Story Photos
 Corrections Officer Lyn Sheridan speaks with inmate Marcelino Pedraza Torres at the Cowlitz County Jail. Greg Ebersole / The Daily News
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Immersion program helps county corrections officer bridge language gap
Friday, July 25, 2008 10:17 AM PDT
By Thacher Schmid
Printable version
E-mail this articleOn the first day of a month-long, “full immersion” Spanish-language program, Lyn Sheridan nearly panicked. “It was overwhelming,” said Sheridan, 43, a corrections officer at the Cowlitz County Jail who never studied a foreign language before. “I just thought, ‘what have I gotten myself into?’”
Instead of fleeing, she bit the bullet. She drove to Portland for workbooks, gave up her weekly game of Texas Hold ‘Em and started rising at 5:15 a.m. to study verbs, pronouns and sentence structure.
An 18-year jail veteran who often books new inmates, Sheridan was selected by county commissioners as the first participant in a new Cowlitz County-Washington State University Extension partnership. With no bilingual employees to work with the jail’s 7 percent Spanish-speaking inmates, the county took a first step toward providing more effective services at a key institution. With Hispanics now the country’s largest minority, such initiatives are sure to become more common.
“Having an officer that speaks Spanish is very helpful during the booking process,” said Sheridan’s boss, Corrections Director Marin Fox Hight.
To book new Spanish-speaking inmates, officers often use a telephone interpretation service for what Sheridan jokingly called the “100,000 questions” she asks. Sheridan said the system works, but it’s not infallible.
“I could easily see where mistakes could be made,” she said.
Sheridan said Latino inmates are sometimes less than forthright about their English skills.
“They come to the counter, you struggle to book them in. As soon as they’re getting released, then all of a sudden they’re able to speak fluent English,” she said. “‘Where are my shoes? I need out of here,’ and you’re like, ‘Sheesh.’”
“It’s frustrating, but kind of funny.”
After the booking process, most Hispanic inmates are not difficult, Sheridan said.
“(Hispanic inmates) don’t seem to have the same problems the English speakers do,” she noted. “They don’t complain about the food, the heat, getting coffee on their towel. They’re not as high maintenance — not at all.”
Priests, horticulturists
The language immersion program, now in its sixth year, is “unique, really, in the nation,” said Terrie Jones, director of the WSU Extension Center at Lower Columbia College.
“This is full immersion,” Jones said. “You do nothing but eat, speak, laugh, write and draw in Spanish. You pick up the nuances, you pick up the culture.”
Teachers Laura Martinez and Oriana Cadman don’t let students rest much during tightly-arranged, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. classes, which include exercises, discussion, movies, Web sites and lunches — and no English. The pair target different learning styles, and trade off in rapid-fire fashion like linguistic drill sergeants.
“My God, those ladies ... I do suggest that class,” Sheridan said with a smile.
Sheridan’s class, which finished Friday, included a local doctor, a Gresham detective and a woman from New Jersey. Those in the current class come from equally diverse backgrounds.
Emily Nolting and Rebecca Bandli are horticultural experts who live in Kansas and heard about the class on the Internet. Nolting, who holds a Ph.D., said “horticulture involves a lot of Hispanic labor.”
A seminarian with the Catholic Archdiocese in Seattle, Matt Oakland notes “it’s very important to be able to communicate with people if you’re going to be a priest.”
Susan Schmaltz, Elaine Cockrell, Jayne Robinson, Melanie Sedig and Jerry Forsman are educators. “We have a lot of Hispanic kids, but not very many adults who speak Spanish,” said Schmaltz, a Longview teacher.
“There’s no one in my building that speaks Spanish besides me,” said Cockrell, a Kelso principal. “I view it as a matter of respect to speak to someone in their language.”
Culture gap
Hight said Sheridan was selected for the program because she had an interest in Spanish and works with many Spanish-speaking inmates as a booking officer. WSU offered the course at no charge through the partnership.
Sheridan, who grew up in Rainier, is far from fluent, but has new confidence. In the past, Sheridan said, “normally, you don’t talk to (Hispanic inmates) much.”
“(Sheridan) started with nothing,” said Cadman, the instructor. “She began as a complete beginner, she worked hard, learned a lot and in the end was able to write and speak fairly well.”
Just as important, Sheridan gained more understanding of cultural differences.
One thing she said was “very helpful” had to do with Hispanic names. In a tradition that goes back to ancient Spain, many Hispanics have two forenames and two surnames: first paternal, then maternal. So, “Juan Jesus Ramirez Gonzalez” shortens to “Juan Ramirez,” because Juan is the first forename and Ramirez is the paternal surname, prioritized over the maternal “Gonzalez.”
This type of cultural detail can sometimes be crucial.
“There’s always the name game,” Sheridan said. Eventually, “this is a small community — we find out who they are,” Sheridan said. But her improved understanding of Latino names could save the county time and money up front.
roudy russ wrote on Jul 25, 2008 7:25 AM:
concerned wrote on Jul 25, 2008 8:13 AM:
really wrote on Jul 25, 2008 8:46 AM:
pacnwmom wrote on Jul 25, 2008 9:02 AM:
pacnwmom wrote on Jul 25, 2008 9:09 AM:
Adopted or not, it is the national language. Illegal or not, they are in the USA.If you chose to speak in your native language with others that do too, great, I'm all for cultural diversity. But to THRIVE here in this country you are going to have to learn to speak English. "
lastat wrote on Jul 25, 2008 9:31 AM:
Cmonet17 wrote on Jul 25, 2008 10:00 AM:
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