Hola, Carolina del Norte
A school superintendent in North Carolina wants to create a Spanish-speaking school in his district. Once again, this is not California or New Mexico, but North Carolina:
Dissatisfied with teaching in Spanish 85 percent of the time, a North Carolina superintendent is pushing for a proposal that includes a plan for a school where Spanish is the predominant language."Preserve Hispanic culture"? Is there really any possibility of this disappearing in America anytime soon? And are there any schools in any other country on Earth trying to preserve American culture?
Superintendent Peter Gorman pitched his proposal to the Charlotte-Mecklenburg school board today, with provisions to combine two of its dual-language programs and turn Collinswood Elementary into a Spanish-speaking school. Nora Carr, chief communications officer for Charlotte-Mecklenburg School District, told WND the facility will help to preserve Hispanic culture.
In any case, if the parents want their kids to go to a Spanish-speaking school where Hispanic culture is well-represented, there is a place that is perfect for them. It's called MEXICO.
4 comments:
Maybe we should move to Mexico. All the Mexicans are HERE now. It'd be nice and quiet and safe there now. No more blaring mariachi music all night, no more failing schools, overwhelmed hospticals and prisons, no more traffic. Sounds like heaven.
Thats pretty racist, especially since the United States have as far as I know no official language. English is NOT the official language of the USA. Even if 82% speak it as their native language, the other 18% should be allowed to have schools in any language as they please... In fact, I heard somewhere that they almost declared German as the official language in the 19th century.
I would also be careful in scoffing at the whole "preserving culture thing", it is a big deal for a lot of people that don't know where they belong to. The US is a country that was and is created by immigrants, and not everybody wants to be absorbed into that huge Blob that is "American Culture". What exactly do you mean by that any way? The south, north, midwest, cajon, native american, the christian traditions, the mormons, the amish... the hillbillies in Arkansas, the Jewish people on the East Coast, the Hippies on the West Coast..
How would you preserve any of that undefined American culture in School? By serving apple pie during lunch hour and outlawing Taco Bell?
So if people want to preserve their own culture it is a good thing and you can't exactly come up with a good official reason for them to learn english when there isn't even a rule that says that everything official has to be in English.
They celebrated the Luftbrücke in Wiesbaden today, did you go there?
Ruthie:
In order to understand, imagine how people would feel if Germany opened up some children's schools that taught lessons only in Turkish. There's a reason they don't do that - it's because it causes real problems when children grow up and they can't speak German.
It's the same situation in the United States. Children of Mexican parents already speak Spanish in the home - they don't need it in the school as well. Otherwise, they grow up not understanding English or not understanding it very well.
I know this sounds surprising since it seems like the rest of the world all studies English, but it's true. I have met immigrants who have lived in the US for more then 20 years and still can't understand English. They never needed to learn, so they never learned it.
As far as culture goes, I was joking a little about teaching American culture, but the point remains if that people are really so worried about preserving their own culture then they shouldn't move from their home country in the first place.
John, I think they tried that but I am not sure about how successfull that project was. You're right, it probably wouldn't go over well. Personally, I don't think it is such a great deal in Germany as long as they know how to speak German while they are outside school. I mean there are German schools in American and American schools in Germany, why can't there be a spanisch school in the US as well? It isn't though as if every public school in Cali is in danger of becoming monolingually spanish.
I also think it is necessary to know the predominantly spoken language of the country you live in - but as you know there are also many foreigners in Germany that don't know any German at all even if they also have been living here for decades. It does make integration more difficult if not impossible.. and in quarters like Kreuzberg in Berlin it is almost as if you are living in Turkey and you can get by without the need to know even one single word in German. I think mandatory language classes would be a wise thing, especially because Turks have such a patriarchal society and the woman are those that suffer from it. I think most male Turks know how to speak German on some level, but the woman are totally dependable if they don't know the language at all.
The reason to leave your homecountry is hardly ever to export your culture but other motivations like wanting a new start, the famous American Dream, a better job and life etc. and it is only natural that if you are leaving for those reasons you also want to preserve a bit of your identity in the new country. It doesn't mean that you can't be both, hispanic and american, though.
Chicano literature deals with exactly those issues, not knowing where to belong, does being american mean that you have to give up your heritage - and what exactly does being American mean anyway aside from having 3 TVs, 2 cars, a microwave and kitchen appliances, a basketball hoop in the driveway and the flag somewhere on your house? There is a really funny and ironic novel about that from Ana Castillo called So Far From God, a pretty good book too.
Are you still in the US?
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