Speaking in tongues documentary

2009

Schools at the Festival

Study Guide

for

Speaking in Tongues

Compiled by: Julia Queck

The Dexter F. & Dorothy H. Baker Foundation

Tin Man Fund

Nellie Wong Magic of Movies Education Fund

Schools at the Festival is made possible by the generous support of:

SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY Study Guide – Speaking in Tongues

2

Logline

4 kids become bilingual in an experience that transforms both themselves and their country.

Film Synopsis

Speaking in Tongues begins with an ordinary first day of public school kindergarten - except that

the teacher speaks only Chinese. Most of her primarily white and Asian American students look

confused but curious; a few nod knowingly. They are all in a language immersion class, where,

from day one, they will receive 90% of their instruction in Cantonese. Remarkably, their school

will test first in English and math among their district’s 76 elementary schools.

The film’s four protagonists come to language immersion programs for very different reasons.

Jason is a first generation Mexican-American whose immigrant family embraces bilingualism as

the key to full participation in the land of opportunity. Durrell is an African-American

kindergartner whose mom hopes that learning Mandarin will be a way out of economic uncertainty

and into possibility. Kelly is a Chinese- American recapturing the Cantonese her parents sacrificed

to become American. Julian is a Caucasian 8th grader eager to expand his horizons and become a

good world citizen. Together, they represent a nexus of challenges facing America today: economic

and academic inequities, de facto segregation, record numbers of new immigrants, and the need to

communicate across cultures. Using a verité story-telling approach, the film follows our characters

as they enter the portal of language and open their minds to new ways of thinking and being in the

world. In a time of globalization and changing demographics, bilingualism offers them more than

an opportunity to join the global job market. Language becomes a metaphor for breaking down

barriers between ourselves and our neighbors—be they around the corner or across the world.

While the kids grow in ease and skill with their second tongue, the grown-ups argue. Durrell orders

his first Chinatown meal in Mandarin; an uncle at a family dinner prasies bilingualism, citing the

needs of the global economy. Kelly learns traditional cooking from her Chinese-speaking grandma;

yet her great aunt scoffs at any form of bilingual education, citing tax burdens. Jason becomes the

first in his family to read, write, and graduate elementary school; meanwhile at a school enrollment

fair, a concerned Latino father asks where his daughter can learn more English. Julian travels to

China and bargains for clothes in Mandarin at a Beijing marketplace; an angry Chinese dad at a

school meeting bellows, “We are in America! We need English!”

To explore these contentious debates at the national level, Speaking in Tongues turns to Ling-chi

Wang, a community activist who pioneered efforts to establish multilingual education in the United

States. He takes us on a brief You Tube tour of the national discourse: critics bemoan a loss of

national identity and warn of an impending Balkanization of the United States, while others warn

of the national security risks of having too few Arabic speakers. Ling-chi laments the nation’s

stubborn attachment to monolingualism, a phenomenon that masks deeper social tensions about

diversity and difference. His rallying cry is that the United States is a nation whose linguistic

richness is among its greatest assets. Employers need multilingual skills, universities spends

millions teaching foreign languages, and our national security apparatus pours millions into

teaching “strategic languages.” Yet the U.S. congress routinely considers “English-only”

legislation, and 31 states have already passed such laws.

But Ling-chi doesn’t have time for hand wringing; A gavel brings us to a packed school board

meeting where he’s spearheading an initiative to offer every public school child in San Francisco

the opportunity that Jason, Durrell, Kelly, and Julian have. Will one city’s bold experiment become

a model for transforming Americans into global citizens?

SAN FRANCISCO FILM SOCIETY Study Guide – Speaking in Tongues

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Biography of Producers/Directors Marcia Jarmel & Ken Schneider

Ken Schneider is producer, editor, and sound recordist for PatchWorks films.

He is also an accomplished freelance editor whose credits include award winning documentaries on

a broad range of subjects, from art and literature to war and peace, immigration, disability and

social justice. Ken co-edited the feature documentary Regret To Inform, winner of the Peabody

Award, Indie Spirit Award and Sundance Film Festival Directing award, as well as the IDA Award

for most distinctive use of archival footage. Regret also was nominated for an Academy Award and

a National Emmy.

Other editing credits include Bolinao 52 about Vietnamese boat refugees; the PBS American

Masters specials Orozco: Man of Fire and Ralph Ellison: An American Journey; P.O.V. special

Freedom Machines, about the convergence of disability, technology and civil rights; PBS

primetime special The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It, which aired on Martin

Luther King’s birthday and won best historical documentary awards from both the American

Historical Association and Organization of American Historians; PBS special and Golden Gate

award-winner Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town; Frontline's Columbia-Dupont Award

winning School Colors, a look at integration and segregation 40 years after Brown v. Board of

Education; and Ancestors in the Americas, Part 2: Pioneers in the American West, about the

Chinese-American experience.

Ken has collaborated with Nina Wise, the dancer/performance artist; Charlie Varon, the solo

theater performer; Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman, Academy award-winning filmmakers, and

Richard Beggs, Academy award-winning sound designer, among others. Ken has consulted on

dozens of documentaries, and lectures at San Francisco City College, the San Francisco Art

Institute, and New York University.

Marcia Jarmel founded PatchWorks with Ken Schneider in 1994. She has been producing and

directing documentaries for over 15 years. Her best-known work is the ITVS-funded Born in the

U.S.A., which aired on the PBS series Independent Lens and was hailed as the “best film on

childbirth” by the former director of maternal health at the World Health Organization. The

documentary has been used to educate hundreds about childbirth options, and to lobby legislators

to reform midwifery laws. Nine years after its national broadcast, Born in the U.S.A. continues to

engage families, communities, and health care professionals.

Marcia’s other films include Collateral Damage, a mother's lament about the human costs of war

that screened worldwide in theatres, museums, festivals and schools as part of Underground Zero:

Filmmakers Respond to 9/11. Her Return of Sarah’s Daughters examines the allure of Orthodox

Judaism to secular young women. The hour-long documentary won a CINE Golden Eagle,

National Educational Media Network Gold Apple, and 1st Place in the Jewish Video Competition.

It screened on international public television, and at the American Cinematheque, International

Documentary Film Festival, Women in the Director's Chair, Cinequest and numerous other film

festivals. Her first film, The F Word: A short video about Feminism uses whimsical animation and

interviews to foster discussion on this so-called contentious topic. Still in distribution after 15 years

with Women Make Movies, The F Word screened on KQED's Living Room Festival, AFI's

VideoFest, and the Judy Chicago film series at the Brooklyn Museum of Art.