Caught in language gap

For some immigrants talking with kids is hard

Published: Monday, Aug. 20, 2007 12:33 a.m. MDT
 |  E-MAIL | PRINT | FONT + - 
Latino families immigrating to Utah face many challenges, such as finding affordable housing, landing work and coping with cultural differences. Another challenge, unseen to most, is found within the homes of immigrant families — the potential language barrier between parents and children.

"Many children born here speak Spanish at home and English at school," says Isabelle Kiss, English as a second language and science teacher at Northwest Middle School in Rose Park, a school where Hispanics make up 60 percent of the population. "There are some kids that are not fluent in either language."

As immigrant children, or children of immigrants, attend school in English, watch movies in English, make friends who speak English and listen to music with English lyrics, their fluency in the English language soars while their Spanish fades. Meanwhile, the parents of these children often struggle to keep up with their rapid progress.

"This is a terrible problem. The parents have to learn English to communicate with their children," said Kiss. "They don't have time, and it costs a lot. There are many that don't even know how to read and write in Spanish, making it very difficult for them to learn a second language."

Story continues below

Martha Gutierrez, who runs Tio's restaurant in Murray with her husband, struggles to find a way to learn English for use at home and work.

A local English program "is $1,600 for 16 weeks. I have to better my English, but when I saw how much it cost I couldn't do it," Gutierrez said in an interview in Spanish.

That would be a significant amount of money for Gutierrez to pay, and the fact that her restaurant was broken into recently by a thief who took food and money has left her in a financial crunch, making the prospect impossible for the time being.

Gutierrez feels the need to learn English both to assist customers at work and to communicate with her two daughters at home.

Linguistically, Virginia and Melissa Gutierrez live in two different worlds, from home to school. Their parents hail from Mexico, but the two girls have lived in the United States their entire lives. They have received a healthy dose of both languages, but at ages 13 and 17 they are veering in the direction of straight English. Melissa, the older of the two, spoke more Spanish growing up than Virginia. She continues to have a stronger grasp of the language.

"Every night I spend time with the girls. I always speak with them in Spanish," their mother said. "Sometimes I have Melissa translate when Virginia doesn't understand my Spanish."

The family has a unique communication dynamic at home. Years ago, the Gutierrez family only spoke Spanish at home. As the girls grew, they began to speak more English until they became more fluent in English than Spanish. Their mother began to learn English but is still not fluent, currently speaking a dialect of Spanglish. Their father continues to speak only Spanish.

Recent comments

I guess you could argue that there are two issues to this debate. One...

ESL Teacher | Aug. 22, 2007 at 11:12 a.m.

Believe it or not Arnold Schwarzenegger was right, people need to...

Atilio R. | Aug. 20, 2007 at 10:32 p.m.

Perhaps WWJD would care to compare point by point the way Mexican...

TIRED | Aug. 20, 2007 at 7:02 p.m.

Image
Jennifer Ackerman, Deseret Morning News

Jessica Gomez, a customer, jokes with Martha Gutierrez, who runs Tio's restaurant in Murray with her husband.

previousnext

Latest comments

I love Millsap, and the Jazz will find a way to move Boozer and match for...

i think its childish to assume that somebody would actually want to get...

Millsap and Boozer need to stay in Utah. Millsap is Boozers backup while he...

Childish and immature? Its always easier being ignorant and presuming things...

can you use words like testimony and church leadership to critisize a...

Bro P really helped me through a tough time in my life when I had him in...

These are only allegations at present, but I hope when he goes to trial, the...

My thoughts are with the Pratt family right now. Michael I hope you are...

It is interesting that everyone who seems to be a member comments on how nice...

You presume, simply because they were gay, that they were trying to "stir...

Advertisements