Immigrant learners struggle to find English classes as NYC funding lapses

This story was originally published on Aug. 19 by THE CITY. Sign up here to get the latest stories from THE CITY delivered to you each morning.

When 28-year-old Lilybet Barcenas first moved to New York City a year and four months ago, she didn’t know many fluent English speakers who could help her master the language. As she attempted to navigate the city, conversations often became complicated and confusing compared to what she had been used to as a furniture salesperson in her native Mexico.

Her English only began to improve, she said, when she started attending free English for Speakers of Other Languages, or ESOL, classes near her Woodside apartment at a local nonprofit, where she became quick friends with other newcomers who were also studying English four days a week.

“We all put in a lot of effort in learning English,” Barcenas told THE CITY in Spanish, speaking of her classes at Sunnyside Community Services. Like herself, she said, many of her classmates had hoped that improving their English would help boost their job prospects: “I’ve never met anyone that went to the classes just for the sake of going.”

That ESOL program is now suspended along with those at several other city-funded learning centers, including Queens Community House and CAMBA.

That’s because the city Department of Youth and Community Development earlier this year adjusted the eligibility criteria for $8.3 million in ESOL contracts to prioritize areas where the U.S. Census shows low English proficiency and high poverty rates — locking some long-time providers out of funding.

DYCD spokesperson Mark Zustovich said this new funding approach reflected Mayor Eric Adams’ commitment to “bringing equity to all New Yorkers.”

But city funding has yet to roll out to the two dozen organizations selected to provide ESOL and adult literacy classes in those priority areas. And because previous contracts with DYCD ended June 30, thousands of students are now left with few places to turn to continue their English studies in the meantime.

Five of DYCD’s new priority areas, moreover, do not currently have eligible contractors to provide ESOL classes. Zustovich, however, said the agency intends to award contracts for all priority areas and that reviews for some proposals are ongoing.

“DYCD continues to make sure communities most in need for literacy programs are getting the services they need,” said Zustovich, who added that the agency will distribute information to students about the new providers to facilitate the transition to new funded programs.

A public hearing was scheduled last week on the new contracts. In the meantime, Barcenas is not sure where to continue her education.

“Right now they’ve told me they don’t know when the next classes are, and I’m still hoping that they call me back,” she said. “It’s been difficult because there’s nothing like learning daily. Even when I was tired after work I always showed up to class. I never had an absence.”

Also in the lurch is Wendy Tapia, 43, an airline customer service representative who emigrated from Ecuador a dozen years ago and had been studying English at Queens Community House to improve her job prospects. She has been looking into ESOL classes at private learning centers — many of which she said can cost about $300 a month.

“It’s so expensive,” said Tapia. “I can’t pay that one.”

‘You start not from zero, but from minus five’

Long-time providers that have lost DYCD dollars told THE CITY the new funding formula had deprived them of the money they need to continue classes. That’s because the agency would only consider their bids if none came from within the priority areas.

DYCD’s official funding rejection notice for Sunnyside came in July — just a month before new sessions of classes were supposed to start in August, said the nonprofit’s Director of Adult and Immigrant Services Johan Lopez.

The Sunnyside program had been serving 660 students in 39 classes, with some 200 additional students on a waitlist hoping to get into a class, Lopez said. Now, just three classes are available for about 40 students, while four of the center’s staff and nine of its instructors have been laid off.

While class providers who spoke to THE CITY supported DYCD’s intention to serve those who are most in need, they said the new approach — based on the 2020 census — failed to account for the needs among migrants who have arrived in the last two years, with more than 200,000 of them staying staying in city shelters over that span.

“We know that populations have significantly shifted, and we know that the closest thing we have to an understanding of that is from the folks who are working in those communities, day in and day out,” said Lena Cohen, senior policy analyst at United Neighborhood Houses, an organization that advocates for a number of nonprofits who has lost ESOL funding from DYCD, including Queens Community Houses.

The Queensbridge-Ravenswood-Dutch Kills area of Long Island City, Queens, for example, was not prioritized for ESOL funding despite being home to 21 migrant shelters — the most of any neighborhood in the city, according to City Council data. Overall, just four of the 10 neighborhoods with the most migrant shelters were listed on DYCD’s geographic priority list for ESOL funding.

Lopez said the demand for ESOL classes among new asylum-seekers had been on a steady climb at the Sunnyside center, which is located just one neighborhood east of Long Island City.

“About a year ago, I would say that, still, the majority of our students were established immigrants,” Lopez said. “Last fiscal year, we saw that about 50% to 60% were recently arrived immigrants.”

A number of those students began writing letters to their elected representatives in the winter and spring as they became aware that they may lose classes come summertime.

“I think thar [sic] we all need to have acess to education regardless of the migratory and economic status that each one has in this country,” one student pleaded. “I go to school at night, 4 nights a week even when I am very tired, because in the future, I am sure I will be rewarded when I learn English,” another student wrote. A third declared: “I would like to become an American citizen. So as an immigrant, I need to learn English.”

As part of the budget process, the City Council in June approved $10 million in discretionary funding for adult literacy initiatives, including ESOL classes. But those dollars that have yet to reach the nonprofits that lost funding, Cohen said.

The Council will decide how that money will be allocated after DYCD completes its award process, said Rendy Desamours, a spokesperson for Council Speaker Adrienne Adams (D-Queens), because it is intended to fill in funding gaps for organizations locked out of DYCD dollars.

Meanwhile, Council member Julie Won (D-Queens), whose district includes Sunnyside, said she will “continue to advocate for nonprofits that have provided these classes for decades to receive adequate funding.”

Svetlana Saratchilova, who had been teaching ESOL for two years at Sunnyside before getting laid off this summer, said she’s “heartbroken” for her students, most of whom she said were newcomers from South America and Asia.

“In order for them to get the help they need, they need to speak English, and you understand when you come from another country, you start not from zero, but from minus five,” said Saratchilova, 60, herself a native Bulgarian speaker who moved to the city about 25 years ago. “It’s mind-blowing how hard they work. They work for eight hours — or however many hours they work — and then they come to school, and they stay for three more hours, and they are focused on everything that they do.”

Some of Saratchilova’s students had told her that they dreamed of going to college, while others aspired to pursue a professional career. Several aspire to open up businesses, she said.

“English is actually a way for everyone to not only chase their dreams, but eventually to achieve everything that they want to,” Saratchilova added. “I was kind of hoping for a miracle. That eventually, who knows, maybe at the very last moment, something will turn, something will change and they would not have to cut the classes.”

‘It Really Did Change My Life’

Rosaura Vazquez, 52, moved from Puerto Rico to the city 17 years ago. At the time, she had hoped to continue working as a veterinarian but struggled to find work because she could not express herself well in English.

She now runs a pet grooming business from home serving mostly a Spanish-speaking clientele, but said her 11-year-old son’s education has given her a reason to study English again.

She started taking classes at Sunnyside about a year ago, she said, so she can be more involved in the school’s parent teacher association.

“I’m now able to understand more of what the teachers are saying and how my son is doing in school,” Vazquez told THE CITY in Spanish as her elder son translated. “I’m also able to understand his homework better and help him if he needs it.”

These days, though, she’s having a hard time finding a new provider that works with her life, schedule, and finances.

The Sunnyside program was the first to allow her to bring her sixth grader to class, she said, so that she didn’t have to choose between child care and her own education. And she loved dancing with and reading stories in English to seniors who frequent the center, too.

“Thanks to the learning center, I was able to explore more things out there and keep myself more active,” Vazquez said. “I’ve learned that English is not only a language, but that there’s more things to it. It really did change my life.”

Baercenas also credited the Sunnyside program for connecting her with people and services that helped her navigate her first months in the city. The center not only helped her troubleshoot issues with her Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits, she said, but it also allowed her to meet other immigrants and new migrants whom she now calls her “second family.”

“I’ve had really good classmates,” Barcenas told THE CITY in Spanish. “A lot of them helped me look for a job because I couldn’t find anything myself. They’d say ‘Don’t worry, I’ll help you’ and they’d invite me to breakfast — it’s something that I’ll never forget because they’d offer me a plate of food when I was hungry.”

Barcenas now works at a grocery store in Astoria where she moves and lifts boxes of inventory for about eight hours a day. And conversations with her Italian, Korean, and Arab coworkers have gotten a little easier since she started taking ESOL classes, she said. Though, she also hopes that she’ll soon find a job that feels easier on the body.

“I think I need to learn a bit more English because there are words that I get wrong, but I’m not as lost as I used to be,” she said. “But I’d like to find something that isn’t so strenuous for me, though I have to wait and be patient for it.

“But here I’ll be, in the meantime,” she continued. “In the supermarket.”

Additional reporting by Jonathan Custodio.