Include Funding for ESL in Immigration Reform

[Ed.: This guest post comes from Sara Sadhwani, Immigrant Rights Project Director at Asian Pacific American Legal Center & Will Coley, Aquifer Media]

The Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California has released four video shorts calling on Congress to enact a fair and humane immigration reform that includes measures to support the successful integration of immigrants. Through the video project, APALC set out to raise the voices and perspectives of adult English language learners within the larger national discussion surrounding immigration .

Learning English is a cornerstone of integration for immigrant communities, but the road to fluency is long and challenging. Our research and outreach to Asian American and Pacific Islander communities as well as broader immigrant communities has shown that immigrants want to participate in building a bright future for the United States.

Unfortunately, timing played a critical role in this project. We quickly found that, due to budget negotiations in the State Assembly, the ground was shifting beneath us as well as for the adult school and community college administrators we contacted. California has the largest adult education system in the country that is supported in large part by state funding. While the current fiscal crisis in the state has forced these schools to trim their class offerings, these programs are pressing forward to meet the demand from their communities.

Over the past few months, we visited a dozen adult education schools in Los Angeles and Orange counties and met determined administrators, passionate teachers and lots of eager students. These videos capture the energy of the adult schools and document the need for increased support. “Finding Their Way in English” is the one closest to our ideal of community participation. Will Coley filmed the footage but the students came up with the idea and volunteered for the acting. Like so much social media, these videos were built on real world relationships. It took several weeks of visiting the class and getting to know them gradually. We talked a lot about how much they appreciated the English classes and wanted to see them continue. The final “script” was how the students thought they could portray the importance of English to them: finding their way in a new country.

There is no easy solution to the fiscal crisis California faces, but inclusion of immigrant integration measures such as funding for ESL programming, in a larger immigration reform package could be an important step to maintaining the adult school system.

Special thanks to Moby for donating background music.

Learn more here about how you can support adult English language learners.

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The videos in the series include:

Class Room 206: Making Time for English
In one representative class room in Evans Adult School, California's largest adult school English language program, students and teachers discuss how new immigrants make time to learn English.

Finding Their Way with English
Students in the Torrance Adult School program created this video to show what their English classes mean to them.

The Outcome is Income: Graduating in English
Through the lens of three adult school graduations in Los Angeles County, we learn what English acquisition means to the financial success of new immigrants, their communities and our nation as a whole (this video is included at the top of this post).

Why I Volunteer to Teach English
Volunteers speak about their work with L.A.M.P. (Literacy for All of Monterey Park).