CHARLOTTE, N.C. — A woman who came to Charlotte from Ecuador in the late 1990s is using her experience to make a difference for others looking to learn English as a second language.
Alexandra Noemi Arroyo Vega de Pacheco benefited greatly from an English as a Second Language (ESL) course when she arrived in the U.S. with her husband in 1999. To say it was difficult would be an understatement.
"Coming to live in America is another thing," she said. "It was very challenging, very scary. Not knowing the language was a huge barrier."
For starters, they weren't used to the weather.
"That first weekend, we came to Calvary looking for coats," Arroyo de Pacheco explained. "It was very cold."
The couple has made Calvary their church home since receiving those winter coats. The church was more than just a place to worship. It helped them assimilate to American society. They began taking English classes in 2000. Once the couple had what they felt was a good enough understanding of English, they left and found work.
"We decided that we knew enough to keep working," Arroyo de Pacheco said. "And we needed to make money, so we left."
After some encouragement from her son, Arroyo de Pacheco is back in those classes honing her English skills. And she's not alone. Calvary actually has 25 different nationalities represented in their ESL classes.
"Our morning services are translated into Russian, Chinese and Spanish," Sibu Rajappan, Calvary's pastor of outreach and internationals, said. "We provide from intro-level classes to advanced classes."
Rajappan said the church's leadership understands moving to the U.S., especially when you don't know the language, can be daunting. Arroyo de Pacheco said she and her husband opted to keep learning because a better understanding of English could lead to better jobs and cited a stigma surrounding non-English speakers as being thought of as ignorant or unintelligent.
"Many Americans think that because we don't speak properly we are ignorant," she said. "And most people that came to the United States are professionals that leave the country. They are very well educated, but they don't speak the language. And because we don't speak the language properly, and because we look Hispanic ... before they didn't want to give us a job, give us opportunities. Now it's different because there are more Hispanics in the community."
This is an issue Rajappan sees with other ESL students, too. That's why the church designed these classes to help students express themselves with confidence.
"There are many that I know of who have degrees in their homeland but they don't have the confidence to speak English and to use their education and their degrees in the United States," Rajappan said. "Our classes help them to gain that confidence to use the God-given gifts. And then use those gifts in the workplace."
Arroyo de Pacheco says she's taken what she learned in class to give back to her community and even received Gov. Roy Cooper's award for volunteer service.
"I was able to show our community that even though we're Spanish, even though I don't speak the language that you are, we can do it," she said. "We can volunteer, we can go to schools and give our time, give our hours and show our children, the teachers, that we are interested in them. We need to be involved in the community. We need to be more involved in the education."
She said she's proud of her heritage and feels it's important to keep that family-oriented culture in society.
"It's very important to feel the love of your family, to feel the love of your people and to remember your roots," she explained. "We need to remember where we came from — no matter what, no matter how — we need to be proud of that."
Rajappan said Calvary's ESL classes are at full capacity now but the next registration date will be in December. Anyone interested can call Vince Eaton at 704-341-5322 or Sibu Rajappan at 704-341-5336.
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