The Seattle Times celebrates a local preschool operated by La Raza/The Race: "Bilingual child-development center serves Latino families".
The Jose Marti Child Development Center is funded by the City of Seattle's Family and Education Levy.
There might be reasonable arguments for public funding of preschool for low-income immigrants to facilitate integration in American society. But bilingual "culturally and linguistically appropriate preschools"? No. Three and four-year-olds don't need bilingual help to learn English. Any publicly-funded preschool should only be about integration into the great American melting pot, not about reinforcing ethnic separatism -- especially when the program is open to children of parents who are here illegally in the first place.
Advantage: Those who desire an America divided along cultural and linguistic lines, with a network of ethnic pimp politicians controlling the flow of patronage.
UPDATE: Michelle Malkin has a timely post today on La Raza
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at July 08, 2008 11:15 AM | Email ThisDid they become failure in school? No!!! My son is going to college this fall, and my daughter is in a gifted program.
One may argue that it matters to have parents who can communicate in English, but it is immaterial in my view. We only speak our native language at home, and they are fine with it, nor do they have any problem learning English.
Posted by: DopioLover on July 8, 2008 11:18 AMThese people will be stuck in second class forever. (thanks you goverment) & LaRaza.
Posted by: Army Medic/Vet on July 8, 2008 11:43 AMWhat will those state workers do for job security and how will the democrats stay in power if people are able to get jobs and function in society?
Posted by: johnny on July 8, 2008 12:10 PMYou might remember me from a few summers ago when you, I, Bart Cannon, and Andy worked against the $100 million Families Education Levy boondogle.
This is a little off the point of your post, but what are the prospects for having a little fun with the Mayor's silly 30 cents per bag proposal during the general election? We all know that the damn bags will end up in the landfill anyway. No one is going to stop using plastic gabage liners. The only difference is that now the Mayor will have collected sales tax on them. Too late to start a petition for the ballot?
Pat Dolan
Posted by: Patrick Dolan on July 8, 2008 12:41 PM"El Centro de La Raza" means the "Center of the Race". Kinda like SS (Schutzstaffel) headquarters...
Posted by: cmiklich on July 8, 2008 12:42 PMI was hamstrung trying to learn Spanish until we moved down there for half a year. I didn't need an English-speaking teacher, I just needed a thousand Spanish-speaking teachers everyday who helped me figure it out.
For kids who live in households where English may not be spoken immersion in regular English speaking schools is ideal, although teachers may want to keep an eye on them to ensure they are learning English. Some kids are shy so don't practice as much as they need to, slowing their learning process.
I can see having English classes for immigrant students, but nothing more than that is needed.
Posted by: Chad Minnick on July 8, 2008 12:44 PMWe had this non-sense in Calif but it was finally voted down by the people. Some kids spent 6 years learning english and they were still not that good at it.
This system was set up to fail.
In desperation, these parents put their kids in front of a T.V. and ordered them to "LEARN ENGLISH!" It was full immersion that they couldn't get in the "helpful" public schools. In very little time, they spoke fluent American accented English, idioms and all.
I have first hand experience that this worked with kids from Russian, Chinese and Spanish speaking households.
Posted by: Lisa on July 8, 2008 01:05 PMHow did YOU learn to speak English? Was it in a "government school" that is generally available only at age 5? Or even a "private school", which your parents were quite possibly able to afford?
No, I am willing to bet that you learned English at home, from your parents and home environment. You probably started speaking the English language around age two. (And you will probably proudly state that your parents taught you languages other than English as well.)
For better or worse, four year old Victoria Garcia has a mother and father who do not speak English, and speak only Spanish. Her parents moved here in 1997 from Mexico, and I doubt they have had any formal instruction in English (other than possibly some rudimentrary foreign language instruction in Mexican public schools -- which they probably even left before getting a high school diploma).
So if this child development center was not provided, maybe Victoria would not be learning English at all? One could argue that both of her parents work, and she would probably be in day care anyway. But this could just as easily be a Spanish-only day care, since that would be the cheapest and most convenient. They are spending extra money (which comes from the guv'mint, of course) to teach Victoria English.
Posted by: Richard Pope on July 8, 2008 01:30 PMHe is a history professor and attorney at U Texas, Houston, former president of La Raza Unida, and was a staunch proponent of "reconquista". That is the brown movement to take back the West from the imperialist gringo.
He now laughs at his old activist politics. He says that no direct action is necessary since the gringo is not breeding.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on July 8, 2008 01:54 PM[Absolutely correct as Mark Steyn points out in an incredible book titled 'America Alone'.]
Posted by: NativeSon on July 8, 2008 02:00 PMMy in-laws came here speaking very little, if any, English with nothing more than an eigth grade education in their homeland. Their two children, 8 and 5 at the time, were immersed in the public school system and moved through three grades in the first year because their English improved so rapidly. My mother-in-law HAD to learn English becuase she wanted a driver's license and it was only available if you could pass the test IN ENGLISH! Lo and behold, they learned English well enough to read it and speak it within a year, at most, and they never took ONE DIME in any kind of government assistance! Oh, but they came from Norway, legally, and no advocate groups were around demanding respect for their culture and lutefisk for all! They simply became Americans and loved this country that gave them so many opportunities. La Raza just perpepuates the victim mentality and divides our country from within, all courtesy of the taxpayer who has their pocket picked by the very same groups who tell us how insensitive we are! Maybe if Seattle would stop spending money on this crap they could actually fix a few of the potholes that have been there for the last 30 years!
Posted by: suzihomemaker on July 8, 2008 03:06 PMGet the silly strawman out of your system, will ya?
Posted by: DopioLover on July 8, 2008 03:40 PMEven if you are willing to put your kids in private schools, you'll find you can't find one, because this kind of thing is AGAINST MEXICAN LAW.
From the day you send your kids to any school in Mexico they have to spend half of every day being instructed in the local language and they are graded on participation just like any other child in the class that already knows the language. Consequently, the kids learn spanish very fast.
By the way, in Mexico they check legal status of children and illegals are denied government schooling. "Undocumented" status leads to deportation.
Why are we bending over backwards to make this country a place where people can't even converse with each other? How does that help us become stronger as a country?
They learned the language quite well, and their daughters did too, fluent in Czech and English. No problem. People can learn languages, just like they can learn anything else, all they have to do is try.
You are wrong.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 8, 2008 04:37 PMOnly in your dreams. And only if she were deliberately isolated from her English-speaking peers. Youngsters blot up languages as a natural process, and there are always some kids who are willing to reach out and help their initially-mute classmates take the first steps. After that, they can learn from the schoolyard, the TV, the movies and anyone else who uses English - the more the better.
The ghettoizing of non-English speakers by 'social programs' should be made a crime.
Posted by: Insufficiently Sensitive on July 8, 2008 05:05 PMThe problem is we are dumbing down all our kids, and our expectations for everyone in our society is too low. Immigrants should learn English. And my kids should also learn the basics of other languages as well, like Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, etc. It gives us a broader cultural reference and will serve us better economically as we move into a global marketplace.
And, Johnny, not to be argumentative, but you can find private English schools all over Latin America, including Mexico. In fact, those schools are generally highly sought after since learning English is considered by the upper class to be essential to success in business.
In Central America, where we've spent a great deal of time, all the politicians, rich business leaders and education elite send their kids to English schools, which cost more than all the other private schools.
It's not those immigrants who want to succeed that are keeping their kids from learning English. It's those immigrants who are uneducated themselves and are just here to work and make a living doing manual labor.
Just remember in all our discussions of this sensitive subject that we are all children of immigrants and that's what makes this the greatest country ever. The land of promise. You know, libertad y el sueno Americano.
We don't ask a lot of conformity of immigrants as a result of our open attitude...speaking the national language is a pretty small thing to ask.
Posted by: Chad Minnick on July 8, 2008 05:10 PMFortunately, the Asian immigrants try to skirt the system, and do whatever to avoid the English program. They want their students in the school system ASAP. That's why they moved here. They do whatever it takes to prove English proficiency.
By the way, expect a strike this August by Bellevue teachers. They don't like the school administration. They find it too dictatorial, and against what the WEA preaches. Money is an issue, but so is the common curriculum that the majority of parents want. They don't trust teachers to stay on task and teach the subject.
Posted by: janet s on July 8, 2008 06:29 PMBut I don't think that there's some sort of bad-faith conspiracy to keep immigrants down -- just poor policy based on bad research. The education community is notorious for jumping from bad fad to bad fad; a move away from immersion and towards bilingual programs has been going on for a long time. If not for immigrant families (not lobby groups) fighting for immersion, things would probably be worse.
But -- seriously, there's no need to put "La Raza" in the same sentence as Hitler. That is the kind of crap is going to drive people away from this site.
Posted by: Zeeb on July 8, 2008 06:56 PMAnd BTW, the research shows that all ages are very able to learn a foreign language quickly. The accent may be noticeable, but the skill isn't age-specific. This is just another myth meant to perpetrate the a system that benefits a union.
Posted by: janet s on July 8, 2008 07:53 PMAre you referring to my post @15 when you say:
"But -- seriously, there's no need to put "La Raza" in the same sentence as Hitler. That is the kind of crap is going to drive people away from this site."
Not the same sentence. Not the same paragraph.
But to address the concept that certain information is politically unacceptable CRAP, I would like to point out that it is Jose's own daughter who enjoys using her father's moniker and her father takes a perverse pleasure in owning that same moniker.
One of the joys of this website is learning stuff not in the MSM. But thanks for your opinion on censorship. I promise it won't drive me away.
Posted by: Bart Cannon on July 8, 2008 08:32 PMwhat other country bends waaaay over to do this pandering? other countries rightly expect you, the visitor, or new (legal) immigrant to learn THEIR ways;
yet another example of balkanization; a tower of babel; and all playing into it out of fear and apathy; for shame;
back to private funded assistance for these nice-to-have programs; no government funds for every splinter groups' whinings; those who REALLY want to succeed and become part of our fabric will find a way--just like many before (hailing from vastly different groups) have done so here over the centuries;
Posted by: jimmie-howya-doin on July 8, 2008 11:27 PMGo to the typical Seattle/ San Francisco style Progressive rallies and demonstrations and you find all of the pro-communist, pro-Marxists groups handing out pamphlets and looking for gullible souls. A prominent one of these groups is La Raza. And of course as Malkin points out, and many commenters here have pointed out, what could be more racist than singling out a whole group based solely on their race?
Race based Latino identity is just another form of racism that ascribes a particular ideology to someone based on color. What if someone does not want to be a part of the ideology? For example you will find many brown skinned people who don't "talk black" or "dress black" or identify with black ghetto culture. They are labeled as traitors, Oreos, etc. because they won't conform to an ideology based on their color.
And the whole notion of color is ridiculous on its face. Humans posses volitional consciousness and can choose our thoughts and actions regardless of our skin, or any physical attributes.
Conservatives and libertarians do seek a world where people will be judged on their merits and not simply on their color. But to Progressives, Democrats, Marxists, Collectivists, La Raza Members, University "Multicultural" Centers, Black Liberations Theology preachers, etc. it is all about color and not about merit.
In short, for the left, it is about racism. You just have to be one of their acceptable colors, and think in their political beliefs.
Posted by: Jeff B. on July 9, 2008 09:47 AM