Message to Santa Ana: For a Better Job, Learn English – Chamber Promotes Classes in City of 150,000 Immigrants – California

“”Two jobs?” blares a poster at a bus shelter here. The words are in Spanish over a picture of a tired-looking Hispanic woman in a janitors uniform. “Work and Work but You Still Cant Get Ahead?” reads another ad on a bus shelter down the street. At the bottom, the small print: “Free English classes . . . in 60 locations.

The ads are part of an unusual campaign by the Santa Ana Chamber of Commerce to spur the citys 150,000 immigrants to learn English. Here in the most Latino big city in the country — where fewer than one in five residents speak English at home — business leaders decided that simply offering free English classes was not enough. The chamber is spending $4.5 million to cajole residents to take the classes and get English workbooks into their hands.”

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