mostly nonfiction and bakersfield news | October 19th, 2009
Commentary: Spanish Language Under Attack As CSUB Faculty Take Stand Against Possible Phaseout Of Modern Language, Chicano Studies Programs
One of Bakersfield’s economic and intellectual foundations has come under attack in Bakersfield: the Spanish language.
This time at an institution of higher learning where axing a Spanish program would make CSU Bakersfield the only CSU campus without a Spanish language program, and that as a campus embedded within a Hispanic community.
Don’t think there’s an economy for Spanish language in Bakersfield? Try bilingual teachers scattered throughout the southern Central Valley. How about flip through your FM dial while driving along Highway 99 and you’ll hear some Spanish radio. Try to keep up with the fast-talking dialects. Listen to the songs, the soccer matches, even the fiery sermons shouted in Spanish. It doesn’t end there.
Go to any Bakersfield ATM and you’ll be asked whether or not you want the information displayed in English or Spanish. There are Spanish grocery stores and meat-filled carniceria’s with advertisements in Spanish, Mexican bakeries with foods listed in Spanish, two huge Latino marketplaces where Spanish flows like water, farm worker housing facilities — lots of Spanish in the fields you know — and many Mexican and Central American restaurants in the south valley area where you can hear Spanish spoken freely.
IS SPANISH GOOD FOR THE ECONOMY?
Don’t forget to turn on your television and watch some Azteca TV or Telemundo. The novellas are addicting. Not just that, but Azteca42 is constantly getting local Spanish-only events sponsored as part of a way to generate advertising dollars. That’s big money invested by McGraw-Hill’s broadcasting division, which owns both ABC23 and Azteca42. Yes, English-speaking publishing invested in the Spanish language.
There’s simply big business in the economy of the Spanish language. It banks on communication through advertisers messages that can reach the Spanish-speaking masses. Take a look at a January 21, 2008 article in Hispanic Market Weekly. It’s all about “La Caliente,” the new format at KEBT-FM 96.9, a station that had been at the bottom of radio market rankings in Kern County. That is, until KEBT moved from the Beat to “La Caliente,” offering Mexican favorites such as K-Paz de la Sierra, Los Huracanes del Norte and Vicente Fernández.
During the mornings, the station became an affiliate for the Los Angeles-based “Piolín por la Mañana” radio program. According to the Hispanic Market Weekly, that affiliation met with instant success, pushing KEBT into becoming the top-rated local Mexican station, beating out Lotus’ KIWI-FM and KCHJ-AM, Radio Campesina’s KMYX-FM and Luna’s KMQA-FM.
CSUB BECOMES THE FRONT LINES FOR ATTACK ON SPANISH LANGUAGE?
In some respects, the world seemed to have changed for the better at CSUB. I wandered by a new Peet’s Coffee and Togos sandwich shop on the evening of Oct. 15. And new buildings sprouting up like mushrooms. Even the baseball team is headed toward its second full season.
As I made my way to the Business Development Building, windows glowed in the Science III building (not very creative for a name I admit). But then, changes and fancy new buildings can hide undercurrents, dark tones, confrontational realities, like those marking the reason I had arrived: fears that the Modern Languages and Literature, including Latino studies, were soon to begin a phase-out.
I want to say that the Obama Administration simply being in office seems to have brought the bubbles of racism floating to the surface of the nation’s already hot blood flow. And that could be the case here as the Spanish language in the southern Central Valley could be taken incrementally. That’s reverse progress for Chicano culture.
Raised as a white in a dual ethnic Mexican-American and white household I always appear out of place among Latinos. I felt a little that way inside room 153. I’m used to it. I imagined my father, a Mexican-American truck driver with his dark, chocolatey skin. He in his cowboy hat commanding respect. It was almost like he was in the room saying, “You’re white. Why are you here?” As usual, I ignored his ghost. Blame it on my family, but I’m all for multiculturalism. I refuse the idea of complete assimilation and denying one’s heritage.
“I’m ready to go,” said Jose Reyna, Chair of Modern Languages and Literature at CSUB. He stood impatiently in his shiny brown boots, jeans and brown blazer. His quiet demeanor was filled with determination. “It isn’t good news,” he added. His colleagues implored him to wait ten more minutes.
I looked around the room. Dr. Anthony Nuño, CSUB alumni, Dr. Jess Nieto, Reyna’s CSUB colleagues like the outspoken Dr. Edna Molina-Jackson, media representatives, a French language professor, students and others were in attendance.
In a humorous tone, Reyna began to speak. He said the night’s gathering was CSUB’s way of celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month. There were more than a few chuckles.
Reyna admitted the statewide crisis in education. He said CSU officials were hustling all summer to see what they might cut. But then Reyna said that he was notified the week before that the dean was going to propose killing much of the Modern Languages and Literature program at CSUB, including BAs and MAs in Spanish, both of which affects other programs such as the Chicano Studies minor and concentration, and French courses. He said the dean would submit his proposal to Provost Soraya Coley, then the provost would submit her recommendations to CSUB President Horace Mitchell.
“How can you call yourself a university without a Spanish language program?” Reyna said. He defended such liberal arts programs as being rooted in 5th Century antiquity and modern literary studies. “They’re going to get rid of one of the pillars of a university of arts education,” he said. “We would be the only one in the whole system [CSU] without a language program.”
Comparatively, Reyna admitted to not having as many majors in other departments. But he had his secretary analyze a comparison system-wide that included schools with similar programs that don’t serve Hispanic communities as CSUB’s language program does.
Reyna said the program’s numbers would be nearing 90 Spanish majors in the Fall. He said the number of majors during the same time in 2008 at CSUB included 57 full-time students. Comparatively, at other CSU schools, Reyna cited: Channel Islands had 20 full-time students; Chico, 51; Fresno, 89; East Bay, 35; Humboldt, 44; and SLO, 47. “If we look at figures for foreign languages and we don’t compare with psychology, or English, then we’re doing pretty good,” he said.
He claimed administrators told him the university can’t afford the faculty. But he said administrators are “playing fast with the facts. And we’ve been talking about transparency here at the university. That’s not transparency. It’s like Mark Twain said: ‘There’s three kinds of lies. Lies, damn lies and statistics. And that’s what we’re seeing here.’”
Associate Edna Molina-Jackson spoke up from the audience at one point. She said the largest plurality of students at CSUB is Latino. She said the CSUB administration has grown since 2000 by 45 percent, and that if officials are worried about inflated salaries they should look at their top-heavy administration that she claims collectively gets paid more than $7 million annually (CFA data (since 2000) that includes all top, middle and mid-range administrative positions).
“If Latinos left this university, it would have to close,” Molina-Jackson said, calling for letters to be sent to CSUB President Horace Mitchell about the debacle.
Reyna called the proposed axing a setup and expressed his concerns over future students not being served by the institution’s own multicultural code of ethics and mission statement that includes terms like “diversity,” and “excellence” as well as the mission of university: regional, serve San Joaquin Valley, and comprehensive with a full range of traditional programs. “It’s going to affect a lot of students [ending program in 3-4 years],” he added. Education and language under attack? “We all appear to be losing these battles now,” Reyna said.
Holding up pie charts, Reyna showed that students would be disenfranchised. More than 80 percent on some charts were Latino students. “Just stick your head in any of the classrooms to see the school is multicultural,” he said. He talked about professors from Puerto Rico, Spain and more … as well as students. “We’re affecting students from all over the place … If this isn’t meeting that goal [multiculturalism on campus] I don’t know what is.”
During the meeting a petition was passed around, and faculty members proposed that letters be written to the CSUB President to keep the Modern Languages and Literature program.
“Welcome to the struggle,” one woman said who claimed to have fought similar battles to further Chicano studies at Fresno State.
Feel free to send your comments on the matter to CSUB President Horace Mitchell: hmitchell@csub.edu
Petition circulated on CSU Bakersfield campus in an attempt to block CSUB officials from axing the Modern Languages and Literature programs at the university.
Students wait before meeting
Dept. Chair Jose Reyna discusses student demographics at CSUB
Matt Munoz speaks with Dr. Anthony Nuño, one of several CSUB faculty attempting to block CSUB officials from axing the Modern Languages and Literature programs at the university.
Students sign petitions
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13 Responses for “Commentary: Spanish Language Under Attack As CSUB Faculty Take Stand Against Possible Phaseout Of Modern Language, Chicano Studies Programs”
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Great story Nick. It's times like these, that I understand why Fresno makes fun of us. Even our colleges aren't safe from really, bad, bad, bad decision making! Mi cabeza duele…Peace, Matt (CSUB alumni – 2003)
Take a peoples’ language away and what you have left is cultural genocide.
Taking out language studies ultimately affects employability for students upon graduation. If there is supporting evidence that one person is fluent in two or more languages, they have an edge to employment as opposed to an individual which has only one language mastered.
How can CSUB justify this? It appears that there are a lot of things which this staff isn't addressing… =[
Wonderful Article! This is the Voice of Many of Us!
The proposed actions of CSUB are only the first academic salvo in a growing anti-Hispanic frenzy gripping the country.
I would rather see Spanish cut than education (new teachers), nursing (new care givers), or business (job creation). I know it's a hot button social issue, and very un PC, but reality is usually harsh.
thank you for covering this, many of us wanted to be there but couldn't, please continue to watch this story closely! great work!
Thank you for this excellent article. As a hispanic, I feel betrayed by this terrible decision. Wake up President Mitchell, closing the Modern Language Department is going to make CSUB the worst university. Look for stadistics and check the percentages of Latinos in Bakersfield and think twice before you make this bad decision.
Wow… even slighly dissenting comments are removed. Too bad, I kinda liked your quasi- news site. I guess only the left-wing kool-aid drinkers may opine.
No, just haven't been moderating comments. Been busy with other projects. Sign up for intense debate. Once I approve one comment all the rest automatically pop up.
By the way, not all Latinos are left wing.
While I am not in favor of removing the Spanish language courses, I am in favor of removing ALL (Chicano,Black Asian, American Indian, Polish, etc.) ethnic studies courses. These courses do little or nothing to prepare the student for gainful employment. I feel the CSU and UofC systems should be geared to provide higher education in areas that will benefit the tax payers of this state. The low tuition should be looked at as a loan to the students to be paid back to the state through normal income taxes because of the greater earnings the education provides. If a student wishes to partake in ethnic studies, that is fine, just do it fair market costs, like $700 per unit (or so) like most private colleges charge.
It's impossible to eradicate ethnic studies from college courses. That would be Hitleresque for sure. Yikes.