Hispanic workers at Churchill learn English at new center Leaders of Derby Museum project hope it will translate into a model for helping backside hands across the country Wualfre Sanchez learned English on the job, absorbing words and phrases while working as a groom for trainers on the Churchill Downs backside. He often asked to have trainers' instructions translated into Spanish. Even so, his piecemeal education in barns and stalls left him prone to mistakes. "Sometimes you do things wrong," said Sanchez, a 22-year-old Guatemalan. "Because you try to do things you have to do but you don't understand. The trainers say, 'Why do you do this (wrong)?' I say, 'Because I don't understand.'" On most days Sanchez wakes up before sunrise to feed and ready horses for their morning workouts. But on Monday and Tuesday evenings during Churchill Downs' spring meet he joins dozens of other Hispanic backside workers and their families for English classes in the track's old racing office. The Klein Family Learning Center and WinStar Library and Classrooms opened last month with little fanfare. The project developed by the nonprofit Kentucky Derby Museum as a one-stop shop for backside workers to take English and personal-finance classes wants to be a model for racetracks across the country. The museum estimates that two-thirds of the exercise riders, grooms and hot-walkers tending to horses on the Churchill Downs backside today are Hispanic, which is the fastest-growing minority in the United States. Julio Rubio, Hispanic services coordinator for the Kentucky Horsemen's Benevolent & Protective Association, said many work under a seasonal visa for employees doing jobs for which no U.S. workers are available. But there's still one skill many lack: a grasp of English. At the new backside center, the Spanish-speaking workers can also check out books and will soon Internet access. The effort may help bridge a language gap that relegates Hispanic workers to entry-level jobs and often keeps them from advancing. Trainer Dale Romans believes Sanchez could become one of his top assistants if he continues to improve his English. With a better command of his second language, Sanchez could work with veterinarians and others who don't speak Spanish. Hispanic workers are "limited to strictly the labor-intensive jobs when they don't speak English because they can't communicate with the people they need to to move up the ladder," Romans said. "And so there's a cap on how high they can go. They know. They see it. And I think that's why the program has been so successful." Also, having a more educated workforce on the backside might help Churchill Downs attract more horsemen trying to decide where to train their horses. Since the center opened after the Kentucky Derby, 125 people have visited the library, taken classes or met individually with volunteer tutors — a small fraction of an estimated backside population of 1,000 workers and their families. The Churchill Downs center is the latest effort to improve backside conditions at tracks across the country. Programs administered by the Race Track Chaplaincy of America and other agencies have run libraries, taught English and offered computer training to backside workers. "But nowhere have I seen it on the scale that it's being done as at Churchill Downs," said Ed Donnally, development director for the national Race Track Chaplaincy. "But it's something we see a tremendous need for." Hitting the books On a recent Tuesday evening, Emily Bosley asked her students at the Klein Family Learning Center to repeat "cheeks" and "chicks." "Do you know what chicks are?" she said. "They're like 'chicas' in Spanish, but don't say that in English," she said, chuckling. "It's not nice." The students learn with familiar tools and techniques: flashcards, repetition and translation. Teaching volunteers and English-as-second-language instructors from Jefferson County's public schools system aid students with the pronunciation of unfamiliar letter combinations. The center's organizers tried not to set high expectations for the first few months of operation. Jennifer Hoert, who will become the center's director on Thursday, said attracting 10 students would have been considered a success. "Four times that came on our first night, so that was wonderful," Hoert said. "We feel like the programming has had a good response." The English classes have about 30 students per night. The two classrooms, which hold 12 to 15 students, are full, and tardy students must bring in a chair. Many attending a recent class said they believe speaking and writing English will improve their work and their futures. Rodolfo Abrego, a 36-year-old hot-walker who arrived in the United States a month ago, said work is scarce and pays little in his native Guatemala. His brother, who has worked at U.S. racetracks for four years, taught him the commands to make horses walk or stop. That was the only English Abrego knew before taking the classes on the Churchill backside. He can now count count from one to four, name coins and dollar bills, and say, "Good morning." "It's essential to learn English," he said through a translator. "Learning English makes Americans pay more attention to you." Abrego believes work will become easier as his English improves and said it might help him land a job in construction, his field in Guatemala. Some students struggle to attend class regularly. Abrego and other students say that they have missed classes because of work schedules. The center was designed to help all backside workers, not just Hispanic employees. Groom Greg Compton began taking Spanish so he could understand one of his hot-walkers, employees who walk horses after workouts and races to cool down the animals. He can now tell his hot-walker in Spanish to cool down a hose. He said his new language skills are so helpful that he wishes he had studied Spanish in high school or college. "My main goal is just to be able to communicate with the people I'm working with," Compton said. "When you don't understand Spanish, it seems like they're (talking) 90 miles per hour." Hurdles and Benefits Officials have gone barn to barn to talk with workers and posted flyers to advertise the center. Rubio, the Hispanic services coordinator for the Kentucky horsemen's group, said he heard some workers complain early on that the center's computers were not working. But he said the effort is worthwhile. "I'm helping along spreading the work that (Hispanic backside workers) need to do something instead of just hanging around," Rubio said. "The reason they're doing that is because they're bored, and when you present something like this, it's an opportunity that should take advantage of." Lynn Ashton, the Derby Museum's executive director, knew there was no guarantee backside workers would use an education center. While the average attendance at the English classes is stronger than expected, most of the backside population have not attended. Because many work seasonally to earn money for their families in Latin America before returning home, many might not find any benefit in learning English. In addition, some workers are hesitant to take an English assessment test, Ashton said. "We are trying to assess them as best we possibly can and figure out who speaks absolutely no English and put them into a class," she said. "So here again we have a little bit of a challenge with that." The workers are employees of individual trainers, not Churchill Downs. Still, as in any other business, Rubio said, it's possible for some illegal workers to obtain falsified documents to secure work. Ashton stressed that the backside center is not checking workers' documents. "If you want to check out a library book, if you have shown the proper credentials and information to get you on the backside of the track — that's good enough for us. That's all we want," Ashton said. The Kentucky Derby Museum's mission is to broaden the awareness and appreciation of the Derby. Ashton acknowledged that starting the backside center goes a step beyond that mission, but she called it, "the right thing to do." Churchill Downs donated the old racing office and is paying the building's utilities. Track President Steve Sexton said the center could become a selling point for trainers. "Certainly purse levels and money that they run for drive a large part of the decision," Sexton said. "But where purse levels are comparable and I have a choice as a trainer to go from one track to another, the other amenities and part of the package come into play." The Klein Family Foundation and WinStar Farm, which is in Versailles, Ky., donated $100,000 each to the center. Barnes & Noble has given books, as has the Louisville Free Public Library. "I would hope that more people are in the position to donate their time and their money to this," said Richard Klein, a former Kentucky racing commissioner and executive at the old Bank of Louisville. WinStar Farm co-owner Bill Casner worked on the backside at Sunland Park near El Paso, Texas, as a teenager, galloping horses. He said the Churchill Downs center will help the backside population. "A lot of those people — their horizons are very, very limited," Casner said. "Their resources for information are limited." Workers started renovating the plain, single-story building last summer and finished shortly before the Derby. $40,000 will be spent on programming. Plans call for classes at Trackside, the stabling area and off-track betting parlor Churchill Downs owns on Poplar Level Road. About 100 to 150 workers live near the Trackside training track. The center also is offering or scheduled to offer money-management courses, GED classes and family literacy programs designed by the National Center for Family Literacy. Ashton estimates that the center needs about $500,000 to operate the next three years. The museum is seeking grants from private and public sources, including foundations and local government. She hopes trainers and owners will contribute too. If it works, more horsemen like Sanchez stand to benefit. "We feel like we can't talk with nobody," Sanchez said. "I feel better now. I feel like I can go everywhere. I like learning more, know how to write (and) read English." — Marcus Green & Sheyla Nieves, The Courier-Journal, June 27, 2004