Bridge to a Life of Literacy : The Puente Language Program Helps Thousands Learn English--With No Strings Attached

As a child in Mexico, Jacquelin Delfin knew no English--except a few words of a bilingual ditty:

“ Pollito , chicken;”

“ Gallina , hen;”

“ Lapiz , pencil;”

“ Pluma , pen.”

She recites the poem. Now, Delfin, 27, would like for everyone in the classroom to listen to her converse in English, to pay attention to her every perfectly enunciated word as she talks about Puente Learning Center. The East Los Angeles school has been her bridge to a life of literacy in the country she has eagerly embraced.

Recognized internationally for combating illiteracy, Puente--Spanish for bridge and an acronym for People United to Enrich the Neighborhood Through Education--has provided thousands of economically disadvantaged students with the opportunity to learn English: no questions asked about one’s legal status, no fee charged, no one turned away.

“With opportunities, we can do very many good things, like learn English,” Delfin says. She repeats the word opportunity slowly, rolling the syllables off her lips. It is one of her favorites--a word symbolic and synonymous with the United States, says the student who immigrated here four years ago.

Fluency in English was only a distant dream then.

But today, Delfin and the thousands of others who come to the high-tech world of Puente--where everyone everywhere is tapping away on computers--are not only learning English skills but life skills that will help them earn high school diplomas, land jobs or go onto college.

Sandra Heredia, 18, a Mexican immigrant is among them. She started coming here seven months ago, unable to speak a word of English much less type on a computer keyboard.

“My sister encourages me to learn English,” she says, taking a break. Her sister and other relatives have attended Puente. “She says with English I can get a good job, I can progress,” Heredia adds. She resumes typing--slowly, carefully. After a couple of minutes she correctly completes the sentence: “I am an excellent student.”

One of her instructors, Luis Marquez, thinks so, he tells her.

Marquez, director of academic programs, says students at Puente vary from those with little or no education to immigrants with teacher’s degrees and doctorates that are not recognized in this country.

“The magnet at Puente is that these people want to learn English,” he says. “But once they are here we expose them to computer technology. Puente doesn’t waste its time,” he says, adding that when children come in for one of the center’s many programs, parents soon enroll, learning alongside their kids.

Since 1985, Puente has stressed intergenerational literacy by bringing in whole families to learn together, says Sister Jennie Lechtenberg, Puente’s founder and director.

Lechtenberg started Puente as a tutorial program for children when she launched her crusade for literacy a decade ago in the auditorium balcony of a former Masonic Temple in Boyle Heights.

Later, Puente moved into trailers while staff and students awaited the construction of a building that opened its doors last month. It is the first building to be named for Mayor Richard Riordan, a Puente supporter who helped acquire the property during his pre-mayor days.

Today, in its new building, a large rectangular shape with translucent walls and roof, Puente has evolved into a cyberspace center.

*

With 2,500 students--from age 3 to 83, 95% Latino--attending daily, Puente offers language and math literacy classes in six programs in computer labs and classrooms.

Its Life Skills curriculum also stresses positive messages while students learn English. Instead of learning to write and read a sentence such as “See the dog run,” students learn English with: “If the economy improves, I’ll have a job next year.”

At Puente, children aren’t pampered. “They’re pushed to excel,” Marquez says.

“This isn’t a day care. You don’t just dump your kid here,” he says.

Rhio Sullivan Rodriguez Jr., 5, started coming to Puente “as soon as he was potty-trained” says his father, Rhio Rodriguez. Rhio Jr. has mastered word and reading programs for children such as Reader Rabbit I and Scooter.

“Computers are fun,” says Rhio, his fingers flying across the keyboard, commands sending images of children on the screen in search of hidden words in trees, behind bushes, under rocks.

“There are other kids in his same age bracket” in his neighborhood who don’t go to Puente, his dad says, “and there is no comparison.”

“I know everything in this class, Dad,” Rhio says about the preschool readiness program--one of six at Puente--that helps children develop basic skills needed to succeed in mainstream education.

The other programs include an after-school enrichment program for latchkey children, a high school tutorial program for junior and senior high school students at risk of dropping out or failing, and an adult education program, the largest, with 1,700 adults attending one of six levels of English as a Second Language classes.

In addition, Puente offers a parenting program that helps parents better understand the physical, educational and emotional development of their children, and a job-training program that focuses on office careers since the center uses computer technology and applications such as WordPerfect, Microsoft Word and Lotus in teaching literacy.

Last year, Puente placed 117 students in jobs, each earning about $20,000 annually, Lechtenberg says.

Carmen Velasco, a human resources representative for Chubb & Son Inc., an insurance company in Los Angeles, has hired several Puente students for full-time, part-time and temporary jobs in the past three years.

“We’ve been very happy with our hires,” Velasco says of the company’s association with Puente, which started three years ago after an employee attended a Puente fund-raiser.

“The way the staff at Puente teaches reflects on the school and the students. I’ve gone down there and sat in the classrooms and met the teachers. They are very dedicated--the teachers, the students. They all work together and I really like that. And they’re great on computers,” Velasco says.

*

Last year, Puente opened a satellite center in South-Central Los Angeles that’s able to accommodate 300 students.

Two weeks ago, it started a new program, Distance Learning, that enables students at the South-Central site to take instruction from a teacher at the Puente Center in Boyle Heights through an interactive video-computer curriculum.

What started as a grass-roots effort for Puente has garnered global attention, Lechtenberg says. Two years ago, while visiting the center, Prince Charles was so impressed that he invited Lechtenberg to participate in his international Business Leaders Forum. In February, teachers and administrators from London, Budapest and St. Petersburg--where Lechtenberg was recently invited to spread the word about Puente--will meet with the staff and students at the center to get tips on high-tech education.

Before she departed for St. Petersburg, Lechtenberg marveled at the progress Puente has made, at the hunger for learning her students demonstrate.

“You see our students come here five days a week--totally motivated. They feel very good about themselves. And that, to me, is very rewarding, to see someone succeed.”

Jose Eduardo Aquino, 22, is one of many success stories.

Three years in Los Angeles, the Mexico City native has been attending Puente for two years. He works part time as a clerk in a law office and is currently mastering Microsoft Word while advancing in his English classes.

“When I came to California, I couldn’t speak a word of English,” Aquino says in English. “My goal this year is to learn it all because I think it is important to speak the language of the people where you live. I live in the United States. I will speak English.”

So will his friend Delfin, who has come a long way from “chicken, hen, pencil, pen,” she says, adding that her goal is to learn to sing her idol Dolly Parton’s song, “I Will Always Love You.”

“We are strong people. We have great hearts,” Delfin says. “But most of all we want to learn.”