Migrants who need to learn Spanish

Many immigrants from Mexico don't speak Spanish, they speak their indigenous language. They have to learn Spanish first, then learn English. DP

INDIGENOUS MEXICANS SPEAK OWN LANGUAGES

By Abigail Curtis, Special to the Mercury News

Mercurynews.com: GREENFIELD - When Gloria Merino came to the United States from Mexico five years ago, she couldn't understand what her foreman was telling her in the fields, explain her high-blood pressure to her doctors or communicate with the police who picked her up on suspicion of drinking in public.

For Merino, a Triqui Indian from Mexico, the problem wasn't only that she didn't speak English. In this farming town south of Salinas that is more than 85 percent Latino, she needed to know Spanish.

"Now I'm doing better at understanding people, little by little," said Merino, who like many indigenous Mexicans arrived in Greenfield speaking only Triqui.

For generations, immigrants have integrated into American life by learning English, California's official language, according to a 1986 state constitutional amendment. But for thousands of indigenous farmworkers moving from Mexico's Oaxaca state to Greenfield, they must first learn Spanish to survive. As the adults from Mexico's Mixtec and Triqui Indian populations work hard to learn Spanish and find their place within the town, they also are fighting to keep their native language and culture alive in the younger generation, which, at school, is learning English.

"Our language is a gift from God," said Eulogio Solano, who insists that his children speak only their native Mixteco at home.

It's no different from the growing pains of any new immigrant community - except that the indigenous languages are so rare, educators and even researchers sometimes are at a loss about how to teach English to Triqui and Mixteco speakers.
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