“No Comprendo” (“I Don’t Understand”) is a newspaper article by Barbara Mujica, a professor of Spanish at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. In this article, which was published in the New York Times, Mujica argues against bilingual education (teaching students in their native language as well as in English). No Comprendo Last spring, my niece phoned me in tears. She was graduating from high school and had to make a decision. An outstanding soccer player, she was offered athletic scholarships by several colleges. So why was she crying? My niece came to the United States from South America as a child. Although she had received good grades in her schools in Miami, she spoke English with a heavy accent, and her comprehension and writing …show more content…
“It’s the whole environment,” she replied. “All kinds of services are available in Spanish or Spanglish. Sports and after-school activities are conducted in Spanglish. That’s what the kids hear on the radio and in the street.” Until recently, immigrants made learning English a priority. But even when they didn’t learn English themselves, their children grew up speaking it. Thousands of first-generation Americans still strive to learn English, but others face reduced educational and career opportunities because they have not mastered this basic skill they need to get ahead. According to the 1990 census, 40 percent of the Hispanics born in the United States do not graduate from high school, and the Department of Education says that a lack of proficiency in English is an important factor in the drop-out rate. People and agencies that favor providing services only in foreign languages want to help people who do not speak English, but they may be doing these people a disservice by condemning them to a linguistic ghetto from which they cannot easily escape. And my niece? She turned down all of the scholarship opportunities, deciding instead to attend a small college in Miami, where she will never have to put her English to the