker 2: effective operation in all schools is a major undertaking the problem.
Speaker 2: Segregation still ruled the schools. When I looked at the
Speaker 2: bigger picture, the surroundings, the way the Puerto Rican children
Speaker 2: were taught, and the study, it all started to make sense,
Speaker 2: especially as I learned how changes were and are implemented
Speaker 2: within the school system. One is money to implement the
Speaker 2: new materials, the other is proper staffing to teach it.
Speaker 2: There needs to be assessments to keep the schools honest,
Speaker 2: and finally, the parents they we need to be involved.
Speaker 2: If any of those pieces aren't working, then the system
Speaker 2: won't work. And this still goes for today, I found
Speaker 2: myself feeling naive and saddened to finally understand that as
Speaker 2: long as the structural racism and oppression of a people exist,
Speaker 2: that will permeate into the school system. Because the answer
Speaker 2: to why that study wasn't fully put into place is
Speaker 2: because of how the vast majority of the city treated
Speaker 2: a specific group of people. Whoever makes the call decides
Speaker 2: how money and programs are implemented or if they're even
Speaker 2: used at all, kind of like what's happening across the
Speaker 2: country in Florida and Texas. The people in charge decide
Speaker 2: they don't want African American studies and diversity, equity and
Speaker 2: inclusion programs, so they ban them because of their own agenda.
Speaker 2: But in New York, to me anyway, it always felt
Speaker 2: like this multicultural bubble. We never expected to deal with
Speaker 2: someone questioning our bilingualism here. So once I fully understood
Speaker 2: why the study was wasn't put into place, I wanted
Speaker 2: to know how we got from the study to a
Speaker 2: lawsuit and how that affected the schools because we do
Speaker 2: have bilingual education today, and right around the Civil rights movement,
Speaker 2: things start to pick up the pace. Here's Virginia Sanchez
Speaker 2: Corol again.
Speaker 7: Puerto Rican and Black students begin to take over the colleges,
Speaker 7: asking for courses, not asking, demanding what was their right
Speaker 7: to courses about their experience? They wanted to see themselves
Speaker 7: in the curriculum.
Speaker 2: One woman in particular really took the fight for education
Speaker 2: equality and cultural preservation to a new level, Doctor Antonio Panoja.
Speaker 2: Here she is speaking in a documentary from two thousand
Speaker 2: and eight.
Speaker 4: We started to learn from the youth what was happening
Speaker 4: to them in the schools.
Speaker 2: Doctor Pantoja was a Puerto Rican organizer and activist who
Speaker 2: arrived in New York City in nineteen forty four. She
Speaker 2: created Aspeeda in the early sixties, which in Spanish means
Speaker 2: to aspire. Aspeeda was formed as a place for Puerto
Speaker 2: Rican kids to receive support outside of the classroom. The
Speaker 2: organization still exists today for all people coming from a
Speaker 2: Latine background. Doctor Pantoha believed that because of the language barrier,
Speaker 2: the children were not learning anything and they would leave school.
Speaker 4: There's a lot that says that they will take you
Speaker 4: to jail if you don't take your children to school.
Speaker 2: Like we've been hearing, the dropout rate had been a
Speaker 2: problem for decades, and it was due in part to
Speaker 2: failed support from the public school system. That's turning your own.
Speaker 4: Okay, if there's a lot of that says that I
Speaker 4: have to take my children to school, then I can
Speaker 4: accuse you as an institution where I have brought my
Speaker 4: children and you don't teach them.
Speaker 2: Doctor Pantoja brought the problem to the newly founded Puerto
Speaker 2: Rican Legal Defense Fund, and in nineteen seventy two they
Speaker 2: did in fact sue the state in what's known as
Speaker 2: Aspeeda versus Board of Education. The New York Board of
Speaker 2: Education settled and created what's called a consent decree, meaning
Speaker 2: the schools would have to provide special language assistance to
Speaker 2: children who did not speak English. This lawsuit was one
Speaker 2: of many in the nineteen seventies around the country that
Speaker 2: led to national legislation. It did in fact lead to
Speaker 2: change and built the foundation of what we know today
Speaker 2: is bilingual education. As I went farther and farther down
Speaker 2: the rabbit hole, I often wondered, what does Puerto Rico
Speaker 2: have to do with my Dominican American southern upbringing and
Speaker 2: my now Domini and Mary Peruvian children sharing a common language?
Speaker 2: Meant Puerto Ricans were fighting for all the Spanish speakers
Speaker 2: in the state because New York would eventually receive Dominican
Speaker 2: immigrants people from Mexico, Central and South America. After English,
Speaker 2: Spanish is the most common language spoken in this region,
Speaker 2: and the people who fought for bilingual education created a
Speaker 2: ripple effect that is bigger than Spanish speakers. Virginia shares
Speaker 2: the time she gave a talk.
Speaker 7: This guy in the back of the auditorium, tall, very tall, blonde,
Speaker 7: raises his hand to make a comment, and he says, well,
Speaker 7: bilingual education was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 7: And I'm thinking, I know he was Latino. He says,
Speaker 7: when I came from Russia, if I had not had
Speaker 7: bilingual program to get into I would not be doing
Speaker 7: the things that I'm doing today.
Speaker 9: And that was like, that's right.
Speaker 7: Bilingual education doesn't only mean Spanish English. It's now a
Speaker 7: tool for learning and bringing children into school systems that
Speaker 7: we never had before.
Speaker 2: Currently, New York States public schools boast a population of
Speaker 2: over two hundred and sixty thousand students who speak over
Speaker 2: two hundred languages. From the web, it says all teachers
Speaker 2: must be skilled in how to support English language learners
Speaker 2: as they acquire content knowledge while also progressing towards English
Speaker 2: language proficiency. But in early education, you the parent should
Speaker 2: always be on the lookout because the teaching requirements are different.
Speaker 2: While your toddler's teacher may be good at taking care
Speaker 2: of a three year old, they may not be trained
Speaker 2: in working with bilingual children. And well, we've all heard
Speaker 2: how that can go. In fall of twenty twenty two,
Speaker 2: Matting finally entered the public school system. He was assessed
Speaker 2: for a language. Leading up to that, because we filled
Speaker 2: out a form that said we had another home language, I.
Speaker 3: Get a lot of things, I get a talk test.
Speaker 2: Marting was placed in NL or English has a new
Speaker 2: language because he tested as transitioning or in the middle,
Speaker 2: which gives him one hundred and eighty minutes per week
Speaker 2: of support. Bilingual education works in a variety of ways
Speaker 2: in New York State today, and because we're not in
Speaker 2: a dual language district, Mutting was assigned an NL teacher
Speaker 2: who comes into the classroom and along with the classroom teacher,
Speaker 2: they work as code teachers. Matting has now been in
Speaker 2: a classroom environment that has really supported his English language
Speaker 2: development for only about a year.
Speaker 3: Now I really know how to speak to you of them,
Speaker 3: and who.
Speaker 2: Helped you with that? The teacher, mister m Yeah, the
Speaker 2: school year just ended. When we started our journey into
Speaker 2: public schools, Mudding's NL teacher told us that we have
Speaker 2: to continue the home language. He said, quote the better
Speaker 2: Mutting spoke Spanish, the better he would speak English. All
Speaker 2: of the stress that I had felt for the past
Speaker 2: year slowly started to melt away. Knew he was in
Speaker 2: a place that was going to support him. I now
Speaker 2: know that it was easier for someone to say that
Speaker 2: there was something wrong with him than to really assess
Speaker 2: why he was acting that way. And he did improve
Speaker 2: immensely once we moved him to a new program with love,
Speaker 2: care and dedication from both educators and us. Mating is
Speaker 2: not going to be the same as any other child,
Speaker 2: and we knew that, and so we fought for him.
Speaker 2: This is cliche, but children are actually like sponges. Through
Speaker 2: this journey, I've learned you have to see the promise
Speaker 2: in every child. Kids will learn Intelligence exists in many
Speaker 2: different forms. It's not just one construct. Frederick Douglass said,
Speaker 2: power concedes nothing without a demand as parents, we have
Speaker 2: to individually advocate for our own kids. That's the only
Speaker 2: piece of the puzzle we have control over. We know
Speaker 2: them better than anyone because as we've seen, until the
Speaker 2: world is more accepting of everyone, there is still work
Speaker 2: to be done, and if you aren't comfortable in English,
Speaker 2: there is support. Schools and the city have resources. Bi
Speaker 2: Lingual education as it stands today exists because people throughout
Speaker 2: history fought for it. To them, I say, go ask yes,
Speaker 2: you know, and you know what? And all of this
Speaker 2: questioning how Martine is making out after the pandemic. My
Speaker 2: two year old is in daycare in English now. I
Speaker 2: didn't even realize that she's speaking English in school on
Speaker 2: Spanish at home.
Speaker 5: Wash my hands.
Speaker 2: Yes, because I only hear her speak Spanish. It never
Speaker 2: occurred to me how quickly she would start code switching.
Speaker 2: Like my brother said when I reported on this in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, ling is one of the best gifts you
Speaker 2: can pass on to your child. There's more places to visit, books,
Speaker 2: to read, movies, to see more of the world to absorb.
Speaker 2: Generations of us have done it like my parents did
Speaker 2: with me, and my husband and I are succeeding with
Speaker 2: our own kids.
Speaker 1: Bilingualism really is a superpower. This episode was produced by
Speaker 1: Gini Montalbo. It was edited by Mark Vagan. It was
Speaker 1: mixed by Stephanie Lebau and Julia Caruso. The Latino USA
Speaker 1: team also includes Roxanna guire, Felicia Dominguez, Fernando Chavari, Jessica Ellis,
Speaker 1: Victoria Strada, Dominiquin Estrosa, Renaldo Leos Junior, Luis Luna Marta Martinez,
Speaker 1: JJ Crubin, Tasha Sandoval and Nancy Trujillo, Beenille, Ramidez, Marlon Bishop,
Speaker 1: Maria Garcia and myself are co executive producers and I'm
Speaker 1: your host, Marino Rossa. Join us again on our next episode.
Speaker 1: In the meantime, look for us on all of our
Speaker 1: social media. I'll see you on Instagram. Evyes, Ciao.
Speaker 10: Latino USA is made possible in part by the Ford Foundation,
Speaker 10: working with visionaries on the front lines of social change worldwide,
Speaker 10: the John Dee and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, and the
Speaker 10: Heis and Simon's Foundation, unlocking knowledge, opportunity and possibilities. More
Speaker 10: at hsfoundation dot org.
Speaker 2: Mon No Messy Up