The Language Gap : Third-Generation Minorities Learn There’s Sometimes a Price to Be Paid for ‘English Only’

Mike Aldapa would like to be a politician one day. During his years at Cantwell High School in Montebello, he was student body vice president and president of his sophomore and junior classes. Now as the USC senior studies for a degree in public administration, he imagines himself representing the East Los Angeles neighborhood that is his home.

But Aldapa has doubts about his political career. He does not speak Spanish.

It “has always been a concern of mine,” says the third-generation Latino. “A Hispanic who comes from East L.A., grew up here and doesn’t know Spanish. People will say, ‘How can he run for office when he doesn’t speak Spanish?’ ”

Aldapa, 26, admits he is “embarrassed” that he doesn’t speak or understand the language of his Mexican-born grandfather, Jesus Saldana. But Saldana pushed his family to speak English. “My father always taught me that English was the only way to get ahead,” Saldana says. “I didn’t even want my children to have accents.”

The language gap in the Aldapa household is not uncommon. Across Los Angeles, many third- and fourth-generation Latinos, Asian-Americans and other ethnic minorities have lost their ability to speak the language of their ancestors--or never had that ability to begin with.

And some are discovering there is a price to be paid for “English only.”

A growing number of local employers are placing a premium on bilingual employees, may offering promotions or bonuses. In their eagerness to fulfill such needs, some employers expect third- and fourth-generation ethnic minorities to speak the language of their grandparents. Those who speak English only may lose out.

Monolingual members of the third generation may clash with peers who claim they are not really “ethnic” unless they know their family tongue. (See accompanying story, E11.) Many grandchildren cannot communicate with their grandparents, and must ask a bilingual parent to translate.

What’s more, experts say that people who cannot read, write and speak the language of their grandparents may very well miss out on history, art and literature, and certain traditions and ceremonies that loom large in their family’s culture.

This emphasis on acculturation, rather than assimilation, is relatively new, according to James Diego Vigil, an associate professor of anthropology at USC who has studied the Latino community of Los Angeles for the last 20 years. Frequently, Vigil says, immigrants arrive in the United States speaking no English, but they do not want their children to be held back or put down because of poor English-language skills or even an accent. They urge their children to learn English.

The children of immigrants--the second generation--must live in two worlds--that of their parents and the English-speaking “outside.” Typically, the second generation does not want its offspring to experience the strain of a dual-language existence in an ethnocentric society. The third generation is pushed to speak English only.

It is those parental hopes and aspirations, some experts say, that are at the root of the culture gap.

“I have some students who have become alienated from their culture and language because their families--in their zeal to help their children adapt--pushed English,” says Juana Mora, associate professor of the Chicano Studies department at Cal State Northridge.

Santiago Sia, associate professor of philosophy and director of the Asian and Pacific Studies program at Loyola Marymount University, says once a language is lost, so are other aspects of the culture.

“The language is the vehicle of the culture,” says Sia, a Filipino. “Once we’ve lost the language, we’ve cut our own throats.”

But some members of third and fourth generations are trying to reverse the course of events.

They are realizing the importance--and necessity--of being bilingual and bicultural, especially in the Los Angeles basin--a five-county area where the population is about 33% Latino and 9% Asian, according to the Palo Alto-based Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy. And though no one can predict how many people will be speaking a language other than English by the year 2000, experts say those two ethnic groups will continue to grow.

And so will the need for bilingual employees.

Joe Delgado Jr., deputy district director for the Department of Public Social Services in Los Angeles County and president of Los Angeles County Hispanic Managers Assn., says there is a demand for bilingual workers in all departments.

The Latino community would seem to be an obvious place to recruit. “But the one thing many Hispanics lack is being proficient in Spanish,” he says, adding that many Latinos flunk a bilingual test and miss out on the $75 monthly bonus the county offers as an incentive to attract dual-language employees.

Many third-generation members, such as Elizabeth Ramirez, are attempting to recapture a language their grandparents or parents did not pass on to them.

The 21-year-old education major at Pasadena City College grew up speaking only English, even though her mother is bilingual. Each week when her grandmother, Lilia Inguiez, visits, “we sit down and try to figure out what we are saying,” Ramirez says. “She does get very upset when she doesn’t understand me.”

Ramirez, a special education trainee with Los Angeles Unified School District, is learning Spanish--not only to communicate with her grandmother, but to enhance her future.

She is enrolled in a Spanish class and, occasionally, she tunes into the novelas or Spanish-language soap operas on television.

Because she wants to earn a degree in psychology and counsel Latinos, she says, “I need to speak Spanish as well as I do English for my profession. I am doing something to correct that right now.

“I can see the advantages now that I am working, but in high school and college you really don’t know because all of our work is in English, and learning another language isn’t really emphasized until you are out in the workplace. It’s then that they start asking you if you are bilingual. I’m always asked that question.”

(The Los Angeles Board of Education is scheduled to vote June 17 on a motion that calls for all graduating students to be bilingual by the year 2000.)

At least once, Ramirez says, she hasn’t applied for a job she “really wanted” because the job called for a bilingual employee. “I didn’t even try to go for it,” she says. “My Spanish is very broken.”

Ramirez says she wishes her mother had spoken Spanish to her when she was growing up “because I really think you need to learn it at home every day. I think that parents do have some kind of responsibility to keep their native language going because if they don’t speak it to the children, chances are the children are not going to pick it up anywhere else.”

Her mother, Alicia, an administrative assistant with Los Angeles Unified School District, says, “It was just a natural thing to raise my daughter speaking English. When I was her age I did my best to pick up English and to perfect it. You tried not to have an accent because you were made fun of.”

But says Elizabeth Ramirez: “I know when I have kids of my own, they’ll grow up speaking both English and Spanish.”

Brenda Miyamoto is an 18-year-old yonsei or fourth-generation Japanese-American. Her great-grandparents were born in Japan and emigrated to the United States. The freshman business major at Loyola Marymount University took a Japanese-language class last semester and since the age of 6 has been involved in Japanese dance, which she says has taught her the importance of her culture and language.

But “I can’t say that I’ve lost my language because I never really had it,” Miyamoto says.

“In Japanese there are three alphabets and I learned two of them. I can read it, I can write it, but I have no idea what I am reading or writing,” Miyamoto says.

“As far as speaking it, I understand very little Japanese, certainly not enough to carry a conversation,” which she says frustrates her maternal grandmother, 71-year-old Toshiko Kosako, who speaks only Japanese. Often Miyamoto’s mother, Shigeko Miyamoto, translates during visits.

Miyamoto knows she is missing out on learning about her heritage. She realizes that because of a language barrier, her grandparents cannot tell her family stories unless her mother interprets.

“I wish I could say things to them. I get upset and frustrated because I cannot speak Japanese. I am very proud of my heritage and not being able to speak the language puts me at a loss. When I’m with my grandmother, most of the time I’m saying, ‘Mom, tell grandma . . . ‘ “

“I do think it is important for Asians to retain their native languages, but what happens is that our parents don’t push it on us.”

Miyamoto says she eventually would like to “be able to speak Japanese fluently, but it’s hard if you don’t live it. The only way to become fluent is to force yourself. I’d like to spend a year in Japan. As for my own kids whenever I have them, it would be hard to say. But when I’m a grandmother, I’d like to be able to speak to my grandkids in more than one language.”

Lydia Ramos, a third-generation Latina who learned her Spanish in school, says she will raise her kids in a bilingual household. But just speaking the language alone will not be enough. She plans to broaden her children’s education with the works of Spanish and Latin American poets, novelists and historians.

Like many other members of the third and fourth generations, Ramos was taught to speak English despite her mother’s fluency in Spanish. Her grandparents emigrated to the United States from Sonora, Mexico, more than 30 years ago.

Says Ramos’ mother, Carmen: “I’ve always worked and the little time Lydia and I had together I didn’t have the patience to say something in Spanish and to try to explain it again in English. I didn’t think she would be interested. Later, I figured she would pick it up anyway.”

And she has.

In high school, Lydia took Spanish classes for two years and later, during four years of college, Spanish language and Spanish literature courses were a priority.

Ramos also has initiated Spanish-speaking days at home. “Nothing but Spanish,” she says.

“Before, I never really appreciated the language because I didn’t have it. It has lead to a whole new awareness and consciousness about my culture,” says the USC graduate who received a journalism degree in May.

Mike Aldapa says he has not resisted learning the language. But he regrets not knowing it. In retrospect, he knows now why his grandparents didn’t pass the language onto his mother.

“My grandparents didn’t want us to feel alienated or discriminated against in this country. But now it’s the responsibility for us who don’t speak Spanish to learn it. We don’t need to feel ashamed. We need to feel proud.”