In November, Massachusetts’s voters will decide if bilingual education is to be eliminated or not. The question that will appear on the ballot is the same one that was already accepted in California and Arizona. Ron Unz, the multimillionaire founder of a software company in Palo Alto, California, pushed a campaign that managed to do away with the bilingual programs in those two states. Now, he is leading a national crusade against bilingualism and his next targets are Massachusetts, New York, and Colorado.

The way things are going it seems that we’ll lose the battle to defend Bilingual Education.

Less than a month away from the elections, in which the future of the education of the 45 thousand students currently enrolled in the state bilingual programs is at stake, little or nothing is being done to clarify for the population the importance of preserving bilingualism.

It is true that some courageous voices have raised themselves to defend the bilingual system in some cities like Boston, Jamaica Plain, and Lynn, but those are isolated actions that lack the power of a systematic movement, which is what is needed to face the well funded and better organized campaign Unz followers are carrying in Massachusetts.

The immobility of the Hispanic leadership of Lawrence, for instance, is unbelievable. In a city where 70 per cent of the students of Latino origin are receiving bilingual education, so far there is no sign of backing up bilingual education.

Where are the PTA representatives? Are there any Hispanic teachers assuming a position of responsibility on this issue? Are there any leaders interested in giving orientation to the community?

This inertia is the best proof that Unz’s campaign has rooted in the minds of many. The Latinos who think that the defenders of bilingualism don’t want our children to learn English are not a few. And that is a mistake. The heart of the debate is not to decide what we want for our children, because we all want them to learn English, but how to do it in the best possible way.

It is good to take into account certain items before deciding yes or no on question number 2.

Recently, the legislature of Massachusetts approved a law reforming bilingual education. Now, the new legislation allows state schools to choose among several teaching English methods, adapting them to the student’s needs. At the same time, a larger control of the school districts, regarding bilingualism, has been proposed to prevent the students from staying too many years taking courses in their native language— as it happened in previous decades.

Finally, with this reform the parents are given the right to choose the type of teaching they prefer for their children, whether it is fully in English or in a bilingual program.

With this reform in place, why should we vote on the elimination of bilingual education?

One last thought for our readers: As much Spanish as we teach our children at home, if there is no formal education in Spanish, by and by we won’t be able to prevent our language from becoming downgraded and decayed.

Language is culture.
The choice is yours.