Traverse City -- Angelica Paniagua wants to make her children proud.
She wants to learn English.
Angelica, 37, immigrated from Michoacan, Mexico, to the United States almost 10 years ago.
"It's one of my dreams to learn English," she said in Spanish, after an English lesson held at the Peninsula Township Library one recent evening.
"I want to communicate with people," she said. "I want to participate in the school with my children."
Angelica took some English classes in Mexico, but since forgot much of it. She's part of a small group taking weekly English lessons at the library from Dr. Charles Webb, a minister at Trinity Lutheran Church. He's also a retired physician who's been on five medical missions to Guatemala.
"What kind of things do you have in a garden," he asked the students during a recent class.
The students took turns pronouncing different kinds of vegetables. "Potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, peas, broccoli, corn."
Angelica attends the class with her husband, Guillermo, and other relatives. Their daughter, Cruz, 17, comes along to help.
Cruz attends Traverse City Central High School and speaks fluent English.
The Paniaguas have two sons and two daughters who range in age from five months to 17 years.
Guillermo works for Mutual Farm Management, a vineyard management company on the peninsula. Angelica also tended the grape vines before she had her baby.
They moved from Florida to Old Mission Peninsula eight years ago. When the family lived in Florida, they got along just fine because of the large Spanish-speaking population.
But it's a different story in largely homogenous Traverse City, so they're more encouraged to learn English, Cruz said.
Cruz estimates 90 percent of the Hispanic community on Old Mission Peninsula struggles with English.
"A lot of them call me once in a while and they need my help for school stuff or questions about a paper they get in the mail," she said. "I go to the emergency room with them and translate."
That's one of the reasons her uncle, Cristiano Paniagua, is studying English.
He wants to be able to communicate in case he needs medical attention. He also must know English for his job working in the peninsula's fruit orchards.
Cristiano said he wants "to know exactly what I have to do" at work.
He's been in the United States for six years. Before then, he worked as a migrant in Texas cotton fields.
His wife, Maria Calderon, had never been to the United States before moving here. She also works in the orchards.
For her, it's tough to speak and understand the English language.
"The two things are difficult because ... it's written in one form and pronounced in another," she said in Spanish.
Angelica often looks to her children for help.
"I try to learn the most that I can with my children," she said.
And they're not afraid to correct her.
Once, her 4-year-old son pointed to his mouth to demonstrate how the tongue moves when pronouncing the word "door."
But she'll keep at it so she can speak in English to her children, neighbors, pediatrician and most everyone else in the area who doesn't use her native language.
"Like my mom said, our neighbors, none of them speak Spanish," Cruz said. "And we have a few friends here on the peninsula that the only way to communicate with them is English, and they try so hard to communicate with my parents, and my parents try so hard to communicate with them too, but it's hard."
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