Anna Pier: Director of Educational Programs, CommonBond Foundation
It’s in the air. Blossoms, birds, yes, but something else, something that has been a much longer time coming than the annual return of spring. It struck me last week, when the angst I was feeling about my car breaking down was dispelled by these recorded words:
“Emergency road service. For English, press one. Para español marque el dos.”
It was the equality of the phrasing that caught my attention, made me smile despite my worry. Waiting for the tow truck, I tested my hypothesis. I knew that enrollment in language classes for adults was burgeoning. I thought of the dual immersion program at Flowery flourishing. I made a couple of calls to verify if these observations held in the business world. Banks all over town have tellers who can serve their customers in Spanish and of course there is Banco de Sonoma. At Sonoma Chevrolet one-third of the staff both in sales and service speak Spanish. Colleen in Human Resources at Sonoma Valley Hospital put it this way: “If we find someone trained for a clinical job who can speak Spanish, it’s like gold.”
In another month of March, in the year 1848, a treaty “of peace, friendship … and settlement between the United State of America and the United Mexican States” was ratified. With it, we acquired from Mexico Alta California and the four southwestern states. The agreement anticipated a high level of amity between the two countries, including protecting the property rights, and providing for the new territory to be bilingual. But the next year the Gold Rush began, and newcomers, unused to Spanish culture, rejected it, though not before they adopted the “burro,” the prospector’s friend.
Somehow in this country we have associated patriotism with English. It became “un-American” to speak another language. Haven’t all of us met, again and again, second-generation immigrants who voice regret that their parents discouraged them from learning the grandparents’ language? But their parents thought that was the way to make them American. Learning English, yes, but not rejecting the first language.
In the rest of the world, speaking several languages has always been common. Both life circumstances and formal education make bi- or multi-linguals of many, many citizens of all continents. You may not realize that often immigrants from Mexico and Central America arrive in this country bilingual. Spanish is their second language, after their indigenous mother tongue, be it Zapotec, Maya or another.
I believe that a bilingual Sonoma will bring us, just as surely as spring does, many blessings. And maybe, as employers are beginning to realize, this is some of the real gold the 49ers were seeking. Our culture obviously has embraced the idea of physical fitness; let’s hear it for mental fitness. Learning a language leads to new synapses firing in our brains and keeps our cerebral functions limber. Then there is the matter of our hearts. Obsessed about diet and exercise – both good things – we forget about the benefits of living harmoniously with our neighbors. Harmonious existence probably helps make happy hearts. So, Welcome Spring! and Welcome Spanish!
