Word: wausau
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...recently. Green Bay? Too cold, said N.F.L. players. Too isolated. Too white. Too old. "Coaches used to threaten us," says White. "Shape up, or we're shipping you to Green Bay." Lost on some people are Wisconsin's other blessings: the pride in workmanship that links towns (Oshkosh, Kohler, Wausau) to products, the ingenuity that created the democratic charter of the Packers, the loyalty that keeps Lambeau Field sold out through thick and thin, the spirit of the people who shovel the snow out of the stadium for free...
EVIE ROSEN, 69; WAUSAU, WIS.; retired needlework-shop owner Disheartened by news stories about the homeless, Rosen wanted to do something to help: "Almost every home has little balls of yarn. I thought if we all could knit 7-in. by 9-in. rectangles, we could stitch them together and make a lot of afghans." She started Warm Up America in 1992, getting the word out to churches, retirement homes and craft shops. Last year, with help from other organizations, the group distributed 16,000 afghans...
Nowhere has the transformation been as dramatic and tense as in Wausau's school system, where today 30% of elementary students are Southeast Asian. Yet there is no formal bilingual program in Wausau because there are virtually no certified Hmong-speaking teachers. So the school system has relied on teaching English with assistance from bilingual aides, who step in to make the transition to the new language easier. But as the vast majority of Hmong children became concentrated in four of the district's 13 elementary schools, test scores showed the immigrant children were not keeping up with their...
...federal grants, which pay for, among other things, a newcomer center that provides intensive half-day courses in English as a Second Language. Shu Blong Her, a bilingual aide at Horace Mann Middle School, says new arrivals have an easier time now than when he arrived in Wausau in 1979. "I struggled more, but I'm moving up O.K. I'm getting used to the life-style of this country," he says. Wausau fifth-grader Chia Vang arrived five years ago and is currently fluent in English but still finds it tough to fit in at school...
...disputes that English will be the common language of all Wausau citizens. "Right now we are like a new baby learning to walk and talk. But that will change," says Blong Moua, a Hmong job-placement counselor. The change has already started. Though 40% of Hmong are unemployed, nearly 90% of Hmong students graduate from high school--the same rate as among their white counterparts. "I don't know how much time it will take," says Peter Yang, who heads the Hmong Mutual Association. "But a Hmong can become mayor of Wausau...