Sylvia Y. Sánchez, Ed. D.
Unified Transformative Early Education Model Program
George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
1999
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Tomás and Marina recently selected a religiously affiliated day care center that would care for their 6- month-old son and their 2-year-old daughter. Before deciding on the center, Tomás and Marina visited the center and met with the director, received a handbook on the center's guidelines and policies, discussed the sliding fee schedule, and even met the two lead caregivers who were to be responsible for their children. After the visit, they felt confident that the physically attractive day care center they had chosen would be a good setting for their two children. Still, they wondered if there was anything else they should know about the day care center before leaving their children with virtual strangers.
Unfortunately, Tomás and Marina, whose home language is Spanish, did not know – and did not even know to ask about – the center's language policy. The day care center has an English-only policy that the Board of Directors approved 15 years ago when the primarily Latino population began increasing in the area. The policy was adopted in the belief that early caregivers could best support the immigrant families and their young children by stressing the use of English. The handbook of guidelines and policies given to parents does not include the English-only policy, nor does the director discuss the policy with prospective families; it is assumed that all of the center's immigrant families would want an English-only environment for their children.
Unfortunately, Tomás and Marina's experience with English-only language policies in early care is hardly rare. In another nearby early childhood program, which also serves a large Latino immigrant community, the educational coordinator intentionally places new children, whose home language is other than English, with teachers and paraprofessionals who do not speak the child's language. Although the center staff is very diverse and is fairly representative of the ethnic and language groups it serves, the director and most of the teachers believe that placing a child with a caregiver who can speak the child's language would encourage the child's dependency on the home language and slow down the acquisition of English.
Language policies that promote English-only for Latino children in child care centers need to be evaluated. As the number of Latino children, especially those under age 3, being cared for outside their home continues its dramatic increase, this issue becomes particularly urgent for the Latino community. As more and younger linguistically and culturally diverse young children are placed in early care settings with strangers, and in settings where it is most probable that the caregivers do not share the same cultural and linguistic background, young Latino children are being greatly affected by English-only language policies and practices.
This paper will focus on the consideration of cultural and linguistic continuity for Latino children. A review of the connection between early thinking, language, and culture is briefly presented to emphasize the importance of examining the issue. A discussion of two general areas follows: the social, historical, and political reasons for many of the views held about bilingualism and Latino children; and two misconceptions about language acquisition.
Early thinking, language, and culture
Infants learn a language for the purpose of functioning in a particular cultural and language community–that is, language allows us to be able to communicate in a culturally appropriate manner within a particular linguistic community. It is the cultural community, including the family and other members, who identify the key concepts and categories that are important to consider and pass them on across generations. As adults and older children from the cultural community involve themselves in the experiences of very young children, they help the children formulate concepts, solve problems, label categories, and define meanings. Through interactions with their families and community, children take advantage of cognitive tools, of which the most powerful is language. Through these experiences and interactions, language, culture, and thinking–interrelated–are passed on to new generations. The particular integrated ways of using language, thinking, and seeing the world and themselves can only be given to young children by their community. No outsider can teach that to the young children of that cultural group.
Although the view that there exists a strong interaction between the development of language, cognition, and the role of culture is supported through research, the policy decisions to provide or not provide linguistic continuity for Spanish-speaking Latino children is often directly related to the our ambivalency about bilingualism in this country and the prevalent misleading assumptions about language acquisition. These two factors are the basis for many inappropriate practices that prevent Latino children from having access to their full potential.
Roots of Ambivalency
Why is it that as a society we are so ambivalent about bilingualism? Early caregivers are not immune to the internalization of views rooted in anti-immigrant stances from previous generations. By examining the historical context that gave rise to the English-only views in this country, we also begin to question some of the assumptions about bilingualism that continue to impact our work with young children.
Although the Southwest's Spanish language roots existed long before English ever predominated in the United States, some states have been especially harsh towards the inhabitants they viewed as conquered people. In Texas, for example, it was against the law until the late 1960s to use a language other than English in a public building, and it was a criminal offense to teach in any other language, except as a foreign language. Spanish-speaking children in Texas were routinely spanked or punished when they spoke their home language in school, even in the playground. Children were commonly mislabeled as mentally incompetent because they spoke a language other than English. Their home culture was considered as "culturally inferior" by social scientists.
Today minority languages in the United States are again experiencing a rash of attempts to limit their use. The most publicized and well financed of these initiatives is currently directed at public school programs in California, a bellwether state known for its large immigrant population, over 1.4 million school aged whose home languages are other than English, and its strong bilingual education effort. The political initiative criminalizes the act of teaching in the child's home language and makes teachers liable for punitive damages and attorney fees if they fail to follow the English-only requirement. Although the California initiative has little legal impact on early care and other non-public school settings in California or any other state, the trend in the past has been that schools often lead the way for the language restrictionist policies that inadvertently trickle down to early care settings.
As demonstrated in the two cases mentioned in the introduction, the views of those involved in developing or implementing the language policies are based on attitudes toward the Spanish-speaking immigrant population and their home language, and on how to best ready their children for the English-speaking world. The base of these attitudes originated in the cultural-historical context of this country, and changing these views requires new ways of thinking about bilingualism.
Fallacies About Second Language Acquisition
Two misleading views about the role of language in the lives of linguistically diverse young children and their families are deeply ingrained in the minds of the general public and constitute a formidable barrier to efforts to create more culturally and linguistically responsive settings and practices for young Latino children.
The painful trauma of losing cultural identity
The first fallacy involves the belief that young children whose home language is other than English are able ("like sponges") to acquire a second language so quickly and easily that they suffer no traumatic consequences or pain when immersed in an English-only caregiving environment without home language support. Language, we must remember, is only one form of communication. Language is embedded in a culture and is one of the most powerful ways in which culture is expressed and shaped. Families and communities hand down language and culture to their young. Young children learn to understand those around them and to express their own fears, needs, and desires in the distinctive vocabulary of a home language that includes not only words, but also rhythms, gestures, patterns of speech and silence.
Language and culture are the fundamental building blocks of identity. From their family, young children gain a feeling of belonging, a sense of personal history, the joy of shared meaning, and the security of knowing who they are and where they come from. In the larger community, significant adults give children both overt and subtle messages that shape their view of themselves and their families. In societies where bilingualism is an expectation of the community and a source of pride, it is reasonable to expect that families and community caregivers would wholeheartedly encourage a child's growing proficiency in two or more languages. But in communities where only one language is allowed to flourish and other home languages are explicitly or implicitly devalued, linguistically diverse young children often experience emotional pain as their home language is eliminated or its development is frustrated by the linguistic discontinuity between home and caregiving settings.
What happens to the influence and the role of family, culture, and language when young Latino children move into early care that does not provide cultural or linguistic continuity? If the child's home language and home culture is not present in the early care experience, how can there be validation of the child's self worth, self efficacy, and of their sense of identity? What happens when caregivers or centers so emphasize learning English in the first years of life that they fail to convey to Latino children the crucial message that their home language and home culture are an acceptable means for interaction with their environment and with the significant adults in their lives?
The situation is particularly poignant and traumatic for very young Latino children. Obviously, young children who are unable to communicate their fears, needs, and desires in words rely on nonverbal cues. However, because language and culture affect both verbal and nonverbal means of communication, caregivers may be unable to understand the cues of children who come from linguistic and cultural backgrounds other than their own. Children whose signals are misunderstood experience frustration. Because they are unable to verbalize their frustration, adults assume that these children are not suffering pain in the process of acquiring English. The subtle message that the children may be gathering from the caregiver's inability to pick up the cues may be two-fold: one that causes them to feel incompetent as a language learner and to internalize the message as "I am a person who cannot communicate effectively"; and one may manifest itself as "My family's home language and/or home culture is inappropriate or not of value." Both messages can have a detrimental impact on their sense of identity, however, the second message affects how the children also view their families and their culture. Any message, however subtle, that devalues the Latino children's language and culture has profound impact on their sense of being and their relationship with their family and community.
An even more disconcerting practice in some early care settings involves encouraging the Spanish speaking family to speak in English to their children, thereby deterring them from maintaining the family's home language and culture. Whoever offers such advice fails to realize that stressing English to the detriment of the home language within the Latino family unit can damage children's socio-emotional and cognitive development.
When talk amongst intimate family members ceases, a change in the relationship occurs that is rarely ever rekindled. In "Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez," Rodriguez, whose teachers requested that his parents stop speaking the home language and speak only English with him, unwittingly describes it as a silence that thickens and becomes less penetrable. When this occurs, the foundation of the child's identity becomes brittle. Their sense of being and their link to their family and cultural community is forever broken when made to give up their home language. Although proud to have acquired the public language that he so admires, English, Rodriguez describes a family scene at the end of his book that would make any early care professional cringe. The Rodriguez family is together for Christmas, but only the children, who have long since switched to English, are talking with each other; their parents long ago stopped trying to use their halting English to have meaningful conversations with their children. The author's detached and somewhat condescending description of his parents' linguistic limitations and their futile attempts at conversation is heartrending. It is emotionally demanding to read his detailed depiction of this family portrait without feeling sadness and loss for the family who sacrificed their intimacy when they abandoned their home language at the behest of an educator. No family should have to make such a sacrifice.
Insisting that young children learn a second language at the expense of their home language at a critical point during their developmental continuum interrupts their need to make sense of the world by relying on guidance from family and community members. Such pressure introduces discontinuity and stress into children's lives just when they need to feel secure and solidly bonded with their family and community. Discouraging families from using their home language deprives children of precisely the linguistic and cultural link that will help them develop a strong sense of identity and the cognitive basis for future learning.
Language and overall academic success
The other major fallacy involves the belief that learning English at as early an age as possible enhances the prospects for later academic success for children. The argument usually involves ideas such as, not only will young children learn English (or any new language) more easily and quickly than they will be able to later in life, but they will experience higher levels of cognitive development overall and perform better in elementary school, where instruction is given in English. I propose, in contrast, that Latino children may be in danger of experiencing significant loss in their cognitive development as they move away from their home language. As a child acquires more English than the rest of the family, and the development of the home language is arrested, the family and community members are unable to linguistically and culturally scaffold and mediate the situations needed to continue facilitating the young child's intellectual growth.
In a recent study involving 40,000 school age children whose home language was other than English, researchers found several school variables impacted the children's long term academic achievement. The investigators selected schools, all with strong academic programs for English language learners, that represented a variety of language learning programs, ranging from those encouraging the maintenance of the home language to those providing instruction only in English. The study found that children who were allowed to develop their home language to high levels of proficiency as they acquired English, until at least sixth grade, matched the level of academic success of native English-speakers after four to seven years of schooling. In contrast, children who had been forced to only learn in English at an early age by being placed in all-English classrooms in preschool or kindergarten, took from seven to 10 years to achieve the 50th percentile on standardized achievement tests given in English. The research showed that making the child forego continuing to develop their home language at an early age had a negative impact on their academic achievement. Acquiring English at a very young age did not show positive long-term academic results.
Toward More Responsive Lanugage Policies and Practices for Latino Children
By increasing our understanding of what and who drives the language policies that hinder linguistic continuity for young Latino children in early care settings, we may be able to create a more additive model of bilingualism in early care. The sociohistorical context and misconceptions about the role of first and second language have played a significant role in forming our perceptions about Spanish speaking Latino children, in determining the linguistic choices made, and in affecting whether input from families is considered or not. By reflecting on the policies, environments, practices, and attitudes that affect linguistically diverse families, one can find ways to improve the care of all Latino children.
In conclusion, let's remember that the imbalance of power between Latino families and those in control of the social institutions, such as early education settings, further complicates the situation. The imbalance of power prevents Latino families from having full access to the knowledge needed to make informed decisions about the early care setting they are selecting and affects their involvement, or lack thereof, in the development language policies for their children. Centers and caregivers that strive to equalize the balance of power in these settings will learn directly from families and community ways to respond to the cultural and linguistic diversity found in Latino families.
Reprinted from the National Child Care Information Center, www.nccic.org