- LOS ANGELES TIMES
Sunday, April 19, 1998
- A Crude Way to Teach Asian Pacific Americans
English
By VICTORIA LEE-JERREMS, ELLEN WU
Myth: All Asian Pacific American students are spelling-bee champions and science-fair
winners possessing 4.0 grade point averages and 1600 SATs.
Reality: Many Asian Pacific American students struggle with the most basic of subjects,
especially English. According to the 1997 Language Census report for California public
schools, 40% of all Asian Pacific American children are designated as Limited-English
Proficient.
The Unz initiative, which would effectively end the state's bilingual programs, threatens
to add to the numbers of Asian Pacific American who speak limited English with its one
size-fits-all prescription of immersion in English. Equally troubling, the results of the
immersion approach on Asian Pacific Americans are unknown. Indeed, this method has
not been tested thoroughly. Fortunately, there are more culturally sensitive alternatives
to immersion.
Asian American children hail from a wide range of backgrounds: More than 300
languages and dialects are spoken among 34 ethnic groups, including Chinese, Hmong,
Koreans, Cambodians, Laotians and Vietnamese. Many of them must make difficult
cultural adjustments after experiencing the traumas of war and relocation camps at
home. Encouraging them to use their native language during these trying periods can
enhance their self-esteem. Gay Wong, a bilingual-education specialist, emphasizes the
need for "building up, not tearing down" the home language and culture in the classroom
in order to be "positively supportive" of children's "self-concept building." Requiring
these children to leave their native tongues at the doors of their classrooms is thus more
than an academic matter. It makes a difficult cultural adjustment that much harder
without any reliable gain in English skills to offset the added emotional turmoil.
The goal of the Unz initiative is indisputable--to prepare students to function as
productive members of society. The problem is its method, which flies in the face of a
landmark court ruling. On Jan. 21, 1974, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled, in Lau vs.
Nichols, that schools must provide students with "a meaningful opportunity to
participate in the public educational program" in accordance with the Civil Rights Act of
1964, including appropriate bilingual-bicultural classroom instruction. The lawsuit
was brought by 12 non-Anglophone Chinese Americans against the San Francisco Unified
School District. The Unz initiative defies the underlying principles of the Lau ruling,
potentially denying thousands of Asian Pacific American children the most effective
routes to obtaining academic proficiency in the English language.
Previous to the Lau ruling, the San Francisco Unified School District largely ignored the
educational needs of its limited-English students. Many parents complained that their
children were "doomed . . . to become dropouts and to join the rolls of the unemployed."
Indeed, juvenile-delinquency rates in the city's Chinese community rose 600% between
1964-1969. The Unz initiative's indiscriminate approach to the limited-English
problem among immigrant students may similarly discourage young Asian Pacific
Americans, pushing many of them to drop out of school.
There are alternatives to the Unz initiative, Proposition 227 on the June ballot. One is
to preserve local control of education. Parents and teachers know firsthand the linguistic
frailties of limited-English students. Since the learning styles of children differ in such
subjects as mathematics and science, why treat English any differently?
Another option is to improve and expand current bilingual-bicultural programs.
Bilingual elementary teachers and administrators in the Los Angeles Unified School
District have observed that fluency in students' primary languages can help them learn
English faster. One such educator is Adeline Shoji, advisor to Koreatown's Cahuenga
Elementary School, which offers immersion programs in Korean and English. Shoji
prefers bilingual education because she believes it helps the intellectual development of
children by sharpening their primary-language skills. Although limited-English
students may be able to converse in English, she says, it's a "front" language, since their
reading and writing skills are "less secure" because, "cognitively, that part [of the
brain] doesn't develop at the same rate nor to the same fullness."
Shoji encourages Asian Pacific American parents to consider bilingual-bicultural
education as a long-term investment that will increase their children's chances for
success in college and beyond. For example, since most U.S. universities require
foreign-language skills for admittance, students who nurture their primary language
will have an advantage. Fluency in languages other than English is also an asset in
international trade and economic development, particularly in the Pacific Rim. Students
who are proficient in languages in addition to English will increase their chances for
securing employment and furthering their careers.
Asian Pacific American children need English-language skills to succeed, but they should
not be left vulnerable to programs that reduce cultural and linguistic complexity to
simple-minded notions of how best to learn English.
Jo-Ann Adefuin, Kay Dumlao, Leslie Ito, and Elaine Kuo also contributed to this article.
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Victoria Lee-jerrems and Ellen Wu Are Researchers at the Ucla Asian American
Education Research Project of the School's Asian American Studies Center
- Copyright Los Angeles Times