Suffer the Children, in Any Tongue

I met Ignacio (not his true name) when he was in first grade. My husband, Craig, and I had enrolled our son, Adam, in the same bilingual class of our local public school so he could interact and learn from children like Ignacio, recently arrived from Mexico. This was our idea of “whole child” development--a classroom surrounded with colorful bilingual messages, learning and sharing ideas with children already rich in a language and culture other than ours. That Adam and Ignacio became friends itself fulfilled our hopes for putting Adam in the bilingual class.

Sometimes I picked up Ignacio at his apartment house. His family consisted of several siblings, older and younger, his mother and a succession of men of vague identity--a interchangeable reflection of the mother’s low self-esteem. The apartment said a lot: the efficiency kitchen stocked like a convenience store, the condition of the few sleeping spaces expected to accommodate the nine or 10 people living there at any one time.

Over the next few years, Ignacio mostly made honor roll, participated well, never gave the teacher grief or complained or blamed. He ate as if he loved the free school lunch and breakfast (while the program lasted). He attended family nights, school programs and awards assemblies with no parent to applaud, videotape or photograph his achievements. Some of us knew his story: his third-grade teacher, who tutored him on her own time; the librarian and the teachers’ aide who made personal overtures (unreturned) to his family. He never gave a clue to the facts of his home life. We could see, though, the weariness in his eyes, the way he’d fall asleep at random moments.

I used to talk to Ignacio in Spanish when he came over, to show him that I understood many elements of his life, that his native tongue was valuable and a respectable tool and so my son would get used to the sounds of the language. Also, and maybe most important to me, I spoke to Ignacio in his first language to heal my own scars. I vividly recall teachers and school officials in my hometown, San Antonio, penalizing me for using Spanish, in the process undermining my self-esteem.

Although Ignacio’s family moved frequently and he had to change schools a lot, we kept in touch. I noticed, though, that when I’d speak to him in Spanish, he’d more and more often answer in English.

There are people who pay to send their children to private schools where one of the strongest selling points is a “foreign language” curriculum--part of the school’s goal to develop the “whole child.” Sometimes these gifted children from gilded halls can, after a year or two, open a menu and order “enchilada plate, por favor,” to the applause of their parents.

Should we be satisfied with the goals we are setting and our expectations for our children acquiring a second language in today’s shrinking world, especially in light of the vastly advanced approach shared by other industrialized nations? In school districts all around the country, there are children entering kindergarten who, besides quickly learning English, can recite entire poems in Spanish and express confident, sophisticated thoughts in their native tongue. In a few years of schooling, this “affliction” will be cured, sooner if we heed the demands of those who insist on English-only, at all times. Not only do these immigrant children lose, but all our children miss out on one of life’s best opportunities.

When speaking of children like Ignacio, I should add that most Latino immigrant families I know are nuclear, religious, have a strong work ethic and a social-responsibility quotient that blows the curve. I talk about the Ignacios as a matter of cultural exchange, of education and, ultimately, human dignity. It is painful to see the bright lights in children’s eyes fade with the fatigue of economic hardship and from contact with institutions that see them as burdens, as disposable and that now threaten to lock them out.

Children who enter school as Spanish speakers come from many family situations, and yes, they are mostly poor, struggling people trying to find their way now that they are here. I talk about Ignacio out of a sense of what might have been gained by him, and us all, if we approached these issues with a sense of community. Children like Ignacio are here, regardless of how any of us judge the processes by which their parents (and our parents) came to be here. The children are inocentes, and, beyond the moral issue, by devaluing them we diminish ourselves.

When making policy on education, wouldn’t we be better off focusing on the children, on empowering and teaching them responsibility, rather than casting them as pawns in the immigration sweepstakes? Shouldn’t we let our famous sense of community help us here? Isn’t continuing to educate all children just as socially smart as it is morally right?

Ignacio, now in middle school, is struggling. I get infrequent reports that his trusting disposition is changing. His grades have slipped and there is the occasional brush with the authorities. His story is a familiar one, unfortunately, and uncomfortably close to my own. I could have predicted it. He’s tired. Singer-composer Tish Hinojosa, the youngest of 13 children born to immigrant parents, lives in Austin, Texas. Her children’s album, “Cada Nio/Every Child” (Rounder), was released earlier this year, as was “Dreaming From the Labyrinth/Soar del Laberinto” (Warner Bros.).