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

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

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