New Haven Independent

The floor of the board room at the Board of Education’s Gateway building was half-filled with black chairs and partially bordered by a long, brightly-colored banner. Bulleting the “Five Bold Goals” of the New Haven Public School System, the sheet proudly declared that “By 2008, the achievement gap will be no more than 5% for defined student subgroups.”

Monday night’s event was intended to honor eight successful representatives of one of those subgroups: immigrant students who speak English as a second language and won scholarships to the 2005 Yale English Language Summer Institute. This year’s participants were Yodsapath Anantaviriyakul of Thailand, Kely Coronado of Peru, Khader Fadiga of the Ivory Coast, Massita Fadiga of the Ivory Coast, Claudia Maldonado of Chile, Lucia Morel of the Dominican Republic, Bertozzi Mposo of Congo, and Alexander Pagan of Puerto Rico.

Every year at least seven or eight students from New Haven enroll in the institute, joining approximately 200 of their peers from around the world for six weeks of comprehensive study. The New Haven students, said program director Jan Hortas, provide invaluable insight to the foreign students about both life in New Haven and the experience of moving to an American city.

The students themselves seemed pleased with their recognition, if somewhat overwhelmed by the number of cameras flashing to document their achievement. After the awarding of individual certificates the ceremony concluded with a kind of receiving line as each student shook hands with each member of the Board of Education. “You know a lot of English now?” one Board member asked several students. Receiving apparently monosyllabic answers, he shook his head. “You all are just saying yes — I want you to talk!”

While they may not have wanted to do it in the spotlight, the teens seemed happy to speak in English. Kely Coronado, a Peruvian teenager who has lived in the States for just over a year, happily recalled the Institute’s Friday field trips, including one to the United Nations building in New York City. Her classmates, she said, were from everywhere: Thailand, China, the Philippines, Colombia. She hopes to keep in touch with them despite the distance. As for her own plans, the Wilbur Cross senior said she will enroll in college next year and ultimately pursue her love of chemistry by studying pharmacy.

This year’s Institute participants represent four continents, seven countries, and three New Haven high schools. All are recipients of $20,000 worth of program scholarships Yale provides to New Haven students to cover the cost of books, program tuition, and associated expenses. During the Institute students have full access to all of Yale’s facilities, including all libraries and the gymnasium.

Jose Ortiz is the supervisor of bilingual education and English as a Second Language programs in New Haven public schools, as well as an enthusiastic spokesperson for the Summer Institute. He spoke of the students’ work with reverence, pointing out that they devote their summers to a setting characterized by rigorous study and heavily academic language. One student, he commented, used to believe that he was breaking a rule by stepping onto Yale’s campus. “They thought it was a private institution, that they could not walk through campus. Now they are walking through campus.”

While he could not say for certain whether the students continue to have access to Yale’s resources after graduation from the program, Ortiz stressed that such access is something he will seek in the future. He sees continuous community partnerships as the cornerstone of bilingual education.

“We are lucky enough to have the greatest diversity in this city,” he commented during the ceremony, turning the microphone sideways so that he could address both the audience and the board. “It’s not only the colors but the languages that are spoken.”

At the end of the night Ortiz stopped two of the students and their parents in the hallway, offering his congratulations in fluid Spanish. “Tienen mucho, mucho, mucho futuro,” he says to the young women in front of him. His emphasis would be lost in translation.