LANGUAGE BARRIER : Immigrants Overwhelm English Classes on Way to Citizenship; Shortage Is Forecast in County

“He is hungry,” recited Guadalupe Sanchez in unison with 65 other students, staring hard at the strange words on the chalkboard in a Santa Ana classroom. “They always work on Saturdays. John and Sue are eating dinner now.”

As never before, immigrants in Orange County are turning their attention to the vagaries of the English language. Subject-verb agreement, the placement of time elements and the correct pronunciation of the letters “b” and “v,” which are almost identical in Spanish, have suddenly become acceptable topics of conversation at dinner tables where foreign languages predominate.

The surge in scholarship arose because of the beginning earlier this month of the unprecedented illegal alien amnesty program’s second phase. According to the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, illegal aliens who became temporary legal residents in the first phase of the program must now prove some knowledge of English, civics and U.S. history in order to receive permanent resident status and move on along the path to citizenship.

Depending on when they first applied to become legal residents, immigrants have from now until November, 1990, to present evidence of their newly acquired knowledge of English. They must either complete 40 hours of a course in basic English, civics and history, or pass a 15-question test administered by the Immigration and Naturalization Service.

Classes Booked Solid

But, despite the relatively long time frame, English classes in all parts of the county are booked solid and waiting lists are growing. Immigrants are anxious to fulfill the program’s requirements early, unlike the first phase of amnesty when many waited until the last minute.

“Who knows what’s going to happen later on?” said Sanchez, who attends a twice-weekly class at the Neighborhood Service Center in Santa Ana with her husband and parents, all of them amnesty applicants originally from Mexico. “There might be some emergency. It’s preferable to come now if you can.”

And while educators are thrilled about the windfall of thousands of new students, they and the INS are also concerned about their ability to meet the demand. Many schools and community groups blame the current difficulties in part on the state Department of Education’s tardiness in distributing $82 million in federal funds that are available this year for instructing amnesty applicants.

About 130,000 people filed applications for amnesty at three INS offices in Orange County during the first phase of the program. Some of those people live outside the county, and others will be exempt from the education requirement of the second phase because they either are under 16 or over 65 years of age, or they have fulfilled the requirement in other ways.

Still, the INS estimates that there will be a shortage of almost 50,000 classroom seats in Orange County during the next 2 years. Los Angeles County, which has far more applicants than Orange County, has an estimated shortage of fewer than 10,000 seats.

School administrators and immigrant service providers speculate that the reason for the dramatic shortage in Orange County may be the number of school districts here and, when compared to Los Angeles, the relatively recent awareness of the needs of the immigrant community.

“I’m very concerned about Orange County,” said Dona L. Coultice, associate regional director for the legalization program. “I’m not aware of a unified effort there.”

Audrey Yamagata-Noji, an administrator at Saddleback College, said that English-as-a-second-language classes “are still seen as remedial” in Orange County. “I just don’t think in this county we’ve recognized the need for ESL, while L.A. has all along continued to put funds in the program and advertised their classes.”

The majority of English classes, which are provided free in the public schools, will be offered by community colleges and school district adult education programs. Nonprofit groups, such as Hermandad Mexicana Nacional and the Neighborhood Service Center, private schools and employer-based programs will help take up the slack.

Any group, public or private, that receives the federal money cannot charge students for the classes.

John S. Nixon, assistant dean at Rancho Santiago College, one of the largest providers of English classes in the county, said the crunch could be mitigated if students weren’t so anxious about enrolling in classes now.

“I don’t want to downplay the capacity problem,” Nixon said. “But it’s one of concentrated demand. If we could spread it out over 2 1/2 years, we wouldn’t have that problem.”

About 5,000 of the college’s 13,000 spaces in ESL classes are now occupied by naturalization applicants, Nixon said. “The percentage is getting higher all the time,” he said.

At the neighborhood Service Center, which was set up to serve the impoverished Asian and Latino populations in the Minnie Street area, more than 300 students have enrolled in English classes and there is a waiting list of 400.

The shortage and the time limit on the program present educators with a difficult dilemma: Do they encourage students to stay in the education system after the students have completed the 40 hours--a time frame in which they say they can teach immigrants pitifully little--or do they try to turn over the available seats as many times as possible to reach the maximum number of students?

“Things are great in some ways--we’re serving all these new people,” said Mary Ann Salamida, director of the center. “But do we put a cap on the hours a student can take because of the number of students? Some want to leave as soon as they get their 40 hours in. Others, once they get a taste of education, they just want more. What should we do? Tell them they can’t come?”

The students, too, recognize the problem. Roberto Onofre, a 31-year-old cook at Coco’s restaurant in Santa Ana, has been enrolled in the Neighborhood Service Center’s class since August. He already has more than 40 hours, he said, but he continues to come twice a week.

“It would be good to give someone else my space,” Onofre said. “But this is for the future. I think I’ll keep coming.”

The INS is urging students with some English knowledge to take a 15-question proficiency test and skip the classes altogether. The test “is not a giveaway,” but it is not so difficult that it would be a significant barrier to permanent residency either, Coultice said. Sample test questions ask students to identify “the first U.S. president” and “the colors in the American flag.”

The agency is considering devising a screening test that applicants could take to help them decide if they need further instruction, said Harold Ezell, INS western regional commissioner.

“We have no control over the most important part of Phase 2--getting the schooling behind the applicant,” Ezell said. “We’re looking for innovative ways to solve the problem. . . . We’re encouraging educators to tell students that if they reach a certain level, they should go straight to the proficiency exam.”

Some educators believe they would be doing a disservice to their students if they did that, though.

“The INS is not an educational institution,” said William Ybarra, student services coordinator for the Orange County Department of Education and chairman of the education committee of the Orange County Coalition for Immigrant Rights. “We in education feel we’re sophisticated and should do certain . . . things. Many educators feel that teaching immigrants about voting, income tax and other life skills won’t be achieved in a short period of time.”

Ybarra and other educators are also critical of the INS for not having all components of the program’s second phase in place yet. The 40-hour requirement was only recently changed from 30 hours--meaning that some students who took courses over the summer must now go back and complete another 10 hours--and even that requirement is part of a set of interim, rather than final, regulations. And certificates testifying to an immigrant having completed the course are not yet available from the agency.

“A lot of this should have been put to bed a long time ago,” Ybarra said. “Here it is, Phase 2 started Nov. 7, and we’re still waiting for the regulations. . . . It puts some pressure on educators.”

What has caused even more confusion and anxiety, however, is the state Department of Education’s handling of millions of dollars of federal funds that were allocated to help local entities meet the increased cost of providing services to newly legalized immigrants.

Amnesty applicants have been enrolling in English classes for several months now but only recently has any money at all been doled out by the state.

Some colleges have not yet received any money, and are leery of continuing to expand their ESL programs based on expectations of receiving funds somewhere down the road.

“We have seen no money for either the last, or for this, fiscal year,” said Terry Burgess, vice president of instruction at Irvine Valley College. “We’re very concerned about what kind of funding we’ll receive, if any. The expenses we’ll continue to incur will be paid, but at the cost of other programs.”

Richard L. Stiles, an administrator for the state Department of Education’s immigration unit, said his team has been understaffed and, just like the schools offering expanded or first-time ESL programs, has had difficulty implementing a massive new project. But he said the unit is now functioning smoothly and claims for funds are being processed.

“We’re doing very well now, as well as any agency in the state,” Stiles said. (Federal funds are available for other services besides education). “We don’t have any claims laying around. If they haven’t received money or they’re not in the pipeline, then they haven’t requested the money.”

Because Irvine Valley College has not exceeded its student limit, it receives regular daily attendance money from the state for all of its ESL students, including those who are using the courses to meet the Phase 2 requirements. It is eligible to receive money only for costs above and beyond classroom instruction, such as counselors and outreach services, Stiles said. Those funds will be made available later in the year.

Coultice, of the INS, said that despite all the problems, no applicants for permanent resident status will be turned away just because they weren’t able to find space in an English class. “We wouldn’t allow it to happen,” she said. “And if we were dumb enough to allow it to happen, the courts wouldn’t allow it.”