Bilingual education will no longer be a vehicle for student instruction. I am a strong supporter of bilingual education, I am bilingual myself, as I am sure some of you are as well. There is a misconception that bilingual education supporters do not appreciate the value of English here in America. This is utter nonsense. Bilingual education comes into play when teaching other equally valuable academic skills, such as math, science, and civics.
Bilingual education provides for the overall academic experience in our American schools.
As a bilingual parent and educator, I believe we will be doing our children a disservice should bilingual education end in our schools. English only legislation and anti-bilingual education measures have less to do with understanding how we learn languages and more to do with many of our fellow Americans' inability to deal with the vibrance of other cultures and languages in their midst. I have outlined only a few issues which are of interest to our community. However, I would like to emphasize that we can all get actively involved in these issues. There are numerous ways with which we can support issues beneficial to the Asian Pacific American communities in our everyday lives, like speaking up at a PTA meeting or expressing your concerns at neighborhood a gathering.