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Original URL:
http://www.arizonarepublic.com/arizona/articles/0930yaquiteachers30.html
Regulations trip up language program Assistants required to have schooling
By Carmen Duarte
Arizona Daily Star
Sept. 30, 2002 12:00 AM
TUCSON - Siiki means red. Tosai - white. Tewei - blue.
Juan Esquivias recited the colors in Yoeme, the native language of the Yaqui
tribe.
He was recalling words taught to him by teaching assistants Narciso Bule-Garcia
and Maria Cupis, who are tribal elders.
Juan, a fifth-grader at the Southwest Side Lawrence Intermediate School, and his
classmates in Victoria Hawk's class now depend on a computer instead of the
American Indian teachers to learn the Yaqui language, culture and customs.
Bule-Garcia and Cupis were the only language specialists at the school working
to
preserve Yoeme, a dying indigenous language. But the two Yaqui elders no longer
teach at Lawrence because a federal law requires them to obtain a high school
diploma or equivalent.
The school has 370 students, and 55 percent are Yaqui children.
"Yoeme is part of my culture," Juan said. "An elder knows more than a computer."
The federal law went into effect this fall for teaching assistants at schools
with
federally funded Title 1 programs. Title 1 provides additional money to schools
with
large numbers of low-income students.
Bule-Garcia, who has little formal education, begins studying for his GED test
in
September. He said the Yoeme program could suffer for years until the teaching
assistants are certified and back in classrooms.
The new law is designed to place the most qualified teaching assistants with the
neediest children, said Bob Wortman, director of school improvement and Title 1
programs for the Tucson Unified School District.
College requirements
Teaching assistants hired after Jan. 8, 2002, must have an associate's degree or
two years of college, or pass a proficiency test. Current employees have four
years
to meet the college requirement.
Like Bule-Garcia and Cupis, four other Yaqui teach ing assistants at two other
schools with large Yaqui student populations were affected this year.
"It is hard to find Yaqui-language instructors or tutors who are fully bilingual
who
can come to work at schools with these low wages. The pay starts at $7.23 an
hour," Wortman said.
Earning GED or diploma
Twenty-eight teaching assistants were removed from Title 1 schools and
temporarily reassigned, Wortman said. He said 80 assistants throughout the
district
are working on earning a GED or high school diploma.
Bule-Garcia, 52, is fluent in Yoeme. He began teaching Yaqui children their
native
tongue 11 years ago as a volunteer in a Head Start program on the Yaqui
reservation southwest of the city.
He is a native of the Rio Yaqui valley in Sonora, Mexico.
The Yaqui people fled Mexico because of persecution and came to Arizona in the
1870s.
Carina Dominguez said she studied two years under Bule-Garcia, who taught her
to read and write in Yoeme. She said no one in her family can speak Yoeme.
"I don't know much about my culture and I want to learn."
Juan said his former teacher also shared funny stories, which he tells his
grandmother, Norma Esquivias, a non-Yaqui who is raising Juan and two of his
siblings.
"I strongly support that these elders teach our children," she said. "Many of
our
elders did not have the opportunity to go to school. They had to work. It may be
difficult for them to pass requirements now," Esquivias said.
Karen Wynn, director of TUSD's Native American Studies department, said she is
asking the Arizona Department of Education's Office of Indian Education to
clarify
the new federal regulations in relation to another federal law, the Native
American
Languages Act of 1990.
Preservation of languages
"The federal government, under the act, supports tribes and local agencies to
assist
in the revitalization and preservation of Native American languages," Wynn said.
She said she hopes that under the act, Bule-Garcia and Cupis can return to the
classroom.
Wynn said she plans to discuss the issue with Tribal Images, a high school and
middle school leadership youth group, and suggests writing a resolution to bring
the
elders back to the classroom.
The resolution would be presented at the National Congress of American Indians
session in November in San Diego.
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