Judge Samuel Kiser in Amarillo, Texas, ruled that speaking Spanish to children in the home is not only an abusive act but relegates those children to a lower-income future. The judge has not yet been enlightened.

A young woman told me recently that had she not known folks to whom Spanish was the language in the home as they were growing up, she, too, would have had the same impression.

The truth of the matter is that there are thousands, perhaps millions, of us in this country who spoke exclusively Spanish at home and exclusively English at school and managed to succeed in our respective fields.

And a language, which a person has mastered, i.e., a first language, actually facilitates the acquisition of another language, especially when Latin is the basis for many words in both languages. If a person plays one musical instrument, the mastery of a second instrument will probably come easier.

Speaking a language other than English in the home doesn't preclude the need for learning English and learning it well. To this day, I am grateful to two English teacher I had when I was young.

Because I attended a very small school, we had the same teachers for several years. One teacher drilled us in grammar for four years and was followed by another teacher who exposed us to literature. She must have done a good job, for I can still quote Shakespeare and Lord Byron.

My father insisted that we speak Spanish at home because he believed that possessing two languages would assist us some day in whatever area we chose to study. In fact, he told us to try to study a third language when we had the opportunity.

I have translated for people in stores, in airports, churches, my neighborhood, schools and in a courtroom. Many have been the occasions at school or in offices where I've worked that someone has handed me the telephone and said, "This one's for you. They speak Spanish."

When I taught small children who were Spanish-speaking, I wrote some of my teaching material in Spanish so that the children would not miss out on learning about ordinal numbers, holidays, etc.

When the Carabelas came from Spain, I was able to converse with the sailors who came with the vessels across the Atlantic. When I've visited in Mexico I've been able to communicate wherever I went. My experiences are not unique. Many Americans share my experiences on a daily basis. And all because we spoke Spanish at home.

We are well aware of the need to speak English in this country, and, as an educator, I can especially see the long-term effects of a good education. But it is also obvious that the more knowledge a child has and the more languages a child speaks, the better equipped he/she will be in the future.

As for succeeding in the workplace, that can be directly attributed to a combination of various elements-parents who push and prod their children toward success, offspring who aim to do their best, and an education which prepares the youngsters for the nest step in the challenges of life. And some of these youngsters are going to be bilingual because of parents who see the benefit of speaking Spanish at home.