Journal 1, Darine El-Sourady

I am going to start volunteering with Spanish School Reading Partners to tutor Spanish-speaking students in reading and writing English. Most students are going to be middle school or high school age and I'm really looking forward to starting the project. I think most people's stereotype of the young Latino community and Latino students in our public school systems is that they feel no motivation or don't care about their education. A lot of people are also under the mistaken impression that the Latino community in the US is too "lazy" or "stubborn" to learn English. These assumptions are especially frustrating to me since there is an absence of bilingual infrastructure in our public school systems and especially in adult services devoted to teaching English. Many recent immigrants do not have access to English classes due to a lack of time, expendable income, and transportation resources. No person wants to be at a disadvantage, and no one wants to be in a new community without the means to communicate. Many people fail to see that the difficulty in learning a new language for a recent immigrant comes from larger societal structures at play rather than individual choice.