Melting Into America

None of the women carrying hot dishes into a Tarzana Elementary School back room in their best outfits knew if that sad woman they only knew as Clara would come to this final day of class.

The Latinas had met here seven Fridays in a row for assimilation classes, lessons aimed at teaching them to join in American life.

And between lessons on how to dress for a job interview and encouragements from their teacher to feel proud of who they are, Clara had confided in some of the others that her longtime husband had left the family and returned home to Ecuador.

“What was her name?” a woman asked as she moved chairs and arranged dishes on school tables. “I think it was Clara, but I don’t remember her last name,” another said.

One woman attempted to approach a sensitive issue by whispering: “Her husband left her. She was very sad.”

The two dozen Latina women, some of them new to the country, recently met at the Reseda Complex Parent/Community Center--located at the Tarzana school--for the course offered free by Granada Hills Community Hospital.

The parent center is a portable building at the edge of the playground next to Wilbur Avenue. It serves parents of students at 12 schools from elementary to high school in Tarzana and Reseda.

The school’s children are of various ethnic backgrounds and about 45 different languages are spoken at home, said Yafa Ifrah, a parent who acts as the center coordinator.

Parents often drop by during and after school to help their children with homework or to participate in various activities and classes. Dozens sign up for everything from parenting lessons to sessions on how to help their children with homework.

“We try to make it feel like home for the parents,” said Ifrah, adding that a group of parents and kids around a table simply watching television is not an uncommon activity, either.

Though the center is open to all parents, Ifrah said the assimilation class is specifically for the Latina mothers.

“What I liked the most was the part about self-esteem,” said Maria Elena Castillo, 43, who lives in Tarzana. “You should be yourself. You don’t have to let anyone humiliate you.”

The class is taught by Alicia Rodriguez, the hospital’s community relations director for the Centro de Salud Hispano, a Latino outreach program.

The hospital considers community outreach a strong part of its mission, particularly with Latinos, given their numbers in the city, said Mary Schaubert, the hospital spokeswoman.

She said about 90% of babies delivered at Granada Hills Hospital over the last five years were born to Latino mothers, half of whom spoke only Spanish.

“That’s a market we need to provide service to,” Schaubert said.

One way to get Latinos to take health care more seriously is to begin with simple assimilation, Rodriguez said. When the women start taking care of themselves and their families, preventive health care may be a natural progression, she said.

Rodriguez, a caring woman of 55 with a soft voice who at the recent graduation made sure everyone in the room had a full plate before she sat down, began teaching the class two years ago.

“It’s tailored for our culture of first generation [Americans],” Rodriguez, an immigrant herself, said. “When we come here, people don’t think we are interested in being informed. We are interested, but sometimes people don’t speak to us effectively.”

Many immigrants come to this country too pressed with the problems of making a living to worry about health care, limiting doctor visits to emergencies, Rodriguez said.

To date she has taught the class, called Mujer Nueva, or New Woman, at a handful of schools around the San Fernando Valley, and about 300 parents have participated. A half-dozen schools are currently on a waiting list. Similar classes taught for profit cost students hundreds of dollars, Rodriguez said.

The women learn how to use makeup and do their hair, how to develop an attractive wardrobe for work and home, a special session on Latina women role models--including Evita Peron--and formal dinner etiquette.

“I think the point was to have a family dinner and have a nutritional meal,” Gilda Culajay, 37, a native of Guadalajara, Mexico, said about the lesson on formal dining. “For me, it was an example that we have to take our vitamins and care for our children.”

At the recent graduation, the women took their places around school tables pulled together, adorned with delicate cloths and set with heavy white china and gold-colored utensils. They feasted on homemade cuisine including rice, chicken, pasta salads and dinner rolls.

In a simple ceremony, they received certificates from a proud Rodriguez.

And sometime after the women had given up hope, a beaming Clara hurriedly walked in, dressed in youthful white tights and pink blouse, with a trace of purple eye shadow and reddish-dyed hair.

She explained to the women she almost did not come because she lives in Granada Hills and did not have a car. But her son skipped classes at CSUN to bring her.

“He said, ‘Don’t miss the class, mom. Since you’ve been going you’re so happy,’ ” Clara, 44, said.

She also talked about why she had been so sad.

A few months ago her husband said he was bored and wanted a separate life from his family, Clara said. He left and now lives in Ecuador with another woman.

Clara thought her life was over, but a friend told her about Rodriguez’s class.

“The day I came to the class, it was the day I returned to my youth,” said Clara, a small woman with eager dark eyes and a polite, almost apologetic tone of voice.

Making the adjustment to the single life in a new country is still difficult, but the class has taught her independence, she said.

“I feel like new,” she said. “Maybe I can start a new life, too--with my children.”