This winter, Susan Plann's "Latinos and Literacy," an upper-division Spanish course, took a few UCLA students back to familiar surroundings, neighborhoods where they grew up. Others in the class journeyed to a world they had never known, a place where, one student observed, "the things we have grown accustomed to in West Los Angeles, such as trendy clothes, luxury cars and cell phones, seem sorely out of place."

In all, 12 UCLA students ranging from business to philosophy majors, started the quarter learning theories of teaching Spanish-speaking adults how to read and write in Spanish. Then they tutored for four to six hours a week at community centers in South Central and the Pico-Union area, where immigrants - new arrivals as well as longtime residents from Central America and Mexico - desperately struggle to read and write in their native language.

At the two centers run by nonprofit groups, Centro Comunitario Villa Esperanza and Centro Comunitario Calle 8, the learning went both ways, students discovered.

"I have learned so much about the cycles of illiteracy and its lifelong implications," said UCLA student Caitlin Patler. One of the women she tutored described being illiterate like "drowning in a clear glass of water." Said Patler: "She could see out at the world around her, at everyone who is able to do so much with seemingly simple skills such as reading and writing. But she was trapped, drowning in her inabilities. She told me, 'Literacy will bring me freedom.' "

Without the ability to read in their own language, these immigrants are, in effect, trapped. Even ESL (English as a Second Language) classes cannot help most, Plann explained. Without Spanish literacy, many cannot make the jump to English because "there's no corresponding alphabetical literacy. If they first learn to read in Spanish, then it is much easier for them to learn to read in English."

Living away from their families, they cannot write letters back home. They can't even read street signs or use a bank.

Tutor Jose Hernandez, a neuroscience major, found that most of his tutees were cut off from education as children because their parents had died and they were raised by relatives to take over child care or do housework. "They all had stories like that," said Hernandez. "And it was a great experience that they could open up to us. Being unable to read or write affected their personal lives and the kinds of jobs they could get."

Plann's class, offered through the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, Chicana/o Studies and the Honors Collegium, is a model of service learning, classes that combine academic reflection and analysis with community service.

"If we were the Department of Spanish and Portuguese in Minneapolis, it might be different," said Plann. "But we are the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at a public university in a region where Hispanics comprise the largest ethnic group. In such a setting, instruction should not occur in isolation from the surrounding community. We are in an ideal position to serve as a bridge between the university and the greater Latino community."