The Soweto Riots that gripped that Black township in the Republic of South Africa of June 16th, 1976 and soon spread to other parts of that nation grew out of what had been a peaceful protests on the part of students there in which they carried signs in which they indicated that they did not wish to be taught in Afrikaans, the language of the ruling white minority that had imposed the grim system of apartheid on the Black majority as well the Indian and mixed race community there. That requirement was said to be the work of cabinet minister Andres Treurnicht, a stalwart supporter of apartheid who had earned the nickname of “Dr. No.” due to his steadfast opposition to any efforts to moderate the policies that confined the nonwhite majority to second class status and denied them any meaningful political rights in the land of their birth. The protests signs carried by many of those young people indicated that they wished to be educated in English, and not the tribal languages that constituted their mother tribal tongues which was the language of commerce and industry and much of the culture of South Africa at that time and remains so today. But when the South African security forces responded by firing indiscriminately into those assembled and unarmed young people which resulting in the death of many of them the people there began to riot and destroyed many governmental buildings and also turned on many of the Blacks who had served the apartheid government. And in South Oklahoma City the US Grant High School has in place a program that assists many of the students there who are not from homes where English is spoken to master it with the assistance of teachers who are affiliated with a program that is known as the English Language Development and is part of the “Newcomers Program.”While the majority of those students are from Spanish speaking residences they also include students from Afghanistan and Iran. One such instructor who was part of that program, Sam Wargin Grimaldo, who is now an attorney with the firm of Michael Brooks Jimenez and is also currently a candidate for the Oklahoma Senate District 46, has told of how the students who had mastered English while completing their four years of study at that institution had worked hard to do so, and he was inspired by their determination and dedication. The current group of those students at that school were recently presented with water bottles that were signed by the teachers that they had in recognition of their accomplishments. And Grimaldo has said that like their counterparts in the Black township of Soweto in 1976, virtually all students from Spanish speaking homes in Oklahoma City schools have a desire to learn English, and that if he is elected to the post that he is seeking he will worn to ensure that they will continue to be integrated into life in Oklahoma.
Against the Grain 