In the novel you learn that Jessica’s non-native speaking students are quite intelligent. Jessica’s Mexican-American students aren’t unintelligent, they are actually extremely intelligent, just in a different way from the English-speaking students, “Jessica glanced at a page, which appeared slightly about a fifth grade reading level. A bit more advanced than she had pegged Marisela as ready for.” (33) This happens in schools all across America, a student named Samuel moved from El Salvador to New York, where is main spoken language was Spanish. Samuel felt as though he was less than the other students because he was not fluent in English, “in the classes in which English was the medium of instruction, he had difficulty understanding content
