Aaron Reyes darted between welding booths in a shiny Portland Community College lab on a recent Wednesday evening, checking in on his students’ projects.
Several students were struggling to weld metal over their heads, so he walked them through his go-to tricks. A popping sound propelled Reyes to check on a student who needed to increase his heat for a better weld. And as Reyes moved students from one workstation to the next, student Jing Yan asked him about the machines. Squatting, he walked her through the knobs and dials.
“Constant voltage,” he said, explaining that the power source was the same on both machines.
“Constant. Voltage,” Yan, who speaks Mandarin, repeated after him, sounding the words out.
Two nights a week, Reyes’ lab is filled with 13 English language learners enrolled in a new state-funded program to help them earn welding certifications and find jobs in the high-demand field. They speak several languages including Spanish, Arabic, Marshallese and Mandarin.
Students study welding and take tandem English language classes during two back-to-back terms over the course of six months. Everything from their tuition to their work gear is paid for.
“They can have a living wage job, and support themselves and their families, then come back to PCC for more English training, more welding training as they need it,” said Laura Horani, the college’s dean for adult education.
The college is paying for the new Integrated Education Training program for English Language Learners using part of a $2.8 million grant from the state’s Future Ready Oregon workforce training program. Portland Community College has set aside at least $100,000 to pay for student supports in these programs, pathways to opportunity dean Jaime Clarke said, but that doesn’t include the full cost of instruction and student materials.
The Future Ready Oregon funds, which are prioritized for communities of color, rural communities and other historically underserved groups, offered an opening to provide new equitable opportunities for students who are learning English, Horani said.
“In the past, I would say short-term programming often left behind students who spoke English as an additional language,” she said. “...They should have opportunities in the same ways as native English speakers.”
Reyes slings jokes across his classroom in Spanish and English, striking a jovial tone to keep energy high for the evening class. Reyes says he is just the second bilingual instructor in the welding program where both he and his father studied for their industry credentials.
Reyes started working in welding during high school, a career he returned to after five years in the Army and two combat tours in Iraq. He joined the teaching staff at Portland Community College four years ago, when he heard the school was looking for bilingual instructors.
“This is like another way to serve my country, serve my community,” Reyes said. “I can go from watching students come in with no background in welding and leave with a full, successful career.”
As a faculty member, Reyes tries to promote the program to veterans and Spanish speakers in the hopes of boosting diversity among program participants. Welding department leaders had wanted to start an English learner class for a while, Reyes said, but plans got postponed during the pandemic. This fall, the school brought the first new English learner cohort on board. Four of the 13 students are women. Portland Community College hopes to put about 30 English learners through the welding program this school year.
Portland Community College could not immediately provide data for the representation of English learners in the school’s welding or career technical education programs.
A breakdown of gender and racial demographics shows that male students make up the vast majority of the school’s welding students and most students are white. However, Latino students made up 20% of welders last school year, outpacing other minority student groups.
Reyes’ students have varying levels of technical experience – some have been welders in other countries, while others are construction, maintenance or agriculture workers looking to pick up new skills and boost their wages.
Abdul Ghani Nasrati, who had a welding career in Afghanistan, cuts a piece of metal in the Portland Community College welding lab, preparing for a stress test of his weld.
Abdul Ghani Nasrati worked in welding for two years in Afghanistan before immigrating to the United States last year. He worked as a cashier in a halal market and at other short-term jobs before enrolling in the welding program to start down his preferred career path. Nasrati moved to America with nine relatives including his wife, who gave birth to the couple’s third child last week.
“A lot of people come to America, they don’t think about their career… They think about how they can earn for (themselves) and their family,” he said. “I love my family. I help my family and after that I need to make my career.
“I want to be a great welder,” he added.
Last week, Nasrati worked through one of several self-paced projects in Reyes’ class, welding, cutting and grinding a piece of metal in preparation for Reyes to bend it in a stress-test. If the metal bent, and Nasrati’s weld didn’t break, Reyes would sign off that he had completed the skill, marking his progress toward earning a wire-welding certificate from the college and testing for industry certifications.
To qualify for the welding course, students had to be at least level-four English speakers, which equates to about a fourth to sixth grade language level, Horani said.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays, students report to their English support class, where they learn how to write, read and speak with a special emphasis on industry-specific terms they might need on the job site. When teaching students about prepositions, for example, English teacher Nanci Leiton used the welding shop layout for reference. Students practiced sentences like “the grinder is between the welding table and the large supplies,” Leiton said.
Leiton encourages her students to keep little notebooks in their pockets to write down welding shop words that perplex them. Last Thursday, students asked about “torches,” “birdnesting,” a euphemism for tangled wire and “concave root,” a groove that forms when a weld shrinks.
Huber Sandoval starts his days at 5:30 a.m., working long days at his agriculture job before reporting to the evening classes. It’s worth it, he said, to explore new opportunities and learn English skills that will help him market himself. Sandoval said he aspires to buy a house and wants to demonstrate to his teenage children the benefits of school, he said.
“English is a communication bridge towards a better future,” he said in Spanish. “I can offer what it is I know, like I am selling my work. Now, nobody is doing me a favor, but rather I am offering something and I am going to be competitive with other people.”
In addition to offering the classes for free, the community college pairs students with a job coach to help them transition into the industry.
It will be a new leap for student Yuly Bernal, 36, who worked in a nut-packing factory after immigrating to the U.S. in 2016 and is currently working as a delivery driver. Bernal grew up surrounded by welding in her native Colombia, where her father used the skill as a mechanic, but she never studied it herself. Bernal learned about the welding program during a Portland Community College English course, she said, where college staff encouraged women to participate.
One month into the class, she’s hooked on a new career path.
“I’m one of those people who, when I have an opportunity, I learn,” Bernal said in Spanish. “I dared (to sign up for the program). The reality is that I have enjoyed it a lot.”
Census data shows that Portland Community College graduates who earn a short-term welding certificate make an average of $34,000 in their first year out of school and over $40,000 on the high-end. The college advertises an average salary around $54,000 for welders in the Portland area.
The certificate program will prepare English learners for heavy-duty welding, Reyes said, like working on structures, trains and ships.
Several participants told The Oregonian/Oregon Live that they can make as much or more money as novice welders as they make now, after years of experience in their current jobs. Their pay will increase as they gain experience.
Walter Rodriguez, a Spanish-speaker who works in apartment maintenance, said his earnings potential will max out around $20 an hour in that field. He’s seen welding positions that pay closer to $40 an hour.
“In just a short amount of time, I could double my income,” Rodriguez said in Spanish. “Here, the more you learn, the more you earn.”
Rodriguez applauded Portland Community College for offering the class for free in the evening outside of regular work hours. He appreciates the challenge of learning a new skill, he said, and having a Spanish speaking instructor. He and Reyes have bonded over their shared roots. Rodriguez immigrated from the same part of Mexico as Reyes’ family, he said.
Reyes hopes that his background as a bilingual person of color, and the stories of his students from Afghanistan, Turkey, Colombia and beyond, will help build the reputation of the college’s welding program as a place for students of any background to come study for their next career.
“You hear the American dream doesn’t exist anymore,” Reyes said. “Looking at these students, it’s still there. You just have to reach for it.”
Portland Community College plans to run a second Integrated Education Training program for another 13-15 welding students next term, administrators say, and to keep offering similar programs after the Future Ready Oregon funds run out. Students who want to sign up can fill out a program interest form, here: bit.ly/PCCIET
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Sami Edge covers higher education for The Oregonian. You can reach her at sedge@oregonian.com or (503) 260-3430.