Kathleen Barrows
Berkeley, CA

Over 15 years ago, I sat in a classroom in the tiny border town of Rio Grande City, Texas, working as a researcher on a national evaluation of bilingual Head Start programs. I still remember five-year-old Dolores, a pale thin Latina, who always wore tattered dresses. The rare times she spoke, it was always in Spanish. Dolores hung at the edge of the playground, watching quietly. An outsider, in every sense of the word, she immediately became my favorite "research subject."

Six months later, I returned to encounter a new Dolores. I found her at recess, making up elaborate role plays in English with her bilingual classmates. In the classroom, she waved her hand in her teacher's face, anxious to answer any question, whether in Spanish or English. I thought, if this is what bilingual education is about--I'm all for it.

Now, after living ten years as a foreigner myself, teaching English as a Second Language in Brazil, I feel older and wiser . Yet as I watch the heated discussions on Prop 227, I'm confused. I listen to people talk about "bilingual education" as if it was some standardized monolithic program, designed to keep speakers of other languages from learning English.

I needed to see if "Doloreses" still existed. And so I recently attended a one-day "Exploring California Tour" on bilingual education, sponsored by the San Francisco-based organization Global Exchange. These were some of the new stories I heard.

There was Winnie Yu, a graduate of San Francisco's Newcomer High School, where recently-arrived immigrants receive intensive English instruction while they study subjects like math and history in their native languages or "sheltered" English. Winnie arrived from China 11 years ago, speaking only her native Cantonese. She studied one year at Newcomer, where "we grew through the immigrant experience together."

She then transferred into a four-year bilingual program. There, she said, "if I was stuck, the teacher would encourage me in Chinese." Winnie, who still speaks Chinese with her parents at home, affirms, "Language defines culture, defines who I am."

Who she is today is a poised, articulate, college-bound 19-year old, who, in perfect English, speaks adamantly against Prop 227. "You don't get rid of a car just because it's broken." The kind of program Unz proposes today, she says, would make me feel "very withdrawn and afraid to speak up. I would feel ashamed of the way I am."

There was Gail, a parent of an eight year old at Buena Vista School, the oldest and only Spanish immersion school in San Francisco. There, English- and Spanish-speaking children study together for six years, with most classes in Spanish, working towards becoming bilingual and bicultural. "I knew even when I was pregnant that I wanted my daughter to come to Buena Vista," says Gail. "I wanted her to be bilingual. I am not."

Gail proudly ushered us through the school halls, where an essay on a bulletin board caught my eye. It was by Ana, a young student who had moved from Mexico at the age of five. "My first memory of the U.S. was eating chicken and rice. My mother made tamales to sell and we went to school. I'm glad America is a nation of immigrants because we feel grateful to live in this country."

And there was Fernando Vega, now a Co-Chair of the Unz campaign, who after years of working to reform bilingual education, has finally given up. "Spanish," he says, "is great, but it's being used against us." The school system "has failed the Latino."

A retired airplane mechanic, Fernando was born in Texas, one of seven children. "We picked cotton, " he says, " and we still learned English and made it though the schools." Close to 25 years ago, Fernando fought his son's being tracked into low-level high school courses. Today, he blames bilingual education when he sees his grandson placed automatically into Spanish-language programs, all because of his Spanish surname.

So, whose story am I to believe? I believe every one of them. They represent the diversity of experiences that language learners have. And that, I finally realized, is where the problem with Prop 227 lies.

It's a one-size-fits-all proposal, for an issue that comes in many sizes. It comes in the size of nineteen-year-old Winnie Yu, and in the hopeful blue eyes of Gail and her daughter. It comes in the angry words of Fernando Vega and the size of his grandson.

As I returned home, I thought about one of the day's ice-breaking exercise. We had formed a circle facing each other, and then joined hands with the person across from us to form a human knot. Our facilitator recounted the famous story of Alexander the Great, whose solution to the problem was simply to raise his sword and cut the legendary Gordian knot.

We, however, were supposed to untangle our appendages sans sword--without speaking English or releasing our clasped hands. It took a lot of talking and gesturing, using bits and pieces of Spanish, Portuguese, and French, but we did it. It took time, cooperation and patience.

Proposition 227, I thought, is like cutting the knot with a sword. It's a quick-fix solution to try and deal with the failures of a whole educational system, not just bilingual education. If it passes, a lot of unnecessary blood will be shed, and the lives of a lot of students like Dolores will unravel.

Kathleen Barrows is a Berkeley-based freelance writer. She has evaluated bilingual education programs, taught English as a Second Language, and struggled to be fluent in two foreign languages.