El poder del bilingüismo de acuerdo a tres jóvenes profesionales

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Por Raquel Venado Bolaños

Patricia Ramos, Pilar Canchola y Sally Rodríguez no se conocen, pero tienen dos cosas en común: acaban de culminar sus estudios en Columbia College Chicago y son primera generación méxico-americanas. Como la mayoría de los inmigrantes, los padres de las tres nuevas profesionales dejaron México en busca de mejores oportunidades. Los de Ramos fueron a El Paso, Texas, mientras que los de Canchola y los de Rodríguez llegaron a Chicago. Ramos, Canchola y Rodríguez crecieron con el español como primer idioma. Patricia Ramos, de 23 años, describe a El Paso como un lugar en el que se habla mucho spanglish.

Downtown El Paso as seen from the Paseo del Norte International Bridge. (Sergio Chapa/Borderzine.com)

Downtowners Express Their Hopes for El Paso

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EL PASO— A taxi driver, a shopper and merchants from downtown El Paso share their perspectives of the city’s history and their hopes for its future. The following video, audio and slideshow presentations were produced by the following participants in of the Dow Jones Multimedia Training Academy held recently at the University of Texas at El Paso (UTEP): Jessica Retis, Bradford Owen, Mark Albertson and instructor Doug Mitchell. Downtown El Paso Merchants Tell Their Story

Lundy Elementary Proudly Speaks Both English and Spanish

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EL PASO, Texas — As El Paso continues to grow in population, so does the dual culture and bilingual language of the region. Because the U.S. is quickly becoming a bilingual country, many El Pasoans now realize the importance of teaching their children both English and Spanish, regardless of their ethnicity. Lundy Elementary School was one of seven new schools that started the implementation of the Dual Language Program this past 2009-2010 scholarly year. Even in that short amount of time, the program has blossomed, attracting parents and their children from both the Spanish dominant and English dominant speaking spectrums.

“In my school, and most of the schools in the El Paso Independent School District (EPISD), we have two different classes, one is English, and the other one is in Spanish,” said Ina Lachmann, principal of Lundy Elementary. “We populate it with half of the children who have a dominant language in Spanish, and the other half who have a dominant language in English.”

By putting both groups of children together, they learn to read, write, and speak 50 percent of the time in both languages through the Dual Language Program.

Bilingual city can be an obstacle to learning English

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EL PASO, Texas — It’s a beautiful thing that a majority of El Paso is bilingual.  I don’t think I have ever been anywhere else in the United States where so many people can speak more than one language. Only a minority of the population is monolingual. For those readers who are bilingual, being bilingual can open a lot of doors in other cities, but you can also be very problematic for a person trying to learn English. I realized this while I was tutoring an adult ESL class.

En la frontera

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EL PASO — Mucha gente me pregunta si me gusta vivir en El Paso. Lo hacen ya convencidos de que voy a decir que no. Piensan que me gustaría estar en otra ciudad, pero que bueh… caí acá. Después se sorprenden cuando digo que me encanta vivir en El Paso.