Description: This is
a VOA Special English Education Report.
See text below
Text:
Americans celebrated the Thanksgiving holiday on
November twenty-fifth. They gathered with family and
friends to share a meal. Some celebrated the holiday
by telling what they are most thankful for. This
holiday season, a group of student-athletes in
Woodburn, Oregon has given its community something
to be thankful for. The Woodburn High School boys
soccer team has reached the state soccer
championship playoffs for twenty-five straight
seasons. But the Bulldogs had never won the state
championship -- until this year. Their victory in
November also represents a win for their mostly
Hispanic hometown. Writer Steve Wilson spent a year
recording the successes and problems of the team. He
wrote a book called "The Boys from Little Mexico: A
Season Chasing the American Dream." It tells about a
community struggling with issues such as immigration
and cultural changes.Migrant farm workers from
Mexico started coming to Woodburn, Oregon about
fifty years ago. Many of the workers stayed and made
the town their home. So the town became known as
"Little Mexico." Steve Wilson thinks the Woodburn
boys soccer team's continued hard work and effort to
win the state championship is similar to their
cultural experiences. Like many Mexican-Americans,
the boys on the Woodburn team faced major problems.
They include poverty, a language barrier and
immigration issues. Mr. Wilson wondered if those
challenges were preventing the team from reaching
its goal of winning a state championship. So he
decided to follow the team for an entire season. He
got to know the players, coaches and supporters. One
of the players he writes about in the book is Martin
Maldonado-Cortez. Martin says he and the other boys
on the team knew that Woodburn had a bad image. The
town has a population of only twenty-two thousand
people. But it faces many of the same problems found
in large cities. These include gang violence and
illegal drugs. He says when the team went to play
other schools the people did not act friendly toward
them. Martin says his coaches told him to show pride
in his culture. They told him to make an effort to
be successful in life -- and not just on the field.
For VOA Special English I'm Alex Villarreal. Our
programs are online with transcripts and MP3 files
at voaspecialenglish.com. And you can find us on
Twitter, Facebook and YouTube at VOA Learning
English.
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Hi. I
personally reviewed this video and found it appropriate for
the news section of English Global Group. This
is a Voice of America video which covers an interesting
topic in Special English. I would appreciate some feedback from both
students and teachers about this video. You can comment in
the window below using any of a number of different services
including Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, and Hotmail.
