Cuban-Born Student Readjusts to Miami's Cuban Culture

Lisbet Ascon, 18, back center, does warm-up exercises during beginning-choral class at Miami Coral Park High School in Miami. The junior, who is Cuban-born, grew up in Cuba and Chile before moving to the United States when she was 16.

—Josh Ritchie for Education Week

By Christina A. Samuels

Listening to 18-year-old Lisbet Ascon today, one would be hard pressed to imagine her as a shy 16-year-old, protesting when her English-as-a-second-language teacher tried to get her to talk in class.

Born in Cuba and educated both in that island nation and in Chile, where she attended middle school, Ascon had taken some English classes, but not enough to feel comfortable when plunged into an English-only school after moving to the Miami-Dade County school system two years ago.

"I was scared of what people were saying, so I didn't speak anything," Ascon says. "[My teacher said] talk, you have to talk! I said, 'No, I don't want to'—but I said it...