Ralph, a 29-year-old entrepreneurial immigrant, came to the United States from Mexico nearly 12 years ago. His undocumented status did not hinder his attempts to learn English:
Yeah because I tried school. First thing I want to do was try school. I went to the English school and I start learning, but I thought it was too slow. Like what is your name. all these things. A lot of these students, this will take a while. I just went two times. Because I love listening to music. I went to the record store, and I bought music. I read the songs as I was listening. So I was listening so I learned the pronunciation . I was reading at the same time. Then I got the dictionary to translate all the words. All the songs. So translate it, I listen to it, and I repeat it. And I was doing that for almost every day. And I listen to the songs going to my work, coming back. Translating the songs. I learned a lot in a single year. I was already speaking English. Then I just stopped doing it. That was my problem. I shouldn’t stop doing that. I thought okay I can defend myself. But it was that way. It really worked, I just learned real quick.
