El Pasoans -- especially those who recently arrived from Mexico -- will have to learn English if they want a better chance of landing a good-paying job that will help them overcome poverty.

Economists, looking for links between language and wages along the Texas-Mexico border, found that laborers who speak English tend to earn at least 5 percent more than those who speak only Spanish.

In a county in which 76 percent of the population speaks a language other than English at home and 29 percent of the population lives in poverty, experts said, the need for the blue-collar work force to learn English has never been more urgent.

"We tend to hear that living along the border, there is no need for an immigrant to ever speak English to get by," said Marie Mora, an economics professor at the University of Texas Pan American in Edinburg. "But the reality is that there is a penalty for not speaking English if you are a worker in the United States."

Mora and her husband, Alberto Dávila, also a professor at University of Texas Pan American, studied how English fluency affected the earnings of immigrants.

They found that even when factors such as self-employment are taken into consideration, English proficiency became an important determinant for earnings among foreign-born workers -- especially those from Spanish-speaking countries.

"The reality is that there aren't a lot of jobs for people who can speak Spanish only here in the United States," Mora said. "And those jobs that require no English do not pay well and have no real chance for advancement professionally or financially."

It is the need to bring more money home that drives people such as Maria Flores to take English as a second language classes for adults. The classes are offered at churches and other places, such as the Ysleta Community Learning Center.

Flores, a mother of three who earns less than $8 an hour working at an electrical manufacturing company on the East Side, is taking English classes in hope of moving into middle management.

"Supervisors make more money, but you need to speak English. I speak a little bit, but not good enough to be a supervisor," she said. "Being a supervisor would allow me to give my children a better life."

Mora said the lack of language skills and education could be the two most important factors keeping poor people from reaching their earning potential.

Maria Mercado, a bilingual education professor at New Mexico State University, said that promoting English among Spanish speakers -- young and old -- has become a necessity.

"The skill of being highly literate in English and Spanish is an important one to have when you're living in this area," said Mercado. She favors dual-language programs over traditional immersion programs in which the knowledge of Spanish wanes over the years.

"The border is its own context, and we live under its terms," she added. "Bilingualism is not only a tool for economic prosperity for Spanish speakers in this country, it's also the possibility for growth in business, education and the arts for everyone who lives around here."

Not all people in the area share Mercado's enthusiasm for bilingualism, and some even blame the area's reliance on Spanish for their economic hardships.

Alice Adams said she and her mother live off food stamps and a single Social Security check each month. Adams, who said she has a background in insurance, can't find a job.

"I have been trying for two years to find a job here in El Paso," said Adams, who lives in the Northeast. "I would rather be in Dallas or Chicago where you do not have to be bilingual to get a job, which is sad."

This article was published in Week 3 of the El Paso Times Poverty Series.