THE HERALD NEWS

Experts Say Bilingual Students Do Better

Friday, October 20, 2006

By SUZANNE TRAVERS
HERALD NEWS

WAYNE -- Bilingual education would benefit students regardless of their language of origin, a panelist at a conference on Latinos in U.S. cities said Thursday.

Children raised in a bilingual setting outperform students educated in only one language, Matt Garcia, an associate professor of American Civilization at Brown University in Providence, R.I., told attendees at the conference at William Paterson University.

Garcia was among a half-dozen academics who presented their research on the growing population of Latinos in the United States and how Latinos are changing the nation's economy, politics and culture.

About 100 college professors, undergraduate students and high school and elementary school teachers attended the daylong conference, "Latinos in U.S. Cities: Power, Politics, and Culture," sponsored by William Paterson University's Center for Continuing and Professional Education.

Garcia said surveys have found a majority of first- and second-generation Latino parents want their children educated in both English and Spanish. But bilingual education would benefit everyone, he said, because over time students educated in two languages do better on standardized tests than those who speak and study only one language.

Ada Arana, a Clifton resident who teaches elementary school Spanish in Ridgewood and attended the conference to fulfill a professional development requirement, said she was inspired by Garcia's comments. New Jersey law requires all elementary school students to learn Spanish, but Arana said her once-a-week sessions with students offer simply an "exposure" to the Spanish language.

"I think if the state would really invest the time and money into bilingual education, it would really work," she said. "Learning two languages is better than one."

Other conference speakers focused on the diversity of Latinos in the United States, noting that government and social classifications often gloss over differences of class, race, national origin, citizenship status and era of immigration. Arlene Davila, a professor of anthropology and American studies at New York University, said these distinctions explain, for example, the anti-immigrant sentiment among some Latinos who feel "their American-ness and upward mobility is threatened by immigration."

Even in Miami, attitudes of Cuban exiles are more diverse than generally presented in the press, said Silvia Pedraza, associate professor of sociology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. The younger generation and more recent exiles tend to favor looser trade restrictions and dialogue with Castro's Cuba, she said.