Chinese Government's Confucius Classroom Grants Spark Outrage in Hacienda Heights' Cedarlane MS District

From The St. Petersburg Times:

At a recent school-board meeting, Bobby Fraker and a dozen or more older, mostly white opponents of a Chinese government program that will fund a middle-school language class delivered fist-shaking denunciations.

"These children have young brains that are very malleable and they can be indoctrinated with things that America would not like," Fraker, a diminutive woman with tight auburn curls, implored board members, who approved the plan in January. Communities across the United States, from Smithfield, R.I., to Medford, Ore., have welcomed with open palms the so-called Confucius Classroom grants from the Chinese government, like the one proposed here for Cedarlane Middle School.

But Confucius is not going down smoothly in Hacienda Heights, a middle-class town about 16 miles east of downtown Los Angeles with a history of racial tensions between longtime residents and relatively recent Chinese newcomers. Ethnic Chinese comprise the majority of the school board.

The Cedarlane student body, meanwhile, is overwhelmingly Hispanic, with three out of every five students at the school qualifying for free or reduced-price meals, a poverty indicator, according to state data. The dustup may portend trouble for China's efforts to expand its cultural clout by bankrolling language programs in primary and secondary schools across the United States.

What I have a problem with is the fact that there are millions of poor people living in China, why won't their government help them instead of trying to get their hooks into people in other countries?

Read more:  Chinese gov't school grant divides SoCal community