In China, L.A.'s Mayor Villaraigosa Promotes Language Program

From http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/12/antonio-villaraigosa-china.html

In China, L.A.'s Mayor Villaraigosa promotes language program
by Barbara Demick
December 5, 2011

Take a kid from Los Angeles who may never have left the United States and may never have flown on an airplane and send him to Beijing to become proficient in Chinese.

Impossible? No, insists Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who was in Beijing on Monday to promote his city as a location for Chinese businesses.

Last month, the mayor had announced that Los Angeles is grooming and recruiting students for a new program launched by President Obama called the 100,000 Strong Initiative. In Los Angeles, 10 to 15 of the 260 students now studying Chinese at the Mendez Learning Center, a public high school in Boyle Heights, will be selected beginning next summer. "These kids all speak English, about 95% of them speak Spanish, and they are all learning Mandarin as we speak," Villaraigosa said. "Virtually every one of them has never been out of the country. Many of them have never been on an airplane."

Read the full article at http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2011/12/antonio-villaraigosa-china.html