Buenos tardes, me llamo Francisco Martinez, y yo soy de Mexico. Good afternoon, my name is Francisco Martinez, and I am from Mexico.

Like many of my students in the jail, this student had an alias. All the jail records listed him as Manuel Rodriguez. With these words of introduction, he claimed his true name, and began his part of the presentation. We were giving a workshop on Latino culture to new detention officers who would, within a couple of weeks, begin their jobs supervising these very same Latino inmates.

I teach ESOL to an intermediate class at Mecklenburg County Jail in Charlotte, North Carolina. My students are all Hispanic. About two-thirds are facing serious time on federal charges. They represent different countries, levels of education, and degrees of acculturation.

The idea for the training on Latino culture for detention officers at the Mecklenburg County Jail was born a couple of years ago. Students in my ESL class had been experiencing conflict with other inmates and with officers, and felt that much of this conflict had arisen because officers knew nothing about Latino culture. The students submitted a petition asking for such training. At the time, I was working on a project in collaboration with Literacy South, in which I was trying to develop lesson ideas that would help ESL students learn to navigate systems. The officer training seemed like an ideal project to meet both the students' needs and my own. I suggested the students "put their money where their mouths were"-that they develop a workshop/presentation that could be used to train officers.

Preparing for the Training
As a class, we read books and downloaded articles from the Internet to learn about differences between Latino and Anglo cultures. We watched the movie Fools Rush In, which was surprisingly useful in its depiction of the contrast between the two cultures. The students developed a description of Latino culture that they felt was authentic. They also translated phrases that were specific to the jail environment into Spanish. Finally, they came up with concrete suggestions. Meanwhile, I began lengthy negotiations to persuade the command structure and training officers to allow the training. I was able to get the training approved, but I had to deliver it. There were too many obstacles, including security issues, to permit the students to give the training themselves. So, I presented their material to several different classes of new officers.

Over the following year, both officers and inmates "turned over." I had a whole new cast of characters in my class, and all of the officers in command positions were new. The trainings were discontinued when a new training officer took over. What hadn't changed was the conflict between Latinos and the other ethnic groups. Another incident propelled a student into approaching me about the lack of training the officers received in dealing with Latino inmates. One pod supervisor continually called the Latino inmates "Pancho," while other, non-Latino inmates were addressed respectfully by Mister and their last names. I told the student that we had such a presentation, developed by students, but it hadn't been done in a long time. After that class, I approached one of the captains and the new training officer. Both agreed not only that the training could be done, but also that students could do it.

At the next class, I recruited volunteers for this project from among the more proficient English speakers. This would be an opportunity to be something other than inmates in the eyes of the officers, they could be professionals. I had five students agree to participate. They were not the original students who had developed the earlier training, so we were basically back to the beginning. These students met for four additional classes, which allowed them to do the background research and review the work of the earlier students. We revised the content and divided the responsibilities. Each student had a part of the presentation: Francisco would address the demographics of the jail population, Abad would briefly describe the history and culture of Latinos in America, I would talk about language issues, Jaime would give a glimpse into the Spanish language, and Eutimio and John would both cover the concrete suggestions for the officers.

Rehearsal
I put the information on PowerPoint transparencies in bullet form, so the presentation would be as professional as possible. In our final meeting before the training, we rehearsed with the transparencies. The students made additions and changes and worked on their transitions, and discourse connectors practiced putting transparencies on the overhead projector correctly and using pointers to indicate place. The students rehearsed their introductions, and gave each other feedback. They tried to minimize those gestures and dialectical features that marked them as inmates: hitching up their jumpsuits, posturing with their hands, using double negatives. They tried to identify things "inmate-y" or "cholo." Abad took some books home, back to the pod, to review the major events in Latin American history.

On Monday, the day of the training, we also had our regular ESL class. The five presenters conducted a dress rehearsal with their classmates. Each student was applauded, and the class was fo-cused and attentive. It was obvious that they had practiced over the weekend. They were comfortable with their transparencies, and as the information was projected onto the whiteboard at the front of the room, the presenters used the board to elaborate on the bulleted points of the slides. The other students were dismissed, and the new officers arrived at the classroom.

To our disappointment, there were only three. John made a face and held up three fingers. I whispered that a small group would allow us to practice, and perfect the presentation. We put our game faces on. The students were beautiful, they were funny, engaging, natural teachers.

Francisco, aka Manuel, was first. "63% of the Hispanics in this facility are from Mexico. Next we have the United States at 10%, which includes Puerto Rico and people who are citizens, and then Colombia that has 5%, and Republic Dominican 5%, and other countries 10%. So, you can see, not everyone is Mexican. And I want to tell you that sometimes the officers say, 'You Mexicans.' And we think that is racial, and we are not all Mexican."

Abad presented next on history and culture. "When Christopher Columbus—have you heard of him?—discovered the new world, which is what we know now as the Bahamas in 1492, he met the Arawak people, and called them Indians. There were many peoples in this new world, the Toltec, the Olmec, the Aztec in Mexico, and the great Incan civilization in Peru." He touched on the high points in Latin American history, including the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, in which Mexico lost half its national territory to the United States. He went on to describe Latino culture, addressing machismo, family, and religion, among other things. "And, you know, people who came here recently from another country, their attitude toward authority is, well, that authority is corrupt. If you are drunk and driving and the police stop you, well, you give them money and they let you go. We call that the bite." He talked about variations in the Spanish language: "In Mexico, if you say 'soy un cabrón,' you are saying you are 'the man.' In Cuba, that means like someone is trippin' with your wife." The officers laughed.

Use Our Names, Please
The presentation concluded with Eutimio and John suggesting "do's" and "don'ts." "Don't call us the Mexican mafia. That's racist, and I'm not even from Mexico. Use our names, please. Don't disrespect our religion. We have religious figures, and also the Bible is very important to us. Officers when they shake us down, they just throw the Bible on the bed or the floor. We're in here, but we're human beings, too." Eutimio suggested the officers ask the inmates about their culture or language. "These are some suggestions so maybe you can do your job more easy, and we can get along better."

Officers' Reactions, Students' Reactions
The officers said that the training was useful, and left for their next session. After they left the students were pleased with how things went. John said: "You know, Miss Kristy, I thought with only three of them, it was a joke, but they listened to us and showed respect. It was good."

The audience was small, but the effect on the students was great. It was important enough that Francisco wanted to use his real name, Jaime practiced over and over in his pod, and Abad read additional history. Eutimio said to me afterwards: "You didn't think we could do so good, did you?" I believed they could do it all along, but maybe they weren't so sure. For a short time, they were in control and they showed to the few officers, to me, and to themselves just what they could do.

This kind of project is effective for language learners on a variety of levels. First, they are identifying issues of importance in their lives and participating in addressing these issues. Second, the learners are learning how to navigate a system in their new country; in this case, the inmates were learning how to effect change in the correctional environment. Third, learners are using language in purposeful ways: to acquire and present information, to educate, and to persuade. A project that engages learners in creating change in their everyday lives can also create power. I will always remember the image of a Latino teacher in an orange jumpsuit and flip-flops, in front of uniformed students with black boots and badges, saying, "Me llamo Francisco Martinez, y yo soy de Mexico."

Kristin Sherman is an instructor in adult ESL at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, NC. She has taught ESL at the Mecklenburg County Jail for five years. She can be reached at: kristin.sherman@cpcc.edu