Amharic | Tadias Magazine

Tadias Magazine
By Tadias Staff

Published: Friday, May 23rd, 2014

San Jose, California (TADIAS) — It’s pleasantly surprising to see that San Jose, California Mayoral Candidate Sam Liccardo has released an Amharic version of his campaign literature entitled “Meet Sam Liccardo” (Sam Liccardoen Yitewawequ) targeting the city’s vibrant Ethiopian community. According to the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey California is one of eight states where Amharic tops the list as the most commonly spoken African language. Mr. Liccardo has already received the backing of the Ethiopian American Council (EAC) which is headquartered in the city.

The document, that is also translated into Spanish and Vietnamese, highlights the candidate’s biography as well as his position on various issues pertinent to the residents of San Jose — ranging from public safety to the economy, making government more responsible and responsive, better transportation, smart environmental policies, and building partnerships to improve schools.

The English translation posted on Liccardo’s campaign website notes that “He represents San José’s Third District on the San José City Council, one of the most diverse communities in our city. Prior to winning election to City Council, Sam served in the Santa Clara County District Attorney’s Office as a prosecutor of sexual assault and child exploitation crimes and as a federal prosecutor. Sam’s work in the community includes teaching government and political science at San José State University, co-founding an innovative program to mentor children, serving on the boards of several affordable housing organizations, and advocating for a successful countywide transit ballot measure in 2000 that is helping to bring BART [Bay Area Rapid Transit] to San José.”

The biography states: “Sam and his wife, Jessica García-Kohl, live in downtown’s Northside, which boasts San José’s oldest neighborhood association and the city’s most diverse group of residents. Sam and Jessica live not far from where Sam’s grandfather founded and ran a neighborhood grocery store, which was a center of life and assistance for generations of long-time residents and new arrivals to San José. After graduating from Bellarmine College Prep in San José, Sam attended Georgetown University. Sam graduated magna cum laude in 1991, and two years later, he enrolled at Harvard Law School and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. After graduating with a law degree and a master’s degree in public policy, Sam returned to the Bay Area in 1996.”

The primary election is set for June 3rd, 2014. Stay tuned for our interview with Sam Liccardo.

Click here to read Sam Liccardo’s Amhraic message.

Join the conversation on Twitter and Facebook.

Amharic Classes
By Agazit Abate

Published: Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Los Angeles – The Center for World Languages at the University of California, Los Angeles is offering Heritage and Foreign Language classes for High School students this summer 2011 – including for students who speak and/or understand Amharic at home and want to learn to read and write in Amharic or to develop their speaking and literacy skills.

The classes will be held from June 28- July 28, 2011 on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays from 9:00am- 12:30pm along with after lunch tutorials at the UCLA campus.

The languages currently being offered are Amharic, Armenian, Arabic, Chinese, Hindi, Italian, Persian and Russian. The language classes are specifically designed for heritage language students. This typically means that the student heard the language at home throughout their childhood, but was educated primarily in English. In addition to our heritage language classes, the center is now offering beginning Italian and Russian for any interested high school students.

The need to produce multilingual citizens in our society is evident. The need for our heritage classes in particular arose out of the realization that there were a group of students entering university who wouldn’t fit in either a beginning or an advanced foreign language class. Our heritage languages are also less-commonly taught languages and therefore high school students often don’t have access to formal schooling in their home languages. For this reason, our classes look specifically at their needs as heritage learners and seek to help them develop literacy in their home language while they are in high school so that by the time they continue their language studies at the University level, they can place into advanced language and literature courses.
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Enrollment is now open at www.hslanguages.ucla.edu. The fee is $150 and students may earn up to one year of High School foreign language credit.

For general information, contact Agazit at (310) 825‐2510 or cwl@international.ucla.edu.

Cover Image:
Students attend Amharic language lessons run by Washington D.C.’s Ethiopian Community Center. (Photo: Tadias File)

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