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28373: Hermantin( News)'No' to Creole immersion (letter to Editor) (fwd)






From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Miami Herald


Posted Wednesday April 26, 2006



'No' to Creole immersion

Re the April 16 article True immersion: School looks to offer Creole: Just when one thinks that the Miami-Dade Public Schools District has started to ascend from the abyss in which it wallowed for years, we learn of the latest flirtation with political correctness, introducing Creole as another immersion language in one or more Miami public schools where Haitian descendants are in the majority.

Let's put aside for a moment the now quaint idea of American immigrants becoming immersed in English. We know well enough that here in Miami that idea was long ago dismissed. It is already tough enough for Haitians immigrants to succeed in Miami. But to now aid their assimilation in a language spoken only by other Haitians -- and not even the historically official Haitian language of French -- is lunacy.

Imagine if New York City schools some 125 years ago had suggested immersing its then-arriving Eastern European and Russian immigrants in Yiddish. Its only benefit would have been to increase the future box-office receipts for Yentl.

LANG BAUMGARTEN, Coconut Grove