Associated Press
Mexico quietly helps emigrants to US learn Spanish
By LAURA WIDES-MUNOZ – 3 hours ago
MIAMI (AP) — For more than a decade, as the immigration debate has swelled on both sides of the border, the Mexican government has been quietly providing money, materials and even teachers to American schools, colleges and nonprofit organizations.
The programs aren’t substitutes for U.S. curricula, but educators familiar with them say they provide a lifeline for adult students with little formal education by helping them become literate in Spanish — and by extension, English.
Yet many educators are wary of even talking about the programs, fearing they might stoke an anti-immigrant backlash.
The Mexican government, which spends more than $1 million annually on the programs, has many reasons to provide the aid to the immigrants and their children. The programs allow it to give back to the growing number of Mexicans living legally and illegally in the U.S. Behind oil, remittances from these individuals are the second-largest source of foreign income for the Mexican economy — almost $24 billion last year.
“We don’t want the Mexicans in the exterior to feel like milk cows being expressed for the resources they were sending back,” said Carlos Gonzalez Gutierrez, head of the Mexican government’s Institute for Mexicans Abroad, which oversees most of the programs.
Mexicans abroad need an education to represent the country well, he said.
“The image and prestige of Mexico is inextricably linked to the image and prestige of these communities in the U.S.,” Gonzalez said.
He also acknowledged that many of the adult participants are likely illegal immigrants, a group the U.S. government doesn’t want to allow to stay, let alone have to support… HERE [1]