Tutoring Second Language Writers (12 page)

Puerto Rico is a US territory where Spanish, rather than English, is the dominant language. According to the 2012 American Community Survey, administered by the United States Census Bureau, over 94 percent of the Puerto Rican population (who live in Puerto Rico) speaks a form of Spanish at home (
US Census Bureau 2012
). In addition to speaking Spanish at home, these speakers use Spanish in their everyday lives outside the home. Of those speakers, over 84 percent reportedly “Speak English less than ‘very well.’” In his article, “The Fight for English in Puerto Rico,” William
Marquez (2012)
said, “Most do not speak a word of English although—along with Spanish—it is the official language of the island.” In an effort to produce more fluent speakers of English, in 2012, pro-statehood (Partido Nuevo Progresista) Governor Luis Fortuño pushed to mandate bilingual education. Juan Manuel Mercado, at the time a pro-independence (Partido Independentista Puertorriqueño) candidate to be resident commissioner in Washington, opposed the plan, believing “Puerto Ricans reject any kind of acculturation because they are rooted in their identity as Hispanics and not as Americans. . . . We express our ‘Puerto-Ricaness’ every day through our language” (
Marquez 2012
). Fortuño lost the 2012 election to Alejandro García Padilla, who is pro-commonwealth or pro-Estado Libre Asociado—
the current status of the island represented by the Partido Popular Democrático.

Soon after the election, Governor García Padilla was asked a question in English during a press conference. He asked for the question to be repeated and struggled to find the words to express his answer. Many took to the Internet to post clips of the event and make fun of what appeared to be a lack of English language proficiency. García Padilla, who is a proficient speaker of English, responded by saying, “I did the best I could do. I got hung up on the word flow” (
Caribbean Business
, Nov. 13, 2012). This criticism seems at odds with the widespread resistance to English. As
Schweers and Vélez (1992
, 13) said, “With respect to the learning of English, it’s a case of being damned if you do (you’re betraying your Hispanic heritage and giving in to the forces of Americanization from the North) and damned if you don’t (you’re severely limiting your potential for socioeconomic mobility).” In other words, “English has long been viewed on the island as both a tool of liberation and an instrument of oppression” (
Pousada 1999
, 33).

The status of English in Puerto Rico also gained attention from the candidates for US president in the 2012 election. During the Republican primaries, former Senator Rick Santorum and Governor Mitt Romney both visited Puerto Rico. Santorum expressed his belief that English would have to be the main language in order for Puerto Rico to be considered for statehood, and Romney differed, saying that while he supported English, “he would have ‘no preconditions’ on language for Puerto Rico to gain statehood” (
Helton 2012
). President Barack Obama endorsed the 2011 President’s Task Force on Puerto Rico’s Status, which included in its report “Recommendation #6: The President and Congress should ensure that Puerto Rico controls its own cultural and linguistic identity. The Task Force recognizes that, if Puerto Rico were admitted as a State, the English language would need to play—as it does today—a central role in the daily life of the Island” (
Office of Intergovernmental Affairs 2011
, 4). The recommendation is not totally clear, as it seems to impose the central importance of English while saying Puerto Rico should decide on its own language identity. It also seems a bit ill informed as it suggests that English is currently a part of the citizens’ “daily life.”

Alfonso Aguilar, executive director of the Latino Partnership for Conservative Principles, believes gaining statehood would make English more important in Puerto Rico. He said, “Obviously the majority of Puerto Ricans don’t speak English because we are not a state. It will naturally happen. Part of this status conundrum is to keep us in limbo
so that there is no incentive for people to say, ‘I want to learn English’ ” (Ricardo
Varela 2013
). Bernard
Spolsky’s (2010)
research has shown that “a change in political situation . . . is regularly associated with a change in the language of government and, possibly also of, education” (176). It seems, then, that Aguilar could be correct, but so far in Puerto Rico, neither becoming a territory nor gaining citizenship has resulted in a majority of the population becoming bilingual. These types of political moves have not changed the dominance of Spanish on the island.

In the States, English-language proficiency is also scrutinized. Many people in positions of power are expected to use a form of Standard American English and to speak with no accent—read: Northern Midwest American accent—and deviating from that norm often draws criticism. Many writing centers are also guilty of privileging that norm in written form: Standard Written American English. In this volume, Frankie Condon and Bobbi Olson explain that

While tutors work with students to help them achieve this impossible standard, tutors themselves are also often held to it. For example, tutors may be considered employable only if they speak and write with a minimal level of accent, and in some writing centers, even a minimal written accent is seen as suspect. This bias reflects a certain obsession with correctness that is hard to justify in terms of clarity or comprehensibility, so, like critics of the Puerto Rican candidate, it becomes more about the desire among some people to stigmatize forms of language they don’t approve of or identify with. Thus, the insistence on particular forms of English and tutors who speak and write a certain way has political implications in writing centers and on campuses.

Puerto Rico became a colony of Spain in the sixteenth century and then an unincorporated territory of the United States in 1898 after the Spanish American War. In 1902, both Spanish and English were acknowledged as official languages. English was used at the beginning of the twentieth century consciously as an Americanization tool in the
public schools. Protests led by Puerto Rican educators eradicated that practice by the 1940s, when public schools went back to teaching all subjects except English in the Spanish language. The argument was, and still is, that people learn better when they are taught in their mother tongue (Sylvia M. Casillas-Olivieri, personal communication).

In 1991, as the English-only movement in the States gained support, Puerto Rico removed English as an official language to try to protect itself, but English was reinstated as a co-official language in 1993. As Luis
Muñiz-Argüelles (1989)
of the University of Puerto Rico explains, to some, the English-only movement in the States “means nothing less than cultural genocide,” but others believe such eradication of culture would never happen because new laws would be created to protect Puerto Rico’s Spanish language (464).
Spolsky (2010)
studies the connections between nationalism and languages and has shown that “movements working for national independence are regularly associated with movements for the establishment of national languages.” He offers Québec as an example of a fight for independence that includes “a movement to resist French language loss” (175). According to
Ebsworth and Ebsworth (2011)
, many have “persistently associated Spanish with Puerto Rican identity and English with a threat to all that is Puerto Rican” (100). For many in Puerto Rico, learning English is different from learning other languages. Learning English can signify an acceptance of US government and culture and a denial of Puerto Rican identity.

Education has been at the center of much of the politics regarding language. Those in favor of Americanization push for educating students in English, which results in opposition from some students when they encounter English in the classroom. Rosa M. Torruellas’s research “found and described a student counter culture of resistance in the English class.” She observed “a classroom atmosphere of apathy at best or outright hostile resistance at worst. . . . Students question teachers as to why they have to learn English if in the United States, people don’t learn Spanish,” and for these students, “English and Spanish are seen as being in opposition to each other and mutually exclusive” (
Schweers and Vélez 1992
, 28). In addition to students in the classroom, people of a variety of ages and from a variety of backgrounds join in the efforts to stop the use of English, according to Jorge Vélez’s findings (2000). When students encounter disapproval of the use of English in all parts of their lives, those attitudes will almost certainly be adopted.

The director of the CCC, Dr. Helena Méndez, talked with me about this issue and said she found similar situations with the students who attend UPRH. She said, “I think the classes that have more problems
with discipline are the ones that are teaching English because they are teaching something that [causes students to think] ‘I don’t care.’ ‘I don’t think it’s important.’” Torruellas’s research also showed that “when students attempt to use English to communicate in class, they are met with
relajo
or ridiculing and teasing by their peers” (
Schweers and Vélez 1992
, 29). Alicia
Pousada (2000)
also found that many people “viewed English-speaking Puerto Ricans on the island as snobs or colonialists” (116). This pressure to avoid the English language adds to students’ negative feelings toward it. Learning academic writing in any language is hard, and when students have to do it in their second language, learning is all the more difficult when they are made to feel, by some, that they are betraying loyalties.

Méndez explained that Puerto Rican students usually enroll in at least one English class from elementary school all the way through high school. She said, “When they come here to the university, they don’t know [English]. So you ask, ‘Why don’t they know it?’ They’ve been taught it for twelve years.” She continued, “When they finish college, they don’t feel confident to speak [English], so what’s going on? So why after years, why don’t they know the language?”
Ebsworth and Ebsworth (2011)
believe “it is not surprising that in light of the limitations of elementary and secondary settings, many students arrive at college with weak English skills, as demonstrated by their scores on the English as a Second Language Achievement Test of the PR College Board” (99). Méndez concluded, “I believe it is a relationship that students and the ones who teach the language have with the language.” This negative relationship minimizes the chance for student success in achieving English-language proficiency.

According to Sylvia M. Casillas-Olivieri, writing center director at the Universidad del Turabo, students who study in private schools, which are more affordable than private schools in the States, are often better prepared in English than students who study in public schools. The private schools take different approaches to teaching their curricula. Some teach some subjects in English and others in Spanish, while other private schools make English the primary language of instruction in all subjects except Spanish and religion (in the case of parochial schools). In addition, private-school English teachers may have a better command of the English language. Some students who attended public schools report that their English courses were taught entirely in Spanish due to the teacher’s deficient knowledge of English. As a result, parents who want their children to have a better opportunity to learn English, and can afford it, send their children to a private school.

In Puerto Rico, English is presented to the population as a second rather than a foreign language. According to Méndez, therein lies a major part of the problem. Since English is not needed to survive, she believes the population resists it. She said, “Here, they tell us that English is our second language, but that’s not true. That’s not true. I survive in my country by using only Spanish, so the second language is not true. To be a second language, that would mean that in certain areas of the country or certain administrative offices have to be in English, but that’s not true. With one language, you can survive. So that’s a lie.” In this volume, Michelle Cox lists the many terms used to describe speakers who use a language in addition to English. She explains, “[
ESL
] is the term with the longest history on this list. Because of this longevity, it is the term that is the most recognizable but that also comes with the most baggage” (58). The students Méndez describes see inconsistencies with how the language is presented in school and what they see as the reality of their day-to-day needs. Méndez said, “Our radio, newspaper, TV, go around and mingle with the people, and see what language they are using. In this world in Puerto Rico, you don’t need it. Don’t lie. [English] is not important.”

Though the reality may be that English is not important for day-to-day survival in Puerto Rico, Méndez is in favor of learning additional languages, English very much included. “It’s good for you to have [English] because when you know a different language, your culture is expanded,” she explained. “Your way to look at humans is different. The way you relate to humans is different, but the way they teach,” she insisted, “stop lying about it being our second language.”