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For many foreign families who have immigrated to Nebraska, there is a balancing act of adopting American standards while also preserving the language and culture of their homeland.
Laura Salem is the English Language Learning supervisor with Lincoln Public Schools. Outside of her office at LPS’s administration building are rows of cubicles - all filled with bilingual liaisons. There are over 119 different languages spoken by 2,600 students in this school district alone.
“We don’t, of course, have liaisons in all of those different languages, but we have liaisons in a lot of our top language groups,” Salem said.
According to the Nebraska Department of Education there’s been close to a 100 percent increase in the state’s ELL population since 2000. Last year, Nebraska schools reported just over 20,000 ELL students, ranging from Kindergarten through Grade 12. Larger districts like Omaha, Grand Island, and Lincoln Public schools have the majority of these students.
Lincoln Public Schools ELL supervisor Laura Salem (right) with Vietnamese bilingual liaison Nhung Nguyen (left). (Photo by Ben Bohall, NET News)
“There really isn’t a downtime… It’s nothing we can ever really predict," Salem said. "Everybody has to be really flexible. The teachers are really flexible. Last year, it seemed like there were several schools that would pretty consistently get one or two new students a week. They just add them in and start them where they’re at. We can’t just turn them away.”
But while Nebraska’s ELL programs in public schools continue to grow, so has something else. On a Saturday afternoon across town at the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, hundreds of students of Vietnamese descent fill the parish’s halls while waiting for their classes to start. They’re not here to learn English. They’re here to learn Vietnamese.
Truc Pham is the principal at Immaculate Heart. As he gives me a tour of each classroom full of students, he explains how for the past 20 years, Vietnamese parents have been sending their kids here as a means to preserve their language and culture. For three hours most Saturdays of the year, they attend these classes committed to Vietnamese culture and language studies. The majority of these students are second-generation immigrants, or born in the United States, and whose parents and grandparents migrated to the U.S., and ultimately, Nebraska. They range in age from 5 to 15.
“At home, they speak Vietnamese. And if the child doesn’t come here, they can’t speak Vietnamese. They don’t understand each other," said Father Thomas Nguyen, who oversees activities and programs at the parish. "Vietnamese culture is where they live with a big family in the same house. A lot of them have grandparents who live with them. And of course, they don’t speak very good English. So the kids must come to learn Vietnamese. And keeping the culture alive is one of our most important duties in America.”
And if you ask these students about the cultural traditions, they're tell you about learning everything from Vietnamese dishes to popular dances.
Instructors utilizing Vietnamese text books in class. (Photo by Ben Bohall, NET News)
Thien Chu is a graduate of the program and now works as a chemistry teacher for Omaha Public Schools. He spends his Saturdays volunteering here, a system the parish relies almost entirely on. He worries despite the parish’s best efforts, much of what the students learn here becomes endangered once they leave the classroom.
“It is kind of difficult because they only have about an hour each week to learn Vietnamese," Chu said. “Those who just come here to learn Vietnamese and don’t use it often at home, I’d say they’ll lose it. That’s kind of upsetting to me, but all we can do is our best.”
And as classes end for the day, Father Nguyen says that’s a sentiment he shares. Nationally, there has been a debate about the need for immigrants to learn English. These English-speaking Vietnamese students, though, are dedicating part of their weekends to making sure they don’t forget where they came from.
“We don’t want the kids losing their roots. So going back to the root is very important for us," Nguyen said. "That’s why we do everything we can to teach them the Vietnamese culture and language.”
*Editor's note: This story is part of our "Best of 2016" Signature Story report. The story originally aired and was published in April.