Another reason middle class Latinos want there children out of the public schools is the harassment they undergo for speaking educated Spanish. An acquaintance of mine is a very highly paid bilingual secretary in international business who grew up and was educated in Mexico City.
Her daughter was constantly ridiculed for how she spoke Spanish; the entire family speaks an educated North American Spanish dialect. Her mother and I have both devoted some effort to explaining to her that her Spanish is educated, grammatical, with an expansive vocabulary, while the Spanish spoken at her school is generally uneducated dialect. She has actually had her hair pulled and been pounded for "talking Spanish like a Gringo." Of course, as her mother told her, this only meant that her tormentors were ungrammatical in both Spanish and English.
I no longer hang out at the horse barn where she an I used to talk while my friend and her husband rode their respective equines; and I hope she was able to get her into the private school she had in mind the last few times I spoke with her.
Her daughter was constantly ridiculed for how she spoke Spanish; the entire family speaks an educated North American Spanish dialect. Her mother and I have both devoted some effort to explaining to her that her Spanish is educated, grammatical, with an expansive vocabulary, while the Spanish spoken at her school is generally uneducated dialect. She has actually had her hair pulled and been pounded for "talking Spanish like a Gringo." Of course, as her mother told her, this only meant that her tormentors were ungrammatical in both Spanish and English.
I no longer hang out at the horse barn where she an I used to talk while my friend and her husband rode their respective equines; and I hope she was able to get her into the private school she had in mind the last few times I spoke with her.