: 1114710164

K.C. Williams, the director of the Forest Hills Community House, has an office in a room partitioned by freestanding walls. “I would like to have an office with a door that closes,” she said, “but I gave that up to have more classes.”

The FHCH, which provides 25 adult literacy classes every day, turns away three out of every four applicants. The classes are free. “Some other programs are only $22 a week for a class every day,” Williams said, “but for many people who come to us, $22 a week is too much.” The FHCH used to have people show up at a specified time to sign up but once there were so many people that the police were called. Now a lottery system is used. “People say immigrants don’t want to learn English,” Williams said. “It’s not true.”

While the need is great, the future of this program and many others have been put in jeopardy by President George W. Bush’s 2006 budget proposal currently under debate in Congress. The budget would cut adult education and literacy programs funded through the Workforce Investment Act by 64 percent. In a press release for the Coalition for Adult Literacy, it was estimated that this could eliminate classes for tens of thousands of students in the five boroughs. In response, the Coalition organized a rally last Friday, April 22, in Union Square Park.

“It was the largest rally in support of adult literacy that has ever happened in the city,” said Steve Hinds, the event coordinator, “possibly in the country.”

At the FHCH, the students speak 30 languages but in class they only speak English. They work hard, but they also tend to laugh a lot. Melissa Stephenson, a teacher with the program, makes her students do the hokey pokey to teach body parts. “You haven’t lived,” she said, “until you’ve seen a 65-year-old imam from Pakistan doing the hokey pokey.”

When students are finished with the program, which involves five levels, they can speak with their children’s doctors and teachers and find work that requires a strong grasp of the English language. The receptionist at FHCH, Yolanda Robles, is a graduate of the program.

The center offers other services as well. There is an Immigration Legal Specialist, for example, named Carmen Gutierrez. Standing by Robles’ desk this past Tuesday, Gutierrez told the story of a Columbian woman who came in a week earlier. She had lived in the United States for the past 24 years but still hadn’t obtained her Green Card. Her son, who had remained in Columbia, had just been murdered.
The woman had the paperwork to leave the country but not to return after the funeral. So Gutierrez accompanied her to the appropriate office, where she explained the situation to the government official. He asked for the paperwork, took it into another room for a while and then returned, holding it open to the new stamp the woman needed. “Here immigrants feel, ‘wow, I’m not alone.’” Gutierrez said.