Working overtime to learn English

Another story about how hard immigrants work to learn English, knowing how important it is. DP

By Nick Jimenez

caller.com: A friend recommended someone to us when we said we needed a good reliable worker who could help us redo part of the Jimenez homestead. Our little project required someone who knew a little bit of carpentry, who could strip wallpaper, do wall repairs and a nice paint job. It was not enough of a job to call in the contractor armies, but enough to keep somebody busy for a couple of days.

The workman, when he came, -- his name is Salvador -- said he was ready to do the job, with one qualifier. On Tuesday, he had to leave early in the afternoon. Why? Because he had to go to English classes. He was faithfully attending classes to learn English at night to improve himself.

Hundreds of adults attend the classes each day and night. They are housewives, construction workers, oilfield roustabouts, domestic employees, small business owners and even a few attorneys and engineers. Over the course of a year, perhaps 1,000 people go through the classes. On any given night, some 130 students attend the four ESL classes. These are adults with a real purpose for learning, says Betty Trigo, evening supervisor at the Adult Learning Center. "Their yearning to learn is so different," she said, from younger students.

For the most part, they are Mexican immigrants, but there are some Indian, a few Russian and Colombian and immigrants from other parts of Latin America. Like any other part of the public schools, federal law prohibits asking students their citizenship. But you don't have to be a detective to figure out things. Trigo said that one class day only one student showed up because the rumor mill stirred up a story that immigration officers were planning to raid the campus.

These classes are a boon for these students and for Corpus Christi. We hear talk about "educating the workforce" in Corpus Christi as a way of improving the local prospects. These classes which teach English, reading and writing to adults who are holding jobs, raising families and paying taxes are in the front lines of "educating the workforce." And these are people who understand the value of speaking English.

"They know that to do better at work they need to converse in the English language," Trigo said. Some run successful businesses, or are in well-paying jobs but they have now risen to a level where their limited English language skills are restricting their progress. "They need to talk to their peers in English."

For non-English speaking parents, the lack of the language means they have trouble helping their kids with their school work. So that motivates many to attend the ESL classes.
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