Young immigrant Spanish-speaking women in NYC, USA strive to achieve a viable better future for their families in NYC. A special entrepreneurial niche for them is to work nights preparing ethnic foods for construction workers, to sell boxed ethnic lunches to largely immigrant construction workers. Two of these women with their ice chests work on every other street in my neighborhood, accompanied often by very young children who sit on the ground beside them, often bored, aloof and crying. The mothers communicate with children in Spanish, and the second Mother often steps in to quiet the child/children of her colleague.

While respecting  the entrepreneurial spirit and productivity of the mothers, I regretted that the children did not have books or games while sitting on the ground beside their mothers.   To help the mothers and encourage them, their children  and community to learn English, I started to use a lull in sales to  distribute regularly children's books to them, which they gratefully received.  When  mothers selected books, they took  additional books for  children at home.  Mothers asked for more books to help  their children and community to learn English.  They also requested bi-lingual children's books, to increase their own literacy and that of children in the community.  From families in my apartment building I receive some  used books; I purchase others.  I need  bi-lingual books and I-Pads."
 

To initiate and/or to  increase the literacy of the Spanish-speaking immigrant community in English in the USA,  the simple act of giving women access to books is essential.  Women traditionally transmit culture and support early education.  Mothers and grandmothers want to read to children (of which Martin Luther was aware, when he introduced mandatory education for girls as part of his Protestant Reformation.)  However, while English and  bi-lingual books would help the community to learn English, which children need if they are to be successful in school,  even better would be I-Pads loaded with bi-lingual books and materials for children and language learners.  Books are cheaper and will not become obsolete, yet I-Pads would educationally be ideal.  I would work with immigrant mothers I have befriended to continue to  distribute with their help books and an I-Pad to as many families in their communities as I can reach.  

The impact of such a distribution of bi-lingual Spanish/English books and  I-Pads, if I could get them from you, would be a substantial increase in literacy, and greater integration of these families into the American social and economic fabric. Greater literacy spells social progress and success for this community.

Because of the friendships I have established with recent immigrant mothers in Tudor City, NYC, I have the possibility of affecting the larger communities of which these women are a part.  Initially I thought only of young mothers, but I found that there are many grandmothers who sell ethnic foods on the streets of NYC.  Since these grandmothers take care of many children within their families,  friends, and communities,  they need to be included in this bi-lingual book distribution drive.  And potentially, they will be the best ambassadors for literacy, since they realize the need for good linguistic skills in English that will make the children in their community successful students in elementary, middle, and high schools. My first level request is for bi-lingual books in English/Spanish. My second level request is for I Pads loaded with bi-lingual materials and basic language instructional programs through games , stories and videos that will make language learning enjoyable for young learners.  Immigrant families with children arrive every day in NYC.  They need good English language skills to survive on the streets and in the schools. I will attempt to work with public schools with large immigrant populations to distribute such I-Pads to children about to be enrolled in kindergarten programs.