Print Issue: September 26, 2002

Speaking A Common Language: Newly Arriving Immigrants Ask First For Help With English

By Gretchen Keiser, Staff Writer

DORAVILLE - It's Tuesday evening at "La Misión." The small asphalt parking lot in front is full by 7 p.m. and two men wave those still arriving toward the adjacent MARTA parking lot at the Doraville station.

Friendly conversations in Spanish take place as people come in and out of the utilitarian church building, some with notebooks under their arms.

Mexican native Maria Rosres listens as her English instructor goes over some new vocabulary words. Our Lady of the Americas Mission conducts English classes on Saturday morning and Tuesday and Thursday evenings.

Betty Clermont, coordinator of services for the bilingual pastor, Father Richard Young, guides a visitor on a quick tour, past a chapel where the tabernacle resembles a straw hut and images of Mary and Jesus from Latin countries adorn the room.

On Tuesday and Thursday evenings and on Saturday mornings, English classes are given at Nuestra Señora de las Americas, Our Lady of the Americas Mission. The free classes, all taught by volunteers, are roughly divided by skill levels. Those with practically no English receive the basics, while those who speak some English can practice and improve.

Tonight in what is the Sunday worship space, young adults and adults who speak very little English gather around a teacher with a portable blackboard teaching them in Spanish. In an upstairs room Clermont points out, a more advanced English class is taking place.

In another small room crowded with old schoolroom desks, Michael Reid, a 34-year-old Home Depot employee, teaches a mid-level class of about 20 men and women, moving back and forth between Spanish and English. He is working on the correct use of comparatives and superlatives, both regular forms, like big, bigger and biggest, and irregular forms, like good, better and best.

Bearded and dressed in jeans, Reid uses a light touch and humor to break up the evening's lesson - asking the class to translate sentences like "this teacher is uglier than a dog" and "this class is funnier than a circus."

Mostly men, they spend the 90 minutes listening and struggling with the English concepts as he writes sentences on the blackboard. A key is to drop the word "more" when the word ending in English already communicates a comparative. In Spanish, one would say "mas," so teacher and students go back and forth, working to eliminate common errors, like "more better."

Roberto Arias teaches the Saturday morning English class at Our Lady of the Americas Mission, Doraville. The South American native has been teaching the class for the past year.

Abel Gomez, a construction worker from Mexico, speaks up and risks answering Reid's requests for English translations of comparatives.

"I need more, more, more, more," he says after class about his need to learn English. Living in the United States for six or seven years, he has learned most of his English on the job, he says, but he had some exposure to the language in Mexico as a student and as a guide for American tourists.

"I lived in the capital of my state. People from the United States came. I practiced. I was a guide," Gomez said, with a warm smile, to explain his degree of familiarity with English. "All the time in Mexico, I see the movies. My brother stayed here 12 to 13 years."

Still, "the first day on the job (in the United States), it was difficult for me."

Reid, a parishioner of Sacred Heart Church, Atlanta, also volunteers at that parish where he works one-on-one with a man every Thursday night. He says that he benefits immensely from his work with the Hispanic people, most from Mexico.

"It is amazing to me, the work ethic of these people," he said, waving his arm around the now empty room, when class ended at 9 p.m. The tiny bare classroom with desks pushed together has gotten more and more sweltering as the evening waned. People who come have already worked or taken care of children all day, he pointed out.

"They are not working in air-conditioned offices all day. They are working in landscaping, construction jobs . . . They are truly amazing people."

In the recent survey done in the archdiocese of people coming to Spanish Masses, English classes were the single greatest need named by those surveyed. Thirty-five percent said they needed English classes. Other needs identified were legal advice, help getting a driver's license and medical care.

The survey also reported that few of those attending Spanish Masses said they needed financial help or job fairs. Most are working and supporting themselves.

While 46 parishes and missions offer Spanish Masses, 22 of them, fewer than half, said that they offer English classes.

It is challenging to teach at "La Misión," Reid said, because the class changes constantly, with new students arriving and others leaving or progressing to new skill levels. There is no beginning or end to the curriculum, there are no classic lesson plans. Some people come three times a week, some once a week. The teaching is interactive and pragmatic. While he studied Spanish in high school, he only became really interested after visiting his sister, who taught in Guadalajara, Mexico, for three years.

"I fell in love with Mexico, with the culture, with the language," he said. "When I came back, I decided to get involved at Sacred Heart. It is a tremendous source of grace for me. Knowing these people and being able to interact with them, it is very humbling."

One of his "students" at Sacred Heart, a disabled man who lives in Grant Park, comes every Thursday night, Reid said. "He works in construction. He takes the train or walks a couple of miles to the church. To meet me? Yes, that is why I say it is very humbling."

Clermont has worked at "La Misión" for over two years after first getting involved as a volunteer with St. Vincent de Paul and the English classes. The church, officially a mission of Immaculate Heart of Mary, receives support from IHM, Holy Cross and Our Lady of the Assumption parishes in Atlanta, and All Saints in Dunwoody. It was always designed as an outreach center to newly arriving Hispanic immigrants and at the moment about 3,000 people come to the community for Mass on the weekends. There are also two active prayer groups and a large sacramental program.

"It's unique because the community here are very, very poor people. We try and gear things toward recently arrived immigrants," Clermont said. "We offer a lot more social services than any other parish would. We always have clothes and food available. People come here for anything and everything. They come here looking for work, looking for housing, looking for transportation, for driving directions, for help filling out job applications, for help with the children in school . . . They come here bleeding, looking for doctors. The homeless come here. They come here and seek counsel here because no one here is going to rip them off."

"We try and have as much information as possible that Latin American immigrants can use."

The approach at "La Misión" is to provide what is needed and to accept the help that is offered. English classes right now are given on Tuesday and Thursday nights from 7:30-9 p.m. and on Saturday mornings from 9:30 a.m. until noon.

Computer classes, taught in Spanish by volunteers from a computer company, are given Wednesday and Friday nights from 7-9 p.m. These classes also help people get a comfort level with the technology of American culture, which includes everything from ATMs to card-swiping systems at gas pumps and supermarket checkout lines, Clermont said.

A professional also volunteers to teach air conditioning and heating system repairs on Thursday nights from 7-8:30 p.m. This helps men looking for a trade, or those who were certified in their countries of origin, but need terminology and training to be re-certified in the United States.

"The teachers are just Christian people who volunteer their time," she said. "They are not all Catholic. They are just people who want to help."

Anytime people offer to help, particularly bilingual volunteers, they are put to work, Clermont said. "They want to help. The answer is yes."

Reid said that he has been moved by the interaction he has had with Hispanic immigrants striving to learn English and become more skilled and competent.

"These guys here are after the kind of English that can help them get a good job and avoid being taken advantage of. I think they know the greater literacy and the great ability with English (they have) the greater chance they have of standing up for themselves."

"The only way to learn a language is to dive in and use it . . . It gives them an opportunity to listen to an English speaker and interact in a situation where they won't feel embarrassed."

Our Lady of the Americas Mission is on New Peachtree Road in Doraville. The mission has been around since 1991.