Originally Posted by craftymissbeth:
I would love to incorporate Spanish into my program. Unfortunately, in my area people aren't exactly open minded. In fact, the general tone on Facebook (my "friends" and comments on local news pages) is "this is 'Merica and we only speak English here!".
My last name is a common Hispanic surname and I actually think it keeps me from getting some clients... not that I'd want those people anyway, but it's unfortunate. I just don't have the guts to even try.
That's really, really unfortunate because language acquisition at a young age has so many benefits besides the ability to speak another language. It's funny because where I live, people are nuts about English, French, Spanish. "Oh, it's so good for the kids..." But suggest that a child could learn Turkish (Turks are the Mexicans of Germany, if you know what I mean) and all hell breaks loose. "This is our country, you need to speak German!"
Racism is alive and well.
Kids here learn English from 1st grade now.