Businesses encourage employees to learn Spanish
More employers, and many of their English-speaking workers, are showing an interest in learning Spanish customized to specific jobs, to help them communicate with Hispanic customers, suppliers or assistants.
The trend isn't without controversy, as English-only proponents say it slows the assimilation of immigrants from Mexico and elsewhere. But others say teaching at least rudimentary workplace-Spanish skills is a necessity in some industries and reflects the reality that many immigrants, including some of those here legally, don't have a good grasp of English.
Roughly 32 million people age 5 or older speak Spanish at home, and nearly half of these people say they don't speak English very well, according to Census Bureau figures.
"Let's face it: there are obvious demographic changes happening," said Bonnie Wheeler-Nelson, a retired real estate broker in Surprise, Ariz., who owns rental properties and sits on the board of a homeowners association. "It's wise to know what's going on."
Wheeler-Nelson and a dozen other Arizonans participated in a recent one-day "survival Spanish" session geared to apartment managers and others in real estate. Those who attended said an improved grasp of the language would help them do their jobs better.
"I've had situations where workers sprayed the wrong texture on the ceiling or where they didn't have the right type of safety equipment on," said Wesley Lawrence, a project coordinator for a condominium conversion in Chandler, Ariz.
Christina Quarnstrom, manager of a west Phoenix apartment building, said better language skills would help her communicate with some of her tenants.
"Sometimes (a tenant) will hunt down a bilingual maintenance guy or bring in little kids to translate, but often they'll say it wrong," she said.
Community colleges have taken a lead in teaching Spanish tailored to the workplace. For example, Phoenix College offers classes for workers in more than a dozen fields, including nursing, banking, firefighting and corrections. The college has added more classes in recent years and has shifted the scope toward oral communication, faster results and more specific applications.
"We used to have a general customer-service course, but now we offer Spanish for auto-insurance representatives, tax preparers and apartment managers," said Anna Lopez, director of the school's custom training and education program.
Bashas' Supermarkets, State Farm Insurance and BlueCross BlueShield are among the mix of Arizona employers that have sent students into the program, which is built around a minimum of 16 classroom hours over six weeks.
Myelita Melton, head of SpeakEasy Communications, traveled to Phoenix from North Carolina to teach the survival Spanish course to the apartment-industry employees.
"There's every reason for someone involved in business to acquire some Spanish survival skills, and learning it doesn't mean you're helping Spanish overtake English," she told her students. "Rather, it's an opportunity to reach out and help people, to treat your Hispanic residents with dignity and respect."
In her classes, Melton also covers cultural issues that can trigger communication breakdowns. One example is the Hispanic custom of using four personal names - first, middle and last names from both the mother and father. Another example is the tendency to write dates differently from Americans, proceeding in a day/month/year order, not month/day/year.
"Writing someone's birthday as 5/7 isn't the same as writing it 7/5," Melton said. "That's how you could order the wrong credit report on someone."
Melton acknowledges workplace-Spanish instruction is somewhat controversial, and she occasionally has students with uncooperative attitudes, especially when employers are paying for the instruction.
"But I also hear from students that what they learned helped save a life," she said. "Those stories inspire me to continue, no matter what."
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