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Radio West Transcript: July 25, 2000
By Vince Pearson

HOST: When Utah voters head to the polls this November, one of the things they'll have to decide is whether English should be declared the official language of Utah. The bill would restrict the state's ability communicate with residents in languages other than English. The goal is to make the country more cohesive by encouraging immigrants to learn the language.

In the first of an occasional series, KUER's Vince Pearson looks at how immigrants go about learning English - what makes it easy for some and hard for others.

REPORTER: Jung De Kim, his wife Hyun-ok Kim and their two children immigrated to Salt Lake City from South Korea two and a half years ago to be close the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Residents of Salt Capitol Hill district may know them better as the amiable, and increasingly articulate owners of the E-Z Mart convenience store on 6th North and Second West.

From her usual spot behind the cash register, Hyun-ok greets every customer individually, with entusiastic fragments of English, and sometimes Spanish. This day, Jung's fixing the ice cooler, but taking frequent breaks to make small talk with customers. The former cement truck driver and his wife arrived here with almost no English skills. Jung says they bought their store from an English-speaking Korean friend, and have relied on others in that community to help them sort through complicated matters, ranging from doing the paperwork, to getting drivers license, to getting a social security number to enrolling the children in school.

In the last two years, Kim has made learning English the key to his strategy for success in the United States. He attends English classes at Salt Lake Community College in the mornings while his wife tends the store. He then works until closing at midnight, while helping care for the children and studying English.

KIM: My English is very good experience. I am every month go to library. Borrow the each book. We are leading understand each book.

In the last decade, Utah has experienced tremendous growth, not just in size but in the diversity of its people. And that makes it easier for newcomers like the Kims to get their feet on the ground. It also led to concern in some quarters about what's known as the California-ization of Utah, where immigrants within ethnic enclaves don't bother to learn English. But many Immigrants reject the notion that learning to speak English has somehow become optional.

RUSLAN: My name is Ruslan, and I studying here why because I like to learn more English to I can better job finden.

SESSA: I'm Hilda Sessa. I'm from Sudan. I must increase my English because my English is too low. And because here communication is only the English language.

MIKAVICH: Yeah, my name is Bozhe Mikavich, I am from Bosnia. And I want to learn English to make a living here.

MIKAVICH: Yeah, sure I do. I mean, I need to get a good job, I need to finish the University, so it don't goes without English.

MARTINEZ: If you don't know English in Utah, you are not going to get a very good job.

MARTINEZ: And if you can't get a very good job in Utah, you can't survive: you can't get a place to live, you can't rent an apartment. A lot of apartment managers won't even deal with people who don't speak English, they are afraid they'll be gone in the middle of the night.

But even with powerful incentives to learn English, the rates at which people learn vary drastically from person to person. Where some children pick up the language in just a couple of months, many adults require years, or never learn it at all. And that raises the question, what makes some individuals so successful where others fail.

At the Centro de la Familia in downtown Salt Lake City, Spanish-speaking immigrants rely on bilingual staff members to help them navigate complex government agencies. Employee Teresa Sanchez-Howes spends her days meeting with Spanish-speaking clients and then making telephone calls on their behalf.

SANCHES-HOWES: Hi Marta, this is Teresa, listen I have a family who needs medical assistance and they...

After five years in Salt Lake City, Sanchez-Howes is well qualified for this position. But it wasn't too long ago she too needed lots of help to make her way here in Utah. She moved from Mexico City to Salt Lake City with only the most rudimentary English skills. Even simple things, like making a bank deposit, she says caused her anxiety.

SANCHES-HOWES: Somtimes, when you meet someone and that they speak your language, they make you feel comfortable, but that is not everybody. The people who doesn't speak another language, or they haven't had the experience of travelling in other countries, they treat you bad, like you are no one here.

And Sanchez-Howes does have a good level of education. She has a communications degree, and worked as a reporter for a prestigious Mexico City newspaper. But since English-language journalism was not an option when she arrived here, she enrolled in a language school, and took a job in a factory, in part to practice her English.

SANCHES-HOWES: I think, you know, everything helps you because you have new words, new things to learn, even how to say what is the name to that tool, what is the name to that process. It's OK because you always have something to learn, you know, in this program I have three different positions and I been learning every time.

Through her jobs, and lots of reading, listening, and interacting with native English speakers, Sanchez-Howes rose from the factory to the office environment in about two years. And she had help at home after she married a man who was born here. But not all immigrants are as quick to learn.

As his three children feast on Sunday morning cartoons, Jose Luis Correa reclines shirtless on the sofa to relate his life story. Correa and his wife and family live in modest two-bedroom rental home in a modest development of West Valley City. In a mixture of Spanish and sometimes English, Correa tells me he dropped out of high school 11 years ago to paint homes and work construction. And that he's moved from city to city seven times, to stay employed.

CORREA: Sometimes its too hard when I'm looking for a job, sometimes I have a lot of work, sometimes it's slow.

Correa says he's looking forward to the day when he too can slow down. He says he dreams of giving up construction and learning to work with computers. Correa enrolled in Horizonte language school this summer to prepare for further study. But he says his efforts have been frustrated. Long, irregular work hours often force him to miss his class. And he's not learning English at work because many of his co-workers speak English poorly or not at all.

CORREA: A veces me siento muy occupado...VOICE OVER TRANSLATION: Yes, I feel frustrated. I want to go to school more, have more free time, but sometimes I can't because of work.

Correa's situation is typical of many poor immigrants. His lack of formal education, his hectic work life, and lack of exposure to other native English speakers are common things which hold people back, says University of Utah Professor of Linguistics, Mauricio Mixco.

MIXCO: If you are, on the other hand, well-adapted to your society-- to a degree successful-- you learn strategies of success that can be transferred here, even though they are foreign, they are not totally alien.

And then there are other qualities that have nothing to do with socio-economic status. Linguists say qualities like age, natural talent, enthusiasim and hardwork also determine whether an individual succeeds or fails. But Graciala Italiano-Thomas at the Centro de la Familia says she's almost never met a new immigrant how didn't want to learn the English Langauge. She says without English you can't make yourself heard and you can't accomplish your goals.

ITALIANO-THOMAS: Immigrants usually leave a country in search of a better life. That is the motivation for most human beings, for the improvement of thier life conditions, which means they already have an inherent motivation to learn the language of the place they are going to go. That is the give and take that must occur, and that is profoundly linked to a sense of esteem. If you don't succeed in creating a better life for yourself, your self-esteems is going to go down.

The barriers people face as they attempt to learn to speak English differs from person to person. For some it's a logical process, where hardwork and practice pay off. For others its a life-long struggle, filled with lots of frustrations and minimal results. But many immigrants still view learning English as crucial right of passage, as they try to make their way in what's still a predominantly English-speaking country.