People : Literacy Classes Lift Immigrants’ Self-Confidence

In the modest back room of the Cudahy Roman Catholic Church, Salvadoran immigrant Emma Amaya has held sway over the minds of 22 adults two nights a week for the past year: She is teaching them how to read.

Under flickering fluorescent lights, amid walls adorned with portraits of a suffering Christ and sermons copied in a child’s cursive script, Amaya conducts her Spanish-language literacy class.

“I missed out on so much before I started this class a year ago,” Helda Romero, 42, said in the gentle Spanish of her homeland of El Salvador, swallowing all her S’s and slowly rolling her R’s.

“All of my information came from television. Now I’m able to read newspapers like La Opinion, and learn more about what happens here and in El Salvador.”

Romero came to Los Angeles 21 years ago as an illegal immigrant, fleeing civil strife that only recently ended. Six years ago she was granted amnesty when U.S. law allowed her to apply. Now she has become literate in her native language, Spanish, and soon hopes to learn English well enough to apply for citizenship.

“It’s necessary (for the students) to learn how to read in Spanish first,” said Amaya, adding that all the students plan to learn English because they want to become citizens. “First, for reasons of pride; second, because it makes learning English much easier.”

Learning to read in their native language boosts self-confidence and gives them learning skills that will help with English, Amaya said.

“It’s a beautiful gift to receive, learning how to read. Now there are so many more opportunities,” said Romero, the mother of two sons, 16 and 8, both born in the United States.

The students recently completed their first year of lessons in the barren back room of the church they all attend. Some have been to more classes than others whose schedules conflict with the Monday and Thursday night meetings.

The students contribute what they can for the class by holding tamale sales or selling raffle tickets after church services.

Together, they have managed to save enough to purchase a few notebooks and pencils. Their texts are donated by student groups from universities in Mexico City and El Salvador.

The program they participate in is called El Proyecto de Educacion Popular del Sureste de Los Angeles (PESE), the Popular Education Project of Southeast Los Angeles. It is affiliated with California Literacy and the Instituto de Educacion Popular del Sur de California, two established literacy services that have generated community-based programs such as the one run by Amaya.

“It’s a very effective system that’s been used throughout the world to teach adults to read,” Amaya said.