Speaker 1: Hey, hey, hey, hey, get us.
Speaker 2: Latino USA is celebrating thirty years today, ain't that amos,
Speaker 2: And we would love to hear from you. Dear listener,
Speaker 2: Do you want to share with us exactly what Latino
Speaker 2: USA has meant to you? Do you have a birthday
Speaker 2: wish for us? Leave us a voicemail at six four
Speaker 2: six five seven to one one two two four. That's
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Speaker 2: and we might feature your message in an upcoming show
Speaker 2: grass Yas. This is Latino USA, the radio journal of
Speaker 2: News and Kurture's Latino USA, latin Us, Latino USA.
Speaker 1: I'm Maria Inojosa.
Speaker 3: We bring you stories that are underreported but that mattered.
Speaker 1: To you, overlooked by the rest of the media.
Speaker 3: And while the country is struggling.
Speaker 2: To deal with these we listen to the stories of
Speaker 2: black and Latinos.
Speaker 3: Studios United Latino Front.
Speaker 2: A cultural renaissance organizing at the forefront of the movement.
Speaker 3: I'm Maria Inojosa, nose Bayan.
Speaker 2: I am in the studio with a very special guest
Speaker 2: who I haven't seen in.
Speaker 4: A long time.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hi Maria.
Speaker 1: I'm Mardine. It's so good to.
Speaker 5: See you see.
Speaker 2: Yosee, our very special guest is the son of our producer,
Speaker 2: Gini Montalba, saying that to T shirt baby, I think
Speaker 2: I need to know what your T shirt says because
Speaker 2: it's really cool. I'll read it for you. It says,
Speaker 2: I'm bilingual. What's your superpower?
Speaker 5: I speak to language ties Spanish and English.
Speaker 1: It is kind of like a superpower, don't you think?
Speaker 6: Yes?
Speaker 1: And guess what.
Speaker 2: I'm by lingual too, buddy. So it was back in
Speaker 2: twenty eighteen, Genie, that we did a podcast that really
Speaker 2: looked at bilingualism and your family.
Speaker 4: Yes, you would have heard my son babbling at the time.
Speaker 4: Martin was like seven months at that point, so cute.
Speaker 2: And we talked about you and your brother, and we
Speaker 2: talked about my kids, your kids, and we were talking
Speaker 2: about language. Right, what is our first language when we
Speaker 2: introduced another language? And so all right, here we are
Speaker 2: five years later and I'm having full blown conversations with
Speaker 2: your son in English and in Spanish. It's like adorable.
Speaker 2: Which language do you like better? English or Spanish?
Speaker 5: Spanish? Perro Quierro, I said, English is Spanish?
Speaker 1: Losos? I think that's great, And guess what you can't.
Speaker 4: Yes, and our decision. Last time you and I spoke,
Speaker 4: Maria was one hundred percent Spanish at home, and so
Speaker 4: Martin did, in fact learn Spanish first, like me and
Speaker 4: your kids and so many others.
Speaker 2: Bores is maas bonito q yoaico. So the good news
Speaker 2: is he got the Spanish since he was little, and
Speaker 2: that really is so fabulous. But what else has happened
Speaker 2: in these past several years?
Speaker 4: We moved out of Queens to the Urbs and Martin
Speaker 4: has a little sister, Samrande.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, I love that.
Speaker 4: So is she speaking Spanish too correct? Here she is
Speaker 4: reading bo Luna?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 4: Yes, So we felt like this was a big parenting win.
Speaker 4: They got the Spanish check But plot twist from Martin.
Speaker 4: Something happened in March of twenty twenty, right, the pandemic, Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: Never in our wildest dreams we have imagined that Martin
Speaker 4: would get stuck at home with us nothing but a
Speaker 4: window to a street in Queens. Martin was in a
Speaker 4: Spanish immersion program at that time, so along with zooms
Speaker 4: and FaceTime with the Abuelos, for all he knew then
Speaker 4: at two and a half, the world operated in Spanish
Speaker 4: and well because of that, it meant Martin actually never
Speaker 4: learned English.
Speaker 2: From Futuro Media and p r X, It's Latino USA.
Speaker 2: I'm Marie jo Josa today. Bilingual is my superpower. GINI
Speaker 2: is going to pick up the story from here.
Speaker 3: Is normal.
Speaker 4: My husband at Anesta and I have always spoken Spanish
Speaker 4: to each other. He immigrated from Peru in two thousand
Speaker 4: and nine, and I'm the child of Dominican parents, so
Speaker 4: we just knew we would speak Spanish to our kids.
Speaker 4: But nothing could have prepared us for what our decision
Speaker 4: would mean amongst a pandemic and lockdown, and were not
Speaker 4: the only ones. So many children that were forced to
Speaker 4: stay home for the past few years were impacted by
Speaker 4: the loss of in person instruction. Kids who were making
Speaker 4: progress and programs for English language learners as it's called
Speaker 4: in New York were now suddenly thrust into virtual learning,
Speaker 4: back with their home language with little to no support.
Speaker 4: In our case, moving to the urbs with a newborn
Speaker 4: and a three year old brought its own challenges, but
Speaker 4: in twenty twenty one, we decided it was time to
Speaker 4: get much thing out of the house. He needed to
Speaker 4: socialize with other children, and at this point he was
Speaker 4: three and a half, so kindergarten was on the horizon.
Speaker 4: I personally never intended for much thing to need bilingual
Speaker 4: education or any English support. In fact, I was more
Speaker 4: prepared for the day I would have to force him
Speaker 4: to keep speaking Spanish. It was very important to me,
Speaker 4: a child of immigrants with a bilingual upbringing, that he
Speaker 4: learned English before kindergarten. I went through the public school
Speaker 4: system in the South. I didn't take any tests, I
Speaker 4: didn't have bilingual education, but I knew English by the
Speaker 4: time I got to kindergarten because of where we lived.
Speaker 4: So I just wanted him to be solid before he
Speaker 4: got there. So we did what people have been doing
Speaker 4: for decades. We put him in daycare in English. Two
Speaker 4: weeks after starting full time, we got called to a meeting.
Speaker 4: You guys, educators have the director began to share their
Speaker 4: concern madding repeats what the staff says and we don't
Speaker 4: see that in his age, he's acting out, he's hitting people,
Speaker 4: and that he hums. Concern though that's my husband at
Speaker 4: an Asto incredibly surprised that humming is an issue because
Speaker 4: we're both musicians and that for Martine at least the
Speaker 4: humming seemed to be a product of that. But the
Speaker 4: humming in conjunction with the other behavior, the pushing, the hitting,
Speaker 4: the repetition. The staff was suggesting that maybe he was
Speaker 4: on the spectrum all the time.
Speaker 1: We'll do a Wals picture.
Speaker 4: Marting has always had issues with change. He takes longer
Speaker 4: to adapt to things. In this case, we moved, he
Speaker 4: had a new sister, and he's in a new daycare
Speaker 4: where he doesn't speak the language. We had explicitly told
Speaker 4: this daycare when we first approached the school that Martin
Speaker 4: did not speak English. They assured us that they were
Speaker 4: equipped to handle bi lingual children and look, we would
Speaker 4: be naive to say that Matting is perfect. He can
Speaker 4: be a handful, but we knew in our hearts Martin
Speaker 4: wasn't on the spectrum because before the pandemic he had
Speaker 4: been in a Spanish immersion school and did fine. At
Speaker 4: the same time, we've never been opposed to having our
Speaker 4: son evaluated. We were in constant communication with our pediatricians.
Speaker 4: Mating's pediatrician and Queen's even told us he'd been receiving
Speaker 4: calls like this almost weekly. Because of the return to
Speaker 4: in person care. He said, imagine, it's like you dropped
Speaker 4: your kid in a daycare in China. It's like that
Speaker 4: drastic of a change. He's been home for an entire year.
Speaker 4: He does not know how to socialize. He's not seen
Speaker 4: another kid his age for an entire year. None of
Speaker 4: the other kids were bilingual, and honestly, no two toddlers
Speaker 4: are going to react the same way to things. So
Speaker 4: the daycare solution was to put us on a behavioral plan,
Speaker 4: which was a plan to put specific techniques in place
Speaker 4: and monitor progress. Yet they didn't give us time to
Speaker 4: show progress because we were traveling for the bulk of
Speaker 4: the time frame. Even though they knew that, they said
Speaker 4: they could no longer work with us after a certain date.
Speaker 4: In essence, they wanted a three year old to show
Speaker 4: progress in one week. We knew this wouldn't work. Thus
Speaker 4: it just became clear they didn't want to help him
Speaker 4: and they didn't want us there. We still had a
Speaker 4: full year and a half before we entered the public
Speaker 4: school system, which at that point I believed had systems
Speaker 4: in place to help him. But what were we supposed
Speaker 4: to do until then? When my thing was born, I
Speaker 4: didn't know that this journey would be so hard, but
Speaker 4: as I've found with many parenting decisions, it would require
Speaker 4: a lot of introspection. Am I doing the right thing
Speaker 4: for my child? Is this happening because he can't speak English?
Speaker 4: Is my decision going to affect him negatively? Is there
Speaker 4: actually something wrong with him and maybe two languages are
Speaker 4: holding him back? And so I at least left the
Speaker 4: meeting feeling defeated, stressed, and worried about what was next.
Speaker 4: I couldn't believe this was twenty twenty one and we
Speaker 4: were still in multicultural New York. This wasn't supposed to
Speaker 4: happen here. New York is supposed to be different. So
Speaker 4: I started to look for answers for me. That meant
Speaker 4: looking through history. And it all started when I heard
Speaker 4: an episode of The Bowery Boys podcast on the New
Speaker 4: Yorkan migration.
Speaker 7: Ominously, the New York State Chamber of Commerce took aim
Speaker 7: at Puerto Rican children, commissioning intelligence tests, then determining that
Speaker 7: Puerto Rican children were sub normal and would quote deteriorate
Speaker 7: standards already so seriously impaired by mass immigration of the
Speaker 7: lowest levels of populations of many nations unquote, What struck.
Speaker 4: Me was that these children were given tests in a
Speaker 4: language they could barely speak, and because they didn't perform
Speaker 4: well on the test, they were labeled subnormal. Here I was,
Speaker 4: nearly a century later, being told there was something wrong
Speaker 4: with our child simply because of a language barrier, and
Speaker 4: he was on the verge of being kicked out because
Speaker 4: of it. The study and its ripple effects, I learned thereafter,
Speaker 4: became my security blanket, and so I continued deeper into
Speaker 4: Spanish speaking New York and bilingual education history, hoping that
Speaker 4: somewhere in that history was the answer to how to
Speaker 4: properly teach your kiddle language.
Speaker 8: My parents came from Puerto Rico, going into the nineteen thirties.
Speaker 8: They married in nineteen thirty five, and I was born
Speaker 8: the year after.
Speaker 4: Virginia Sanchez Corod is Professor Emerita at the Department of
Speaker 4: Puerto Rican and Latino Studies at Brooklyn College. Virginia entered
Speaker 4: the school system a couple of years after the study
Speaker 4: was published.
Speaker 8: We all spoke Spanish. The school was the place where
Speaker 8: you were suddenly introduced to English.
Speaker 4: There was validation. Even almost one hundred years ago, people
Speaker 4: were dropping their kids in school to learn English. So
Speaker 4: we had done nothing wrong as parents back then and
Speaker 4: today these communities easily thrived and functioned fully in Spanish.
Speaker 4: If you know a bit about the history of New
Speaker 4: York City, you'll know that the city has been home
Speaker 4: to waves of immigration from all over the globe, German, Irish,
Speaker 4: Eastern European, you name it. They all passed through Ellis Island,
Speaker 4: and in the late nineteen twenties, through the Great Depression,
Speaker 4: the city also received Spanish speaking residents, namely from Puerto Rico.
Speaker 4: So receiving people who speak different languages is nothing new
Speaker 4: for the city, and yet at the same time, psychological
Speaker 4: tests were accepted tools for improving the educational process.
Speaker 8: IQ tests were geared too an American ideal, and for
Speaker 8: kids that were coming from different parts of the world,
Speaker 8: they did not recognize elements of American culture that might
Speaker 8: appear on the test.
Speaker 4: The tests were biased because you could score incorrectly on
Speaker 4: a question for something you may have never seen in
Speaker 4: your life, and you may also not even speak the language.
Speaker 8: You have to look at the atmosphere and the ambiance
Speaker 8: in which these people are operating. You have to factor
Speaker 8: that into whatever tests are being given to students and schools.
Speaker 9: Intelligence tests have been used in very negative ways against
Speaker 9: groups of people.
Speaker 4: Doctor Aita Nevardes Latore is Associate professor and Chair of
Speaker 4: the Curriculum and Teaching Division at Fortum's Graduate School of Education.
Speaker 4: Her research focuses on multi lingual education to keep.
Speaker 9: Them oppressed, to deny opportunities to grow and to develop,
Speaker 9: and to really enact the promise of being individuals that
Speaker 9: can contribute to this society.
Speaker 4: The US enacted a law to limit immigration in those
Speaker 4: early decades, but Puerto Ricans were US citizens, and so
Speaker 4: this country was going to find another way to make
Speaker 4: their case for limiting entry to this group of people,
Speaker 4: like this study that caught my attention on the Bowery
Speaker 4: Boys podcast. Nineteen thirty five, a Special Committee on Immage
Speaker 4: and Naturalization published its reaction and results to a study
Speaker 4: done on Puerto Rican children from the previous year. It
Speaker 4: gave IQ tests to over two hundred children at one
Speaker 4: specific school in Spanish Harlem. The researchers intended to give
Speaker 4: a non verbal test since they knew language would be
Speaker 4: a factor, but for some one hundred children, they use
Speaker 4: the verbal test because it was allegedly more accurate.
Speaker 9: Any verbal tests or even nonverbal tests given to non
Speaker 9: speakers of the language of a test becomes a language test,
Speaker 9: not an intelligence test. If students do not understand what's
Speaker 9: being asked for them to answer, then you're not testing intelligence.
Speaker 9: What you're testing is language proficiency, because before they can
Speaker 9: do the task, they have to understand the language.
Speaker 4: The IQ tests were an appendix and a larger study
Speaker 4: dealing with immigration control. The committee in the nineteen the
Speaker 4: thirties was looking to prove that Puerto Rico was not
Speaker 4: sending its best, they were bringing crime. It reminded me
Speaker 4: a bit of the rhetoric we've been hearing today. I
Speaker 4: started to zoom out a bit and reflect on what
Speaker 4: all this meant. These tests, like I said, were designed
Speaker 4: to set the students up for failure. As a parent,
Speaker 4: it's disappointing to hear that whatever agenda these people had,
Speaker 4: they decided the best way to make their case was
Speaker 4: through children, children who want to learn and grow, and
Speaker 4: never did anything to these people except exist exist in Spanish.
Speaker 4: Despite the obvious issues with the study itself, the final
Speaker 4: blanket statement was that these Spanish speaking students were inferior.
Speaker 4: They were below their uspers. And they should not be
Speaker 4: allowed entry to the United States. And like we heard earlier,
Speaker 4: they don't want them to quote deteriorate standards already impaired
Speaker 4: by mass immigration. Here's Virginia again.
Speaker 8: The adjustment issues became prominent in the school system because
Speaker 8: the school system had to find a way to deal
Speaker 8: with this influx of new students.
Speaker 4: When Virginia entered the school system in the early forties,
Speaker 4: there was no bilingual education.
Speaker 8: Then we knew we had to assimilate. It was kind
Speaker 8: of a hidden way of telling you that the language
Speaker 8: and the culture that you were born into and that
Speaker 8: the language as you spoke was inferior. You had to
Speaker 8: get rid of it. That was the only way that
Speaker 8: you were going to succeed.
Speaker 4: The kids who couldn't assimilate, or didn't test well on
Speaker 4: the AQ test, or simply didn't do well in the
Speaker 4: classroom because of language.
Speaker 8: Teachers began to recommend that these kids who had a
Speaker 8: language issue would be put into remediation classes.
Speaker 4: Virginia told me remediation classes were what we would consider
Speaker 4: special education today. While special education classes were a needed
Speaker 4: resource for many children, it also became a funnel point
Speaker 4: for children deemed problematic or simply those who needed better
Speaker 4: English instruction, and the teacher suggested it because it was
Speaker 4: easier because it was the only thing they knew to do.
Speaker 4: Doctor Latore, again.
Speaker 9: They do not understand acquisition of a language rather than English.
Speaker 9: They take hold of the first thing or the explanation
Speaker 9: that is closest to them, rather than continue to investigate.
Speaker 4: And so we've arrived at this idea that instead of
Speaker 4: considering language or why a child may be having difficulty,
Speaker 4: we jump to the conclusion that a child needs special education,
Speaker 4: rather than try to meet this child where they are
Speaker 4: and dig to find out what is the issue at hand.
Speaker 4: This sadly starts to sound familiar with what we were
Speaker 4: going through with Martin. He wasn't like this before, you know,
Speaker 4: and he didn't have him until he started coming here.
Speaker 4: So I don't really know what to tell you. Our
Speaker 4: original daycare called us on the Monday after our meeting
Speaker 4: to pick up Marting because they couldn't take care of
Speaker 4: him that day. I don't know what was going about.
Speaker 4: After it became clear that they were not a good
Speaker 4: fit for us, we decided to pull Matting from the program.
Speaker 4: Here we are the day after Arnesta and I went
Speaker 4: in and gave the director a piece of our mind.
Speaker 4: Instead of this being a devastating moment, we were confident.
Speaker 4: We had spoken to his doctors and educational psychologists. The
Speaker 4: consensus was, in fact, that Martin was acting out because
Speaker 4: he couldn't communicate with the other children, and this behavior
Speaker 4: was how he communicated. It wasn't right, but he didn't
Speaker 4: know otherwise. We knew that Mutting's behavior wasn't a reflection
Speaker 4: of his ability to learn or his intelligence. Intelligence isn't
Speaker 4: based on the ability to speak English. Kind of like
Speaker 4: Sophia Ergara said in Modern Family, you know how frustrating
Speaker 4: it is to have to translate everything in my head
Speaker 4: before I say it? Do you even know how smart
Speaker 4: I am in Spanish? Deciding to pull Martin from his
Speaker 4: daycare was still scary, but it was the only option
Speaker 4: for us. We no longer felt comfortable taking our son there,
Speaker 4: but here we were. We still needed childcare and Martin
Speaker 4: still needed to learn English. Was there a light at
Speaker 4: the end of the tunnel for us and the kids?
Speaker 4: In my history?
Speaker 7: Lesson?
Speaker 1: Coming up on that?
Speaker 2: You know us say, how does New York's history help
Speaker 2: Genie navigate the school system? As Martin embraces English as
Speaker 2: a new language, stay with us.
Speaker 1: Not de vayas.
Speaker 4: All that their listeners.
Speaker 10: I'm Marta Martinez, Senior producer Latino USA, and one of
Speaker 10: my favorite things about my job is that I get
Speaker 10: to report on people who you'll rarely hear anywhere else
Speaker 10: on the radio, people like me who mix English and
Speaker 10: Spanish when they speak, and yes, who have an accent.
Speaker 10: Happy thirtieth anniversary to Latino USA and mutees gratias for
Speaker 10: celebrating with us.
Speaker 1: Hey we're back.
Speaker 2: And Before the Break, producer Gini Montalbo explained the unexpected
Speaker 2: challenges her son Martin faced as a Spanish speaking child
Speaker 2: entering school in New York City. To better navigate the system,
Speaker 2: Ginnie went on a trip through history and was surprised
Speaker 2: by what she found.
Speaker 1: She's going to pick up the story from here.
Speaker 4: I don't know about the rest of you bi lingual folks,
Speaker 4: but for me, it's very weird to speak Spanish or
Speaker 4: English to specific people Like I can't speak English to
Speaker 4: my husband and I can't speak Spanish to my brother,
Speaker 4: and so the same thing now happens with my kids.
Speaker 4: It's weird for me to speak in anything but Spanish
Speaker 4: to them and English.
Speaker 5: No perun school is in English La casa.
Speaker 4: So it was no surprise to me the day that
Speaker 4: I sat down to try to help mar Dean with
Speaker 4: his homework that he had some strong feelings no An
Speaker 4: in glas.
Speaker 5: Cripanol Aki.
Speaker 4: He's become mega ultraspecific about when and where we speak
Speaker 4: either language, almost like the one parent, one language technique
Speaker 4: to teach your child a language. Marding now associates Spanish
Speaker 4: with home and English with school. He's even at the
Speaker 4: extreme that he won't let us watch movies in English.
Speaker 4: I grew up on English language content. You couldn't change
Speaker 4: the language on your streaming device. I have had to
Speaker 4: rewatch every single movie and Disney movie in Spanish. All
Speaker 4: I want to do is seeing Tomorrow from Annie Mamma Ryanaera,
Speaker 4: but I've had to relearn it all in Spanish. This
Speaker 4: process has been hard for me as well, because at
Speaker 4: some point in my life the English took over and
Speaker 4: became more dominant. I actively chose Spanish on a daily basis.
Speaker 4: Anyone who's flipped languages knows this can be exhausting, but
Speaker 4: I do it because I want to keep my own fluency.
Speaker 4: And because I want my kids to be solid. Like
Speaker 4: I said, I'm preparing myself for that day they say
Speaker 4: to me, I don't want to speak Spanish because I'm
Speaker 4: sure that day will come, and if it does, it's okay.
Speaker 4: But until then, this will all be good for me
Speaker 4: and us. My thing's vocabulary in Spanish is often better
Speaker 4: than mine. That day we were at the kitchen table.
Speaker 4: He told me English was only for school, so I
Speaker 4: asked him how he was going to learn to read
Speaker 4: in Lascuela. No achi solanol matio.
Speaker 5: No ifidam igla gorditaco soloon in Nascuela.
Speaker 4: Mom and dad and sister. We're not allowed to speak
Speaker 4: English at home, and I guess that's how we'll operate
Speaker 4: until we decide otherwise. I had a lot of mom
Speaker 4: guilt surrounding dropping my thing into the deep end of
Speaker 4: the pool. It made everything that was going on in
Speaker 4: the daycare worse because on some level it felt like
Speaker 4: we had chosen that for him, and that's why he
Speaker 4: was having a hard time. My only consolation was that
Speaker 4: a century of people I was learning about had done
Speaker 4: exactly that, and they were all functioning adults. It made
Speaker 4: me feel less alone in this journey. But how did
Speaker 4: we get there? What happened after that infamous study in
Speaker 4: the thirties, I thought English was taught separately, like some
Speaker 4: of the transitional bilingual ed classes today. That model was
Speaker 4: something I learned was used a lot in the fifties
Speaker 4: and the sixties. The thinking was if you taught Spanish
Speaker 4: speaking students English first, then you could move them into
Speaker 4: the classroom, Doctor Lettore, Again.
Speaker 9: When you do that, students are not learning about science,
Speaker 9: mass social studies.
Speaker 4: How again, are we acquiring language when you separate it
Speaker 4: from classroom content. Even the language you use at home
Speaker 4: is different when you use it at school, kind of
Speaker 4: like how Martin compartmentalized language at home versus school. And
Speaker 4: so in the past, when those kids returned to the
Speaker 4: classroom because now they supposedly knew English, they.
Speaker 9: Were quiet Again. Why because they had not learned in
Speaker 9: that language classroom.
Speaker 4: And because the teachers weren't actually trained in how language develops.
Speaker 9: Many teachers saw, but wait a second, this child knows
Speaker 9: English because he can communicate perfectly with me, but he
Speaker 9: cannot learn math. He's behind in science, he cannot write
Speaker 9: a composition in English language arts. So therefore there must
Speaker 9: be something wrong with their brain.
Speaker 4: Even kids who speak one language can have issues in
Speaker 4: the classroom. Academic language is tough. I lost one of
Speaker 4: the top spots in the spelling Bee in fourth grade
Speaker 4: because of the word desecrete? Who uses that in a
Speaker 4: sentence every day? Just because they.
Speaker 9: Were thrown in to an English speaking classroom, that doesn't
Speaker 9: mean that on their own, those students were being supported
Speaker 9: to learn English.
Speaker 4: And we know for a fact that many of.
Speaker 9: Those students decided to leave school. These students were intelligent
Speaker 9: and say, wait a second, I'm wasting my time in
Speaker 9: a classroom that Number one, I do not understand. Number two,
Speaker 9: the teacher doesn't seem to care about me to spend
Speaker 9: time to learn who I am, where I come from,
Speaker 9: and what my learning needs are. Why am I here
Speaker 9: if I can be out there supporting my family with
Speaker 9: a job.
Speaker 4: This was all happening at a time when the Puerto
Speaker 4: Rican population in New York City had increased by twelve times,
Speaker 4: with the press claiming these students allegedly continue to overcrowd
Speaker 4: and that their delinquents who are deteriorating the public school system.
Speaker 4: In certain outlets, it was labeled the Puerto Rican Problem Virginia.
Speaker 8: Again, this idea of a Puerto Rican problem took into
Speaker 8: account the fact that kids were scoring poorly on school exams,
Speaker 8: but there were no resources to help.
Speaker 4: But during this decade, when the tensions with Puerto Ricans
Speaker 4: in the city were at its height, is where I
Speaker 4: start to see some changes and advocacy start to pop up.
Speaker 4: The Board of Education felt it was time to assess
Speaker 4: what was in place. Since there wasn't a proper way
Speaker 4: to test intelligence in non English speakers, so schools couldn't
Speaker 4: create or improve programs, and so they started something called
Speaker 4: the Puerto Rican Study in nineteen fifty three. It was
Speaker 4: a major investigation. The study developed techniques, teaching materials, detailed
Speaker 4: adding positions. Even the language used in this study is
Speaker 4: vastly different from the rhetoric that was being spread in
Speaker 4: the media. Here's a quote from the director of the study,
Speaker 4: doctor J. K. Morrison, read by our senior production manager,
Speaker 4: Mike Sergeant.
Speaker 11: We see them not as problems, not as statistics, but
Speaker 11: as tiny individuals, each in his own way, working towards
Speaker 11: adjustment in a culture new and strange.
Speaker 4: Here it was the bones of bilingual education mapped out
Speaker 4: when The study was released in nineteen fifty nine. It
Speaker 4: cost one million dollars in the nineteen fifties. That's like
Speaker 4: twelve million today. Surely this all led to the basis
Speaker 4: of what we have today, Except all this work never
Speaker 4: really went anywhere. And I knew that because the New
Speaker 4: York Board of Education would be sued by a Puerto
Speaker 4: Rican youth organization in the seventies. The funny thing when
Speaker 4: you learn about history is you know how it ends.
Speaker 4: No matter how many times you watch Titanic, in my case,
Speaker 4: thirteen ship will always sink. So when I eventually went
Speaker 4: to the municipal building downtown to review all these materials,
Speaker 4: I was a little shocked. How do you spend so
Speaker 4: much money on developing something to help a group of
Speaker 4: people and then don't put it into practice? And the
Speaker 4: answer to that brings us back to understanding our surroundings,
Speaker 4: the so called Puerto Rican problem, to quote the study's
Speaker 4: next steps. A study, however, good, never solves problems. At best,
Speaker 4: it finds solutions that will work. To put the proposals
Speaker 4: into effective operation in all schools is a major undertaking
Speaker 4: the problem. Segregation still ruled the schools when I looked
Speaker 4: at the bigger picture, the surroundings, the way the Puerto
Speaker 4: Rican children were taught, and the study. It all started
Speaker 4: to make sense, especially as I learned how changes were
Speaker 4: in are implemented within the school system. One is money
Speaker 4: to implement the new materials, the other is proper staffing
Speaker 4: to teach it. There needs to be assessments to keep
Speaker 4: the schools honest, and finally, the parents, they we need
Speaker 4: to be involved. If any of those pieces aren't working,
Speaker 4: then the system won't work. And this still goes for today.
Speaker 4: I found myself feeling naive and saddened to finally understand
Speaker 4: that as long as the structural racism and oppression of
Speaker 4: a people exist, that will permeate into the school system.
Speaker 4: Because the answer to why that study wasn't fully put
Speaker 4: into place is because of how the vast majority of
Speaker 4: the city treated a specific group of people. Whoever makes
Speaker 4: the call decides how money and programs are implemented or
Speaker 4: if they're even used at all, kind of like what's
Speaker 4: happening across the country in Florida and Texas. The people
Speaker 4: in charge decide they don't want African American studies and diversity,
Speaker 4: equity and inclusion programs so they banned them because of
Speaker 4: their own agenda. But in New York, to me anyway,
Speaker 4: it always felt like this multicultural bubble. We never expected
Speaker 4: to deal with someone questioning our bilingualism here. So once
Speaker 4: I fully understood why the study wasn't put into place,
Speaker 4: I wanted to know how we got from the study
Speaker 4: to a lawsuit and how that affected the schools because
Speaker 4: we do have bilingual education today. And right around the
Speaker 4: civil rights movement, things start to pick up the pace.
Speaker 4: Here's Virginia Sanchez Corol Again.
Speaker 8: Puerto Rican and Black students begin to take over the colleges,
Speaker 8: asking for courses, not asking, demanding what was their right
Speaker 8: to courses about their experience. They wanted to see themselves
Speaker 8: in the curriculum.
Speaker 4: And in particular, really took the fight for education equality
Speaker 4: and cultural preservation to a new level. Doctor Antonio Panoja
Speaker 4: here she is speaking in a documentary from two thousand
Speaker 4: and eight.
Speaker 12: We started to learn from the youth what was happening
Speaker 12: to them in the schools.
Speaker 4: Doctor Pantoja was a Puerto Rican organizer and activist who
Speaker 4: arrived in New York City in nineteen forty four. She
Speaker 4: created Aspida in the early sixties, which in Spanish means
Speaker 4: to aspire. Aspeeda was formed as a place for Puerto
Speaker 4: Rican kids to receive support outside of the classroom. The
Speaker 4: organization still exists today for all people coming from a
Speaker 4: Latine background. Doctor Pantoja believed that because of the language barrier,
Speaker 4: the children were not learning anything and they would leave school.
Speaker 12: There's a lot that says that they will take you
Speaker 12: to jail if you don't take your children to school.
Speaker 4: Like we've been hearing, the dropout rate had been a
Speaker 4: problem for decades and it was due in part to
Speaker 4: failed support from the public school system.
Speaker 3: It's turning your own. Okay.
Speaker 12: If there's a lot of this says that I have
Speaker 12: to take my children to school, then I can accuse
Speaker 12: you as an institution where I have brought my children
Speaker 12: and you don't teach them.
Speaker 4: Doctor Pantoja brought the problem to the newly founded Puerto
Speaker 4: Rican Legal Defense Fund, and in nineteen seventy two they did,
Speaker 4: in fact sue the state in what's known as Espieda
Speaker 4: versus Board of Education. The New York Board of Education
Speaker 4: settled and created what's called a consent decree, meaning the
Speaker 4: schools would have to provide special language assistance to children
Speaker 4: who did not speak English. This lawsuit was one of
Speaker 4: many in the nineteen seventies around the country that led
Speaker 4: to national legislation. It did, in fact lead to change
Speaker 4: and built the foundation of what we know today is
Speaker 4: bilingual education. As I went farther and farther down the
Speaker 4: rabbit hole, I often wondered, what does Puerto Rico have
Speaker 4: to do with my Dominican American southern up bringing? In
Speaker 4: my now Domini and Mary Peruvian children sharing a common
Speaker 4: language meant Puerto Ricans were fighting for all the Spanish
Speaker 4: speakers in the state because New York would eventually receive
Speaker 4: Dominican immigrants people from Mexico, Central and South America. After English,
Speaker 4: Spanish is the most common language spoken in this region,
Speaker 4: and the people who fought for bilingual education created a
Speaker 4: ripple effect that is bigger than Spanish speakers. Virginia shares
Speaker 4: the time she gave a talk.
Speaker 8: This guy in the back of the auditorium, tall, very tall, blonde,
Speaker 8: raises his hand to make a comment, and he says, well,
Speaker 8: bilingual education was the best thing that ever happened to me.
Speaker 8: And I'm thinking, I know he was Latino. He says
Speaker 8: when I came from Russia, if I had not had
Speaker 8: bilingual program to get into I would not be doing
Speaker 8: this things that I've been doing today.
Speaker 1: And that was like, that's right.
Speaker 8: Bi Lingual education doesn't only mean Spanish English. It's now
Speaker 8: a tool for learning and bringing children into school systems
Speaker 8: that we never had before.
Speaker 4: Currently, New York States public schools boast a population of
Speaker 4: over two hundred and sixty thousand students who speak over
Speaker 4: two hundred languages.
Speaker 3: From the web, it says all teachers must be skilled.
Speaker 4: In how to support English language learners as they acquire
Speaker 4: content knowledge while also progressing towards English language proficiency. But
Speaker 4: in early education, you the parent should always be on
Speaker 4: the lookout because the teaching requirements are different. While your
Speaker 4: toddler's teacher may be good at taking care of a
Speaker 4: three year old, they may not be trained in working
Speaker 4: with bilingual children. And well, we've all heard how that
Speaker 4: can go. In fall of twenty twenty two, Mutting finally
Speaker 4: entered the public school system. He was assessed for a
Speaker 4: language leading up to that, because we filled out a
Speaker 4: form that said we had another home language.
Speaker 5: I get a lot of things.
Speaker 4: I get a talk test, Martin was placed in n L,
Speaker 4: where English has a new language, because he tested as
Speaker 4: transitioning or in the middle, which gives him one hundred
Speaker 4: and eighty minutes per week of support. Bilingual education works
Speaker 4: in a variety of ways in New York State today,
Speaker 4: and because we're not in a dual language district, Mutting
Speaker 4: was assigned an ANL teacher who comes into the classroom
Speaker 4: and along with the classroom teacher, they work as co teachers.
Speaker 4: Matting has now been in a classroom environment that has
Speaker 4: really supported his English language development for only about a year.
Speaker 5: Now. I really know how to speak to you of.
Speaker 1: Them and who helped you with that, the teacher, mister m.
Speaker 4: The school year just ended. When we started our journey
Speaker 4: into public schools, Madding's E and L teacher told us
Speaker 4: that we have to continue the home language. He said,
Speaker 4: quote the better Mating spoke Spanish, the better he would
Speaker 4: speak English. All of the stress that I had felt
Speaker 4: for the past year slowly started to melt away. We
Speaker 4: knew he was in a place that was going to
Speaker 4: support him. I now know that it was easier for
Speaker 4: someone to say that there was something wrong with him
Speaker 4: than to really assess why he was acting that way,
Speaker 4: and he did improve immensely once we moved him to
Speaker 4: a new program with love, care and dedication from both
Speaker 4: educators and us. Matting is not going to be the
Speaker 4: same as any other child, and we knew that and
Speaker 4: so we fought for him. This is cliche, but children
Speaker 4: are actually like sponges. Through this journey, I've learned you
Speaker 4: have to see the promise in every time child. Kids
Speaker 4: will learn. Intelligence exists in many different forms. It's not
Speaker 4: just one construct. Frederick Douglas said, power concedes nothing without
Speaker 4: a demand. As parents, we have to individually advocate for
Speaker 4: our own kids. That's the only piece of the puzzle
Speaker 4: we have control over. We know them better than anyone because,
Speaker 4: as we've seen, until the world is more accepting of everyone,
Speaker 4: there is still work to be done. And if you
Speaker 4: aren't comfortable in English, there is support. Schools and the
Speaker 4: city have resources. Bi Lingual education as it stands today
Speaker 4: exists because people throughout history fought for it. To them.
Speaker 4: I say, God, ask yes, you know.
Speaker 8: And you know what?
Speaker 4: And all of this questioning how mar Thing is making
Speaker 4: out after the pandemic. My two year old is in
Speaker 4: daycare in English. Now, I didn't even realize that she
Speaker 4: speaking English in school on Spanish at home.
Speaker 9: Wash my hands.
Speaker 4: Yes, because I only hear her speak Spanish. It never
Speaker 4: occurred to me how quickly she would start code switching.
Speaker 4: Like my brother said when I reported on this in
Speaker 4: twenty eighteen, bilingualism is one of the best gifts you
Speaker 4: can pass on to your child. There's more places to visit, books,
Speaker 4: to read, movies, to see more of the world to absorb.
Speaker 4: Generations of us have done it like my parents did
Speaker 4: with me, and my husband and I are succeeding with
Speaker 4: our own kids. Bilingualism really is a superpower. This episode
Speaker 4: was produced by Gini Montalbo. It was edited by Mark Vagan.
Speaker 4: It was mixed by Stephanie Lebau and Julia Caruso.
Speaker 2: The Latino USA team includes Andrea Lopez Gruzado, Marta Martinez,
Speaker 2: Mike Sargent, Daisy Contreras, Victoria Estrada, Renaldo leanoz Junior, Patrisa Subran,
Speaker 2: and Elizabeth lent Al Torres.
Speaker 1: Our editorial director is Fernande Santos.
Speaker 2: Our associate engineers are Gabriel Abias and JJ Carubin. Our
Speaker 2: marketing manager is Luis Luna. Our theme music was composed
Speaker 2: by Saniel Roubinos. I'm your host and executive producer Mariero host.
Speaker 2: Join us again on our next episode. In the meantime,
Speaker 2: look for us on social media and rememberes don't go
Speaker 2: anywhere because being by lingual is my superpower too.
Speaker 1: Jao Astella Proxima.
Speaker 6: Latino USA is made possible in part by New York
Speaker 6: Women's Foundation. The New York Women's Foundation funding women leaders
Speaker 6: that build solutions in their communities and celebrating thirty years
Speaker 6: of radical generosity. W. K. Kellogg Foundation, a partner with
Speaker 6: Communities where Children Come First, and the Anni E. Casey Foundation,
Speaker 6: creates a brighter future for the nation's children by strengthening families,
Speaker 6: building greater economic opportunity, and transforming communities.
Speaker 5: Lass Oh Remember Miss