No Habla Espanol

Santa Barbara, the soap-opera resort by the sea, is no cauldron of ethnic conflict. Founded by Spanish friars in the 18th century, it has evolved into a complacent retirement community where Latinos, a third of the population, work mostly in low-wage jobs, waiting tables and tending lawns. They rarely challenge the Anglo establishment. But last week, as the school board was preparing to scrap the city's 25-year-old bilingual-education program, 400 Latino families called a three-day strike, boycotting schools and setting up an alternative academy in a community center. At a boisterous public hearing, Rogelio Trujillo, 55, a burly Mexican-born gardener, argued for instruction in Spanish as a matter of ancestral right in a state once ruled by Mexico and Spain: "We didn't come from France, England or Russia. We were here already!"

The crowd of 800 in the scruffy junior high school auditorium overwhelmingly agreed with him and made itself heard by waving banners, stomping feet and chanting slogans in Spanish. But school-board members, frustrated by Latinos' poor academic performance, said it was time to try something different. They voted unanimously to replace bilingual education with a program of English immersion for immigrants.

Four California school districts had already asked the state to waive its requirement that a student be taught core subjects in his native language while he is learning English. But no request had sparked a protest as vitriolic as the one in Santa Barbara. The city's move last week served as an early warning for the fate of bilingual teaching throughout the state--and for the rise of a potent political issue nationwide.

In opinion surveys, California voters favor, 2 to 1, an initiative on the June ballot that would dismantle bilingual classes and replace them with a year of intensive English before immigrants are absorbed into the mainstream. The measure, called English for Children, is sponsored by Ron Unz, a wealthy Silicon Valley entrepreneur and former G.O.P. candidate for Governor.

Fully half of the nation's 2.8 million non-English-speaking students in elementary and secondary schools live in California, but bilingual education has also spawned controversy in such states as New York, Michigan and Colorado. And it is a cause celebre among conservatives in Washington. "When we allow children to stay trapped in bilingual programs where they do not learn English, we are destroying their economic future," House Speaker Newt Gingrich declared this month. He and other Republicans call for a return to the traditional expectation that immigrants will quickly learn English as the price of admission to America.

Proponents of the English for Children initiative were buoyed by a recent Field poll showing that 66% of Latino voters back the measure. Among the supporters is Jaime Escalante, the East Los Angeles math teacher celebrated in the film Stand and Deliver. He has signed on as honorary chairman of the campaign.