Home > Departments > News: Pasadena Dual Immersion, Mixtec Stumps Police

Photo by Jordon Cooper used under Creative Commons license

News: Pasadena Dual Immersion, Mixtec Stumps Police

The Pasadena Unified School District will introduce elementary dual-language immersion in Spanish and Mandarin. A Mexican drug clan's use of its native Oaxacan language slowed down LAPD investigators.

Pasadena Parents Demand Spanish, Mandarin

Accepting all 145 applications, the Pasadena Unified School District expanded its plans for dual-language immersion programs for Spanish and Mandarin, dividing the programs between two elementary school campuses, according to a March 31, 2009, Pasadena Star-News article. The district originally intended to hold a lottery for 60 spots. Beginning in the fall, San Rafael Elementary School will host three kindergarten and two first-grade classes in which all subjects will be taught in a combination of English and Spanish. The English-Mandarin program, with two kindergarten and one first-grade class, will kick off at Burbank Elementary. Also in response to unanticipated interest, the Pasadena Educational Foundation, a local nonprofit, will offer a summer Spanish introduction for kindergartners. —Analee Pepper

Language Stumps LAPD Drug Probe

Language proved a crucial obstacle for the LAPD in the investigation of the Mendoza clan, a suspected Mexican family drug cartel from the southern state of Oaxaca. Forty-eight members of the Mendoza clan were arrested March 24 on drug-trafficking charges based in part on wiretapped conversations in a variety of Mixtec, a tonal language and a principal indigenous language of Oaxaca. "The language—that stalled us," lead detective Larry Zimmerman told The Los Angeles Times. The alleged drug traffickers also adopted Spanish and English code words like taco, burrito, and shirts to refer to the drugs, according to the March 25 Times article. After identifying the language of the taped conversations as Mixteco Bajo—as one subdivision of Mixtec variants is known in Spanish—and finding an interpreter, police say they were able to stop a cartel that every week for nearly two decades had distributed 15 to 20 pounds of heroin from Tijuana to East L.A.-based gangs. —Analee Pepper

Date Posted: 4/28/2009