Voice of the Mid-Columbia | Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Wash. |

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Friday, Nov. 06, 2009

Comments (0)

Closing the gap

I was appalled to read the responses to the Fast Focus question, What are your ideas for closing the gap between the Hispanic and Anglo communities? (Fast Focus, Oct. 4) The theme of most seems to be "I don't need to change; you do." I think we need to adopt the old East Coast custom of requiring the study of foreign languages in high school. Maybe even earlier.

My parents were multilingual. They spoke English at home except when they didn't want the children to understand. Eventually I learned the native language of my grandparents. I am glad I did. I observed that immigrants tended to pick up English in the workplace, which left stay-at-home mothers at a disadvantage. We need to provide English language training for adults. They will attend. We also need to get used to the sounds of other languages.

Back in the 1940s, there was a newspaper called Aufbau for the German-speaking refugee community. In one issue it advised its readers to speak English in public places so that people wouldn't think one was talking about them.

BARRY JACOBSON, Kennewick



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