English they want, and get

This editorial is rebutting the often heard complaint that Hispanics don't want or try to learn English. - - Donna Poisl

By Tracy Warner, Editorial Page editor

The Wenatchee Valley Literacy Council has a waiting list. More people want to learn to speak and write English than there are spaces in class.

This is not an unusual situation, said Louise Verellen, Literacy Council director. Demand for English instruction is high among the local immigrant population. English As a Second Language classes fill quickly. "People who want to stay here realize they do need to learn the language, and get their citizenship," Verellen said. The current waiting list is about 25 people, long for this time of year, when harvest is near, work more plentiful and class attendance usually drops.

This observation put me in mind of something we often see among submissions to The Safety Valve: the standard they-don't-learn-English letter. It comes from people making the casual observation that the native Spanish speakers among us — surprise — speak Spanish. They speak it often and unhidden, and they speak it especially to other native Spanish speakers. We overhear and sense that the air is filled with foreign conversation. And if we try to communicate we find they either speak no English or have great difficulties with it.

From this comes the extrapolation that local Latinos 1) do not wish to speak English, and 2) they will never be assimilated, and become by our standards, Americans. The letters usually ask something like this: My ancestors came to this country and learned English, and so why can't these people do the same?
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