Helping a population that can’t read or write
Salvador Durán | 12-24-2009 | Comments |
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If you saw Guadalupe Rafael walking on the streets of downtown Los Angeles as she struggles to board the right bus on her way to work - a mansion she cleans twice a week - you would never guess her impairment.You might think she’s a bit distracted as she walks her route, taking in the sights on the streets, the store fronts and the restaurants. But you would be mistaken because, on the contrary, Rafael is keenly focused on her surroundings. For the 25-year-old Guatemalan immigrant, her guide posts to her destination could be the color of the wall of a “pupuseria” (a Salvadoran restaurant) or a bench on a sidewalk advertising legal advice. These markers serve as her cues to get off the bus. Never mind that street signs are clearly visible. They aren’t a help, at least not for now. Rafael can’t read.
“My parents died when I was three years old,” she said in Spanish, “and where I come from in Guatemala, as I was growing up, I didn’t need to go to school because no one said to me how important it was to go to school, so I didn’t.” Of course, all that changed when she came to the United States. So much culture shock made her feel a great degree of unease and awkwardness. She remembers going out with a friend to look for employment for the very first time. When she asked by the store manager to complete an application, the paper was a big blur to her. “I was so ashamed of myself,” she remembered.
A nonprofit’s helping hand
Rafael’s story is commonplace in the Pico-Union district of Los Angeles where Latinos are the majority, and where basic literacy needs are great. About 200,000 Latinos – a vast majority of them immigrants -- in Los Angeles County have no formal primary education, according to the Census Bureau. Nationally, as many as 15%, or two million, Latino adults cannot read or write.
The statistics are surprising. But for Kathrin Buschmann, fund developer and communications manager at Centro Latino for Literacy, the answer to the problem is simple. “If they can’t read,” she said, “teach them.”
Centro Latino for Literacy teaches Latino immigrants to read and write, giving them the essential skills and confidence to participate more fully and independently in society, and uplift themselves and their families into more promising lives for generations to come.
Buschmann, who began working at the Centro Latino as a volunteer, says response to Centro Latino’s school has been overwhelmingly positive.
“They come from all over the place,” she said. “We have many students from Mexico and Guatemala. And many of them don’t even speak Spanish. Their native language may be a dialect spoken in the village they were born.”
That makes it particularly challenging, but those who want to learn stick to the program, and there are quite a few success stories, many of them posted to the walls of the Centro: the first letters ever written by the adult students.
Learning to write a letter
At Centro Latino for Literacy, Carlos Fernandez Vasquez, 39, has enrolled in free classes to learn to read and write. Vasquez, 39, knows the stinging embarrassment of being unable to read or write.
Working in the garment industry downtown Los Angeles, he remembers sweating because of nervousness when he walked into a bank to cash his first paycheck and was asked by a clerk to sign it.
“My hand was shaking badly,” he said in Spanish. “The bank teller told me to endorse my check with and ‘X.’ When I took the pen and started to draw it, that’s how I knew I was shivering. I was so embarrassed.”
Necessity has been the driving force for both these immigrants. Now that they are students, the need for personal growth is also pushing them to learn.
Vasquez says he only went to first grade in a hamlet called San Rafael Pacaya deep in the jungle in northern Guatemala. “I had an empty head, but coming here [Centro Latino] is making the difference. I have two small children, Jose and Amilcar. I want to learn to write their names, and I want them to feel proud of their dad. Plus, I don’t want to feel shame anymore.”Rafael’s goal is to learn to write a letter. “In Guatemala,” she said, “people would make fun of me. Now I’m here with a mission. It is such a great opportunity in this beautiful country.”
Centro Latino looks to enroll 10,000 new students from the Los Angeles area to teach them to read and write in a short period of time. Motivated by willing students, the center’s goal is help them read and write a letter by the end of 2010.
Rafael now sits in a room full of other non-literate students in front of a computer with a unique program where she can learn to read at her own pace. In the months that she’s been attending the classes, she had made some progress. She has learned to read and write her name and the phrase, “las rosas son rosadas” -- roses are red. She is on her way to learning to write a full letter consisting of a small biography. As she walked out of the administration office on a recent day, she saw several letters from former students that are posted on a wall at Centro Latino for Literacy. She’s promised to post her own letter when her reading and writing skills are up to par.
“I feel so proud of myself,” she said. “No one can do this for me, so I’m doing it on my own. I want to learn more, if God permits,” she said on her way to class.
She didn’t want to be late.
Tags: centro latino for literacy immigration los angeles county pico-union u.s. census bureau