After Jane Delgado moved to the United States at age two, she heard the exclusionary words, "She's not from here," spoken about her frequently. In fact, people asked her so often where she was from that she began to reply, with a child's defiance, "I'm from earth." Although the reaction she typically received was "How cute!", Delgado was trying to make a serious point—a point she also made to her General Session audience: "We're all from one world."
We should "accept and rejoice" in our shared humanity, said Delgado, who today is president of the National Coalition of Hispanic and Human Services Organizations in Washington, D.C. "Our family extends beyond bloodlines."
During her address, Delgado sketched a profile of Hispanic people in the United States, debunking stereotypes in the process. Despite the media attention given to illegal immigration from Central and South America, about 90 percent of the growth in the U.S. Hispanic population is due to births and legal immigration, she said. (By the year 2010, one out of four Americans will be Hispanic or African American, she noted.)
Fifty-nine percent of Hispanic children live with their biological mother and father, Delgado said, and "we have a lot of extended, multigenerational households." Many Hispanic families earn just enough to keep above the poverty line, she said. "We're the working poor." As a result, Hispanic children typically don't get good health care. Despite talk about the "safety net," working poor parents are "completely neglected by many programs," she said.
Education in the United States is failing to reach many Hispanic children, large numbers of whom drop out of school, Delgado said. "The situation for our kids is dismal."
Despite the controversy over language issues, all Spanish-speaking parents in the United States want their children to learn to speak English, Delgado said. "That's the bottom line." But, she added, the question remains: "How do you get there?" It's hard to learn a second language past the age of 12, she pointed out.
"Please have more English-as-a-Second-Language classes," Delgado urged, for adults as well as children. These classes tend to be overbooked, and "families need them."