Why Speak English in America?
Recently some parents on a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) advisory council got a little crazy. Though I’m sure they’d prefer it if I said they went “un poquito loco.”
The Los Angeles Times reports that Spanish-speakers walked out of a council meeting this month after African-American parents censured the chairman for bad behavior. This followed months of disagreement and back-and-forth arguing. The acrimony can be traced back to February, when Roberto Fonseca started to give his chairman’s report in Spanish. According to the Times:
Some in the audience objected; arguments and recriminations ensued, and school police rushed over amid concerns that a fistfight would break out, witnesses said.
The obvious question is this: why did Fonseca (who is bilingual) think it was appropriate to run the meeting in Spanish? After all, African-Americans are well represented on the council, and many of the Latino parents speak English. Furthermore, current bylaws stipulate that all parent meetings across the district be held in English.
Apparently Fonseca took the opportunity to challenge those bylaws, motivated by a lawyer’s conclusion that the English-only rule was illegal and impractical and the district’s assurance that it would not be enforced. The LAUSD probably fears the reactions of parents like Guadalupe Aguiar, who told the Times that it is “racist when parents are told that, in America, they have to speak English.”
Ms. Aguiar’s logic has already cast the Salvation Army in the role of bigots. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sued the charity back in March for requiring workers to speak English on the job. The EEOC claims that two employees at the Salvation Army’s Framingham, Mass., thrift store were fired “on the basis of their national origin.” As John Fund reports in the Wall Street Journal, however, the Salvation Army’s English-only policy was clearly posted, and the workers were given a year’s notice that they should speak English while on duty.
That wasn’t good enough for Rep. Charles Gonzalez of Texas. The Hispanic Democrat is quoted in the Journal as saying, “If it is not relevant, it is discriminatory, it is gratuitous, it is a subterfuge to discriminate against people based on national origin.” This type of heated rhetoric made its way to the House Floor on Nov. 8, when Rep. Luis Gutierrez of Illinois called English-only requirements symbolic of “bigotry and prejudice.”
But not all politicians think it’s racist to insist that employees speak English when working in America. In fact, Gonzalez and Gutierrez were reacting to an amendment introduced by Lamar Alexander from Tennessee. Alexander’s legislation would shield employers from federal lawsuits if they refuse to hire non-English speakers. The amendment passed the Senate by 75-19 last month, and, more recently, the House by 218-186, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is determined to kill it.
This Congressional bickering calls to mind the Senate’s passage of the Inhofe Amendment, which would have designated English as the national language had the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act passed the House last year. Though the proposal wouldn’t have made English the nation’s official language, it did declare that no one has a “right, entitlement or claim to have the government of the United States or any of its officials or representatives act, communicate, perform or provide services or provide materials in any language other than English.” Senator Harry Reid said the proposal was — wait for it — racist.
But are you really discriminating against non-English speakers when you pressure them to speak English, or are you actually doing them a great favor? My brief career as an elementary school teacher for the LAUSD taught me that it’s the latter.
For several years I proctored the California English Language Development Test (CELDT), which tests the English proficiency of students whose primary language is other than English. I can’t tell you how many times I sat across from students, who, having recently arrived from Mexico or El Salvador, were unable to speak even a word of English. Since I couldn’t give them any instructions or tips in Spanish, they became very frustrated when they were unable to find the right word to identify pictures of basic things like apples or cars.
Fast-forward a few years and those very same students now know that the opposite of “wide” is “narrow,” and they can write in complete sentences. It turns out that English immersion, which was mandated in California by Proposition 227, does not irreparably harm immigrant children. In the long run, it improves their confidence and ability to succeed academically.
Some argue that bilingual education is just as effective as English immersion, but I’ve seen firsthand that that’s not the case. One third-grade teacher at my school primarily spoke to her English as a Second Language (ESL) students in Spanish. Because she usually requested me as a substitute teacher, I was able to see how her students did not improve their language skills rapidly, since they used Spanish as a crutch whenever they had difficulty expressing themselves. Similarly, my Spanish didn’t get any better when I spent a year abroad in Spain during college, due to the fact that I constantly talked with the other Americans, also in my program, in English.
Real discrimination is, in fact, much more likely to occur when educators focus on accommodation over immersion. The family of Alek Villaraldo has filed a $700,000 lawsuit against the Hillsboro School District in Oregon because the young boy spent kindergarten and a portion of first grade in an ESL program alongside Spanish speakers with limited proficiency. Alek actually only speaks English, but school officials viewed him as Latino first and placed him accordingly. Remarkably, the ESL teacher pointed to Alek’s “Mexican ancestry” when the boy’s parents complained to the school.
My wife is of Spanish ancestry (I met her during that year abroad), and the question we are most often asked is what language we speak at home. The answer is that we almost always talk to each other in English unless we are visiting her family in Spain (oh, or when she’s angry at me). Our Los Angeles condo is what you might call an “English-only” location. As a result, she’s picked up the language much quicker, and improved her performance at work. Obviously, she’s not the only immigrant to America who has benefited from being able to speak English. As Jose Martin Samano, TV Azteca’s U.S. anchor, has said, “Immigrants here in the U.S. can make up to 50% or 60% more if they speak both English and Spanish.” That’s bad news for the 10 percent of the population that can’t speak English well or at all, and one reason why four out of five Hispanics think it is “very important” that people are able to speak English in America.
One final note: There’s a fine line between gratuitous meanness and setting standards. I have in mind a story that made headlines last year about the Philadelphia cheesesteak shop owner who posted a sign stating: “This is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING ‘PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.’” It’s one thing to demand that employees speak the language of business on the job; it’s quite another to require it of all customers, even when they may be tourists.
A story told to me by a friend should drive this point home. After a long train ride to Paris on a vacation, he tiredly walked up to an information booth at the station. The Union Flag sticker assured him that he wouldn’t have to open up the French for Dummies book to ask for hotel information. This is the answer he received (in perfect English, mind you):
“This is France. We don’t speak English here.”
By hurting the chances of immigrants to reach their full potential in America, politicians like Reid and Pelosi are acting just as cruel as the rude Frenchman.
Aaron Hanscom is a Los Angeles-based editor for PJ Media; his own blog is Scribblings.
Why speak English?
It’s quite simple and clear: E plurbus unum.
Balkanization isn’t part of the deal. It never was and never should be.
I think there is something to be said about tailoring your speech to your audience. At the risk of oversimplifying, if the majority of who you are speaking to better understand the Spanish language then I don’t see anything wrong with using it.
I had almost the same exact experience in Paris last week!
I couldn’t agree more with how important English immersion is. You make a fine point.
An early Dylan song ended, “I’d get up on the stage, sing and play,
And the man there said ‘Go away’.
“You sound like a hillbilly…
We want folksingers here.”
Aw geeze, do I have to ‘splain it?
Here is why employers SHOULD mandate “English only” in many employment situations.
I was in the McDonald’s in Thurmont, Maryland last week in the morning and 2 Hispanic men were talking to an Hispanic woman in Spanish. They used vile language to describe a person as, among other things, a prostitute. I’m lily white so they assumed I can’t speak Spanish fluently.
If that conversation had been in English and the manager heard them, he would have been appalled, told them to clean it up and considered firing them for using that language and subject in the store in front of customers. Their conversation was embarrassing and certainly laid the grounds for being sued under sexual harrassment laws.
The owner of a business should know what his employees are saying, particularly in this era of harrassment lawsuits.
If you have 2 people interviewing for a job and they are equally qualified except one doesnt speak english, who gets the job?
I agree with france. They are not being rude. Its their country. Speak french. Just as in the united states, speak english.
I do disagree with Aaron’s last sentence. To equate Reid and Pelosi (who are more flexible with making English the only language) with the French (who are the opposite) appears to be a poor conclusion. It seems that Aaron likes to equate any group on the other side of an issue with “rude Frenchman.”
I can confirm first hand the need for immersion. I took 3 years of Spanish in high school, my last year the instructor was actually from Spain, in fact was moving back b/c of hubby’s work. To this day I can’t speak a lick of spanish. Sure, I can ask where the bathroom is and for another beer, ok important, but it hardly classifies as being fluent. If you have to learn a language and do not use it on a constant basis, especially if you live in a foreign nation, you are never going to be proficient. Language can be a very powerful unifying force and english should be the official language for this country for business and government.
The issue is “you come to America to be American”. You leave your culture and language behind and adopt American culture. If the deal doesn’t work for you, stay home.
Let’s give some straight talk here (insert condescending John McCain voice):
It is MORE racist to refuse to speak the language of the nation in which you are living, and hopefully thriving. Congressional Democrats like Pelosi and Reid, like most elite liberals, are so afraid of being labeled insensitive or racist that they lie in the face of facts. So typical and why, as a former Democrat, I left that party when I matured.
Speaking Spanish and Spanish only dooms one to failure, or at the best, mediocrity in America. And that is not racist either. Just as if I moved to my fiancee’s native Colombia and spoke English only, I’d have trouble succeeding. This is not a complicated issue at all. She and her parents moved here, like my great grandparents, and immediately learned English. Success followed.
I will say though, as someone who taught school in LA but now lives in the midwest, this is a major problem far more so in LA, NYC, Miami et al type towns than here. There are nearly 100,000 Hispanics in Indiana, growing at a more rapid rate than nearly anywhere in the nation. I have yet to meet one who does not speak English. It just makes sense. No one get coddled in real America.
We need one single language to bind us all together otherwise we run the risk of turning against each other as has happened in to many other parts of the world. For those of you who scoff at that idea and think that it can never happen in America you are very, very mistaken.
My two sons who came here from Romania as teenagers are intense in their support for English-only and their frustration with bilingual education.
Americans don’t need to be insulting or angry about it, just firm. That people assume that your only motivation must be racism says more about them than you.
Racism has nothing to do with mandating English be spoken in the public sphere of our lives. It is simply a practical thing to do. The Democrats race card the issue out of political necessity. They must turn minorities into self pitying “victims” to have any realistic chance whatsoever of capturing the White House. A drop of even a few percentage points will result in a disaster on election day.
Why all the emphasis on Spanish? There are people in Chinatowns all over America who have been in this country for decades but who still live their entire lives in Chinese — and more monolingual, monocultural immigrants are joining them every day. Yet somehow they’re not seen as a dire threat to the Republic.
I wonder why.
This influx of “I wants” spanish speakers, apparently want it all. I could be very wrong but this constant accomodation is and will continue to dumb-down america. More than any other group, they break our laws, use our social services to the point of hospital closures in southern california, commit crimes against americans, break our immigration laws and now want to sue us if we ask them to speak english?
Does anyone feel a fall of an empire gaining momentum?
this is america. this is not some annex to the south. Why is it being treated as such? And to what benefit?
the united states was made a nation by english speaking people. every immigrant who has ever come to the american shores from day one, learned the english language because they wanted to succeed and assimilate properly into their host country for the american dream they came here specifically for.
Why do the spanish speakers people think they should be treated any different than more grandparents who came in from europe, and how is it that they somehow feel they deserve to be accomodated? Do they are want to turn america into the decrepid 3rd world disfunctional countires from which they came or they are too lazy to assimilate they way all other immigrants have or are they not adequately bright enough to be up to the task to learn their host country’s language?
there are many other foreign language speakers here who figure out that they are NOT in russia, iraq, italy, kenya, germany, philippines, vietnam, sweden, india, korea, japan, greece anymore and the list goes on. do we ALSO owe it to these immigrants to change our language? The language that served to make every other country teach their young ones its language because ENGLISH was and hopefully still is the common language of cross communication and commerce – except of course for mexico, who does not ( from what i understand) teach their young ones english.
In this respect, “this is France – we speak French” so get with the program, I have to wholeheartedly agree with them.
The word is not yet clear which candidates for election will “man up” drop the political correctness disease that is weakening a leader in the world. Once he or she does, they can rest assured they will have PLENTY of votes.
I live in Spain and I have some English speaker acquaintance. They not only bother themselve to learn the Spanish language, but they also have told me in different occasions that it’s easier for them to learn the language in our country, because we don’t force ourselves to speak English, while in our country. Why should I carry a conversation in a foreing language in my own country? If I want to speak English I’ll go to britain or USA or autralia or wherever is spoken, don’t you think?
Bilingual education for younger children is completely unnecessary. I’m assuming, of course, that we’re talking about the purpose of bilingual education being to help students make a transition to all-English education. I don’t believe that is the agenda of “bilingualists.”
I’m not being presumptious. My siblings and I learned Italian through total immersion in Italian schools. I was the oldest at age 7, yet became fluent (by child standards) in a year-and-a-half, and even became a whiz at Italian grammar and writing. We became fully bilingual as a result.
Great piece, Aaron. And I greatly agree with you and the need for immersion in English in order to succeed in our country.
Last year, I became aquainted with one of The Lost Boys of Sudan who’s now living here in Middle Tennessee. After leaving Sudan, walking to Ethiopia and then back to Sudan and finally to Kenya, he and his clan lived for almost ten years in refuge tent camps where they were educated in British schools.
While he can read and understand English quite well today, his English speech skills leave much to be desired. He has a very thick accent and runs his words together. So much so, that when we have coffee from time to time, I have to work very hard to read his lips and ask him to repeat himself and enunciate more clearly. He’s slowly working his way through college. I’ve told him repeatedly that he needs to speak more clearly in order to succeed in America.
Aguto came to our family Thanksgiving dinner where he was warmly welcomed. However, the overwhelming consensus of family was that he urgently needs to speak better and more understandable English in order to pull himself up by his boot straps. No amount of education and smarts will overcome poor speaking skills.
All this to say, it’s not just a Spainish to English problem. And it’s not just a matter of reading and listeng to English. One must also speak clearly in order to increase one’s chances of success.
My first instinct when hearing a proposal for “accommodating speakers of other languages” (No kidding, that’s what it’s called now.) is to submit a paper against it with each paragraph written in a different language, say, Cambodian, Korean, Urdu and Esperanto. This would make clear the problems with their proposal.
Bi-lingual doesn’t mean that you speak English and Spanish. It can also mean that you speak Portuguese and Swahili.
If you have spent any time at all in the Far East you have probably noticed all the advertisement for learning English by immersion. Do you think that all those people are mistaken?
Aaron, please keep in mind that the USA is already a multilingual country and always has been. The English-speaking Pilgrims were preceded by many peoples here and, as a matter of standard law, the founder languages of the preceding peoples have full legal status.
Thus, native American languages like Cherokee have full legal recognition. So does Hawaiian in Hawaii, and French in Louisiana and Maine.
So, in fact, does Spanish, which preceded English throughout the whole territory of the USA in Florida (St. Augustine) and New Mexico (Santa Fe). Spanish in particular has full legal equality with English dating all the way back to the Mexican-American War in the Southwestern states. This was an especially bloody and painful war and it remains a black mark in relations between the Anglo and Latino peoples. (Similar in Florida, for different reasons.) Therefore, based on a variety of agreements and also simply to maintain some harmony in light of a fractious history, Spanish in states such as California, Texas and Arizona enjoys status as an equal to English. Spanish is categorically *not a foreign language* in the USA, it is one of the native tongues in an enormous swath of the nation.
Things may be different in some other regions. But in Southwestern states (and in Florida), double-language teaching, using Spanish at a fundamental level, is entirely justified, consistent and indeed necessary based on the region’s history and laws that date back all the way to the Mexican War and its consequences. This is a reality of our history and society that we have to recognize.
Besides the legal imperatives, there’s also simple economics– anyone in a state like California who doesn’t learn Spanish, is frankly a fool. It’s been a part of this state’s history since before it even became part of the USA, and Spanish is always fundamental to the cultural fabric of the SW states.
From what I’ve seen, ESL programs result in students who are illiterate in two languages. ESL may be easy for the students and teachers but easy doesn’t generally get results.
Fast forward 20 years… “Math is racist”. Then again, I’ve been hearing math illiterates decrying “White Man’s Math” for quite some time and, oddly enough, it comes from rather unsuccessful people.
Paul K :
Aaron, please keep in mind that the USA is already a multilingual country and always has been. The English-speaking Pilgrims were preceded by many peoples here and, as a matter of standard law, the founder languages of the preceding peoples have full legal status.
Paul, Please cite which law you are referring to which would be applicable in this case. Also, should American Indians have been forced to speak the language prevelant before they came across the land bridge from Asia? BTW, what language was that? Why didn’t the law enforce itself in that case?
If Americans started living in Mexico or Quebec, would it be fair for us to demand that everyone else speak english? They’d laugh at us, and I don’t see how the situation is any different for Mexicans coming to the States.
That said, I LIVE in a foreign country where nearly everyone speaks English: the Netherlands. I could walk nearly anywhere to do business or engage in employment, and do it all entirely in English… and yet learning Dutch is still very important. Before I could everytime I was at parties, or among others and they spoke Dutch, I was instantly alienated from the conversation, unable to participate, unable to know what was going on. Since I’ve learned Dutch, I’ve become much more confident at doing business, going shopping and making friends.
My experience with Mexicans is that they are a friendly, hard-working people, and we could certainly do worse than them. But if they don’t know the language, they come across as xenophobic and isolated. The mexicans I worked with would sit alone and chat among each other, unable to relate to tne english speakers. Any attempt to address them in spanish got warm responses in return.
Imagine how much happier they would be if they could just speak English and participate? People act like demanding Mexicans learn English is some sort of racism, but it’s not! Anymore than forcing this American to learn Dutch was. It’s a hard reality and a gift: To be able to culturally relate to those around you, you must speak the language. Failure results in isolation, success results in opportunity. Denying Mexicans the chance to learn English (and constantly speaking spanish to them will do just that, as it was very hard for me to learn Dutch when all the shopkeepers and colleagues would automatically switch to English when I walked into the room…) isn’t “multiculturalism,” it’s alienation and exile to a permanent second class.
Disgraceful. Integration and Assimilation doesn’t mean “abandon all your roots!” Nobody cares if mexicans enjoy tacos and dance latino dances. Heck, we like that too. Integreation and Assimilation means “Get all the tools you need to operate in our country.”
No, Paul, the USA has always been an English-speaking country. While there were speakers of other languages living in territory the USA purchased or conquered after the original colonies and speakers of other languages have always come to live here, all the government, commerce and education for the actual USA have been conducted in English from the beginning. Bi-lingual accommodation is extremely recent. Also, the Mexican-American War is only a sore spot to the Reconquista people because Mexico lost; the rest of us have moved on. Spanish is in no more a native language to the Americas than English is – both were brought to North America by European colonialists (and to the southern and western US via Mexican/Spanish colonialists who took land from the American Indians). Other languages have required recognition because they are not widely used across the US – English is. (I would guess Paul to be a humanities professor at UT Austin with his perspective and grasp of history).
I live in Texas and my son went to pre-school with a young boy named Omar whose Mexican (legal) parents put him in the private church school to immerse him in English to prepare him for elementary school. School started in September and by *January* this little boy who spoke no English on the first day of school was speaking well enough to have play-dates with my son. It was an amazing demonstration of the effectiveness of immersion. However, his mom Marissa had to enlist the help of her employer on Omar’s entry into kindergarten because, in her naivete, Marissa had listed “Spanish” as the language spoken at home, thus triggering Omar’s automatic placement in bi-lingual education. Marissa, who speaks only Spanish, was furious (“Omar speaks English!”) and told me that she had to fight the school board rather hard to get Omar placed in regular classes. She felt strongly that he would succeed best where he spoke English most.
Immersion is the only proven way to adopt a foreign language quickly and well. All my relatives from other countries have done it and speak English well. It is racist to insist that learning English is some impossible, overwhelming task that no one is capable of except native-born Americans.
Alek actually only speaks English, but school officials viewed him as Latino first and placed him accordingly.
In Singapore, everyone learns English – it’s the official language – along with their “mother tongue”, which is either Mandarin, Malay or Tamil. This can be a problem for the Peranakan minority that is ethnically Chinese but culturally Malay. A Peranakan friend of mine, who spoke as much Chinese as she did Swedish, needed extensive tutoring in Mandarin because the schools refused to treat her as Malay.
I don’t see how anyone could possibly be AGAINST only-English.
I work with many Russians; all of whom speak English, most of them very well. We conduct business almost entirely in English.
When I went to Moscow, business stayed in English, but everything else was in Russian. My poor broken Russian left me feeling very isolated. If I were there for any significant time, I would certainly become at least passable in Russian – it’s miserable otherwise.
Who wants to ghettoize (is that a word?) themselves?
English needs to be the official language of the United States, that is, the ONLY official language of Government and the Law. Why? Because there simply is no 100% reliable translation between the US laws, and say, romance languages like Spanish or Italian, or eastern languages like Hindi or Chinese that will mean the same thing in both languages. A non-English language could not possibly convey the historical connotations and nuances of the English words in our laws, based as they are on English Common Law and its centuries-long history. We must unify around a common language of Government and the Law. That it must be English is only common sense.
Bilingual education provides the economy with a steady supply of mostly-illiterate people who fill our low-pay, no-future chump jobs.
I say, follow the money. I’d bet the hospitality industry is behind bilingual education.
I spent 2.5 years working in France for a French laboratory. One day I took a visiting American friend, now a physics professor, to Versailles to do a little focused gawking. He didn’t speak any French, so we were conversing in English. There were three other occupants of our train car, two elderly French ladies, and a gorgeous and well dressed young French woman. The ladies were carrying on about Mike and myself in French: ‘Well isn’t it awful that the government allows perverted languages to be spoken in France.’ ‘And these foreigners have now respect for us, using their vulgar language in front of us.’ This went on for about five minutes, and it was funny enough that I did a running translation for Mike so he wouldn’t miss it. Then the young woman had had enough. She closed her book, and staring straight ahead, exclaimed: (in French) ‘You ladies are full of S**t, just like my mother.’ That stopped things for about thirty seconds, while the aghast ladies pulled themselves together. Then they started in with: ‘Well, isn’t it awful that the younger generation has now respect for their elders?’ ‘And their betters.’ etc.
I wouldn’t try to compel everyone to speak English at all times because then they couldn’t make fools of themselves in front of everyone. But I do not see how you can conduct a public meeting for purposes of governance in a mixture of languages. Such meetings should be exclusively in English. When I interact with the French administration, I always speak French.
There is a hidden cost to non-same language speakers working together and I see it on a regular basis. I am an architect. On many job sites, there will be no English speakers among the construction personnel. So, we use my high school Spanish (from forty seven years ago) to struggle through instructions that really aren’t. They become more like mis-understood suggestions. Then, the job will be re-done several times, each time getting a bit closer to what is needed. The skill of the workmen is not the issue, but the ultimate understanding of the work to be done is. The worker who does not understand spoken English is not likely to understand drawings done in English, either.
I worked for a year and a half in Germany. And, there, I was a moderately better than useless architect since my German was only moderately better than useless. I never thought that the Germans should all have spoken English since I didn’t speak German adequately. I spoke German only on slightly more than a conversational level. Fortunately for me, I was employed by the U.S. government and much of my work was for the government.
Work that must be done over and over costs money no matter in whatever language it is done.
Woody
English is very necessary in the workplace in the U.S., unless you are dealing with customers and employees who all speak the other common languages.
If a ladder is falling or a ceiling is caving in and and a co-worker does not understand English, other employers are required to know how to say, “Jump!” or “Get out of the way!” in twelve different languages?
@Richard Aubrey
Good call about following the money, though I think it’s the social services “industry” and its minions who are pushing this abomination.
As an immigrant I find bi-lingual education to be an abomination. The sum of the whole is less than the parts. What you wind up with people who are effectively illiterate in two languages. Yes you can spend your entire life speaking Spanish in parts of Los Angeles, Miami and in other areas. That’s fine if your ambition in life is to be a dishwasher or a manual laborer. An interesting point is that wealthy Latins make sure their children are fluent in English. But then again their ambition in life for their kids is several notches higher than the barrio.
if one only speaks one language, one is not educated. this is just a stupid controversy. what happens in a class room is for the the parents and teacher to decide. you cannot have a free country and live in liberty with the state micromanaging everyone’s language behavior. English is ugly. it is not the “official” state tongue. it is the language of crackers, true, but really do the rest of us have to suffer it’s ugly crudity to please the yahoo sector? in the interest of liberty, art and all that is good, i think everyone needs to learn to conduct their lives and homes in Chinese. we will all be better off when we can conduct complex communication in the many languages available that are superior to the ugly crude idiom of the worlds newest evil empire. end o story.
I’d be interested in hearing from the African-Americans referred to in the article. Do they accept the idea that they are racists because they wanted the meeting conducted in English? I bet not.
It’s really stupid to say people who push English are racists but people who push Spanish are not. They’re both the languages of lily white European countries, aren’t they?
Yeah, how dare someone be pressured into speaking one white man’s language instead of another white man’s language, right?
@ Paul K – Spanish in equal regard? Man, the Spanish spoken here is more like a pidgin language then anything else. Heavily mixed with English or using slang terms. I wouldn’t even say it’s real language, just a random collections of words and phrases vomited forth by the uneducated as a rudimentary form of communication.
Paul K, guys like you would be funny if you weren’t so dangerous. The easy way to ram unpopular decisions through a meeting would be to have the meeting in a language most people there don’t understand.
One reason I don’t want to live in California is the fact that Spanish speakers seem to want to mandate Spanish. It’s not that I mind Spanish, it’s that I’m working on three other languages. I don’t dislike Hispanics, I’m just more interested in learning about my own heritage.
The minority group I belong to spends millions every year to teach our children our ethnic language and culture and we do it outside public schools. And we are criticized for keeping our children out of public schools.
For a real comedy show, imagine what would happen if a government meeting in Brooklyn were run in Irish, Italian, or Yiddish. How would Hispanic activists react?
GCBLUES,
If you spoke every language known to man, you would still be an maleducated and arrogant hate-monger.
I see this as a total non-issue. Everyone knows that economic advancement requires English.
If you don’t learn English, you are not going to advance economically.
Thus, even if millions of illegals continue to come to America, US GDP will still reside in the hands of English speakers. Period.
Note how successful immigrant groups, like Indians, Chinese, and Koreans, NEVER complain about having to learn English. Their kids are the ones who go to the best colleges.
Um, Mike, I think that GCBlues was kidding…
As for the issue, I think that Yaakov is on to something here.
The Democrats want to keep the majority of Mexicans ignorant of English in order to be able to dominate & control the Mexican vote. One of these days, the blacks are going to move off the Democratic plantation, & the Democrats are grooming the Mexicans to take their place.
Or is it that liberals think that Mexicans are too stupid to learn English?
“Speaking Spanish and Spanish only dooms one to failure, or at the best, mediocrity in America.” Where activists want to take us is to the creation of law that compels ‘success’ for those who do not speak English. If they have their way we will face laws/regulations that mandate ‘success’ for non-English speakers. The groundwork is being laid via the Salvation Army suit and others. Pelosi is on board with this hence her killing amendments which would have protected the SA and others from such dangerous and costly lawsuits.
I would encourage all Americans to speak at least two languages: English and one or more others of your choice, heritage, or whatever.
Imagine a world without English speaking peoples…
No flush toilets, no toilet paper, no electrical grid, no air conditioning, and a few other million no’s to so many things we take for granted today…
I followed you right up to your conclusion then you lost me. The actions of Pelosi and Reid in no way resemble your final example.
Yes, immersion is great, my mother confirmed this often enough, however, my grandfather on the other side who spoke a deep Scottish brogue, which technically I believe is English, remained terminally incomprehensible.
Let’s not become overwrought over the language thing. Language is too much fun to go messing it up with emotional politics. As far as government printing things in other languages, we’ve always done that and hopefully will continue. Look, is it such a problem to rip off and toss the portions of the user’s manual that don’t apply to you? Better yet, you can use them to see how other people say things. Get ahold by matching up the clip art like Champollion’s cartouches.
Been thinking about this a little more in light of persiflage’s comment, reproduced here to save everyone from doing a back search :
“English needs to be the official language of the United States, that is, the ONLY official language of Government and the Law. Why? Because there simply is no 100% reliable translation between the US laws, and say, romance languages like Spanish or Italian, or eastern languages like Hindi or Chinese that will mean the same thing in both languages. A non-English language could not possibly convey the historical connotations and nuances of the English words in our laws, based as they are on English Common Law and its centuries-long history. We must unify around a common language of Government and the Law. That it must be English is only common sense.”
I think persiflage has hit on something important. English is not just a common language for Americans that could, in theory, be any other common language. It is a language which contains our history as a country. It contains the legal language on which our institutions rest, the language of a literature which reflects our understandings of human relationships, a language of poetry extending from the universities to the streets. It is, in a very deep way, who we are.
Those of us who understand this are insisting that immigrants absorb this language and become one of us. Sure, they will bring things with them, including their ancestral languages, that will be absorbed into who we are and in some manner change us all. But to refuse to accept English is to refuse to become an American.
If you don’t want to become an American, what are you doing in America?
I think this is at the core of the anti-illegal sentiment in this country. We accept immigrants who want to become Americans, and who learn to speak our language, observe our customs and laws.
We reject those who do not accept our laws, do not want to learn our language, and who are, in essence, coming here with their bodies but leaving their souls at home.
The failure to learn English is pretty good evidence that someone does not want to become an American. And the people who don’t think that English should be our common language are either deeply ignorant of what language means, or deliberately putting political ends above the common good.
When we arrived in Wisconsin in 1975, my two children (10 & 8 at the time) were enrolled in normal classes in the local school. They got a modicum of extra english instruction but were otherwise mainstreamed. It was tough for them, but between the school and saturday morning cartoons they were at age appropriate language levels 6 months later.
Now they may have been geniuses (they are not) but they are now fully functional professionals (MD & physicist) and bilingual. Why deprive your children of most possibilities when they learn another language quite easily.
When we moved to New York state in 1978 the english teacher of my youngest, a clueless woman with an M.A. in english from a fairly well known ‘ivy’ was surprised how fast he could “translate an english question to his native tongue, find the answer, translate back to english and give her the answer.” I did not have the heart to tell her that he, like most others, did not think in one language and speak another at the same time. It did give me pause though to contemplate what she had been taught in college. Unfortunately my youngest (born in the US) and a teacher has enlightened me with the clap-trap passing for education in teacher colleges, which explained why we had to teach the hard stuff at home to give them a chance.
Of cause it is another thing if you want to keep them permanently down and dependent, which seems to be happening to large swats of inner city blacks and a lot of hispanics. The difference between the people from Puerto Rico and Cuba have been most illustrative.
Make your children free – teach them english so they can use it when they want – but keep their roots awake as well. Kids can handle both in spite of what their teachers think.
Oh by the way… to be accurate as one Samuel Langhorne Clemens pointed out in the 1880ies – nobody in the US speaks english, they speak american.
hola senor mike pukett,
muchisimas gracias por sus palabras. cuando uno gringo con sus educacion dice este a mi, yo pienso yo es einstein. gracias, gracias, gracias.
now granted my spanish is nuttin but street spanish, but an american with as many hispanics as we have and the millions more that we will have is an idiot to not learn at least enough to order tacos, a beer and flirt with a girl. not to mention the fact that spanish is the language of the majority in our little global corner of the world known as the americas. that gringos react so importantly about english is a pathetic hoot.
language is transient. things change. the globe is smaller every day. the e.e.u.u., or as you know it, the usa, is being left behind. if you think english is important just think of all those dead languages from attic greek to latin to sioux, crow, and and and. which do you think will join them first, english, spanish, farsi, or chinese? stuff happens. be flexible. get over yerselves. enjoy life. learn a few languages and you’ll be less anally absorbed. believe it or not there is a lot of great stuff out there to discover. use up dem passports,fill em wid stamps from all over, you’ll never regret it. i took the drive from oregon to costa rica, wow, talk about an education. an adventure. as a rule, gringos are way too inflexible and ethno centric. here let me put it another way. a great people have no need to go around chest thumping and telling everyone how great they are. besides our mouths, we have eyes and ears. use em.
I am a speaker of English as a second language. I was born and raised in Portugal and did not learn English until I was 14, and then it was only something spoken in school. I didn’t come to the States until I was 22.
I will grant you that I majored in English in college — and yet when I came to the states, my language was stilted and foreign sounding.
I am now a published author, with well over a dozen novels sold (yes, to major houses, not self-published.)
We speak English at home — not much choice, as the only other option for my husband is French and his French is none too hot. My kids speak English. Because I am of Portuguese ancestry, we’ve been told that I should teach the children Spanish (!) often enough. And I’ve been told that Portuguese is their “culture” — which it d*mn well is not. They’re American. Portuguese might have been their ancestors culture, but it’s not theirs. Culture is not genetic.
I tend to become unhinged on this subject when yet another teacher calls me. While I am insisting they learn at least one foreign language apiece — it broadens ones perception of one’s own language — I want them to learn it as a second language. Not as equal or exchangeable with English.
This whole idea that languages are races is just mindboggling and bizarre. The idea that cultures are somehow inheritted independent of where you live is even crazier. It supports multiculturalism-through-despondence-and-fanaticism. People decide that since their culture is part of them, if you say their culture is non-functional, then you’re insulting them. They also decide they can’t change.
I’m here to tell you people CAN change. And even adults can function fully — nay, artistically — in their secondary language, if that’s what they want to do.
I support English-language-only in America because I believe in unlimited human potential.
Great article. It’s just so nuts that people think it’s ‘OK’ to come to a country to live and not learn the language. I can’t think of another country on earth that allows such nonsense. Go to Holland and demand your kids be taught in English rather than Dutch. Enjoy the isolation. Oh and that is PERFECTLY fine.
If we are going to suddenly change languages, then I am demanding a retroactive change to German. It’s the largest ethnic group in America and I and my family had to learn English when we moved here when I was a child (like every other immigrant that came from Germany)
Enough is enough. It’s time to make English THE official language. Having multiple languages coexisting in one country rarely ends well. Ask the former Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia & the soon to be former Belgium how well that is working out for them.
I was talking to a kid, maybe 17, who was bagging my groceries and noticed he had a slight accent though he talked in American teenaged slang. I asked him where he was from and he told me Pakistan. I asked him how long it took him to learn his English and said about six months, mostly by just hanging around with other American English-speaking kids.
My wife is japanese, we met in Japan many years ago. From the first, she insisted we speak only english at home and particulary with our four children. Although (as I’m certain is the case in most bi-lingual marriages) we often speak a mixture of japanese and english among ourselves to avoid some culteral misunderstandings…and for convenience…it has served her well to have been “immersed” in the language of her adopted country from the first.
I am an English as *Foreign* Language teacher. I say foreign because most of my students already know two or three other languages and English isn’t their second language. I’ve lived in Norway, Belgium and Germany. While I’ve certainly met helpful people in those countries who’ve allowed me to conduct personal business in English when I couldn’t succeed in their language, I’ve never been accomodated by any government entity. I’m expected to learn the language and thought of as lazy and arrogant if I don’t bother. How is that racist? Most of the people thinking that about me have also been caucasian like me. Immigrants to America who don’t want to learn English are stupid or belligerent and should go home. That’s what happens to Americans when they live abroad and don’t comply with local laws, languages and customs. As a speaker of two languages in addition to my native English, I can attest that immersion and classroom instruction combined are the only reliable methods past the age of 14. Bilingual educators in this country aren’t doing anyone any favors. I wish they’d just go away.
gcblues: You write, “gringos are way too inflexible and ethno centric.”
I have a friend from El Salvador. She lived in Mexico for a while, where she was looked down upon because her Spanish wasn’t exactly like Mexican Spanish. Isn’t that being inflexible and ethnocentric?
Also, your claim that we ought to learn Spanish because that is what most people in the Americas speak applies equally well to French-speaking Canadians, French-speaking Haitians, Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, and Dutch-speaking Surinamese. I’m not sure what all those groups think about this, but they might object that Spanish isn’t that important in their lives for them to bother.
I agree with your general point, though. Americans ought to learn foreign languages, because it makes lots of things (business, war, espionage) easier when we do. I myself am now learning Arabic.
This great article makes me think of a family member of mine who was born in Germany. He moved to the Midwest when he was six years old and didn’t know word one of English on his first day of kindergarten. The English immersion he experienced is what made him the able speaker he is today — zero accent.
jfb, re salvador and mexico.
by the way i love salvador. san salvador is an incredible city. great place.
but in answer to your question. just because on has the smell of a pig, does not mean the other wears perfume. i am not concerned with mexico’s ethnocentrism. i do however know the the usa’s cultural blindness and pre-occupation with how great they are diminishes said greatness. great individuals, like great states do not need to mention it in every conversation.
all those languages you mention are fine. spanish however is the language of the majority of people in the americas. arabic is important, i think you would find much more value in farsi. in literature and cultural history, not so much for current use, farsi is the language of great poetry and literature not available to the west. unlike latin and attic greek, much of the persian tradition has not been translated. just as aside beside the point, but interesting to note. when i speak to iranian friends i am always left behind at the breadth of their knowledge of art, history and literature.
There’s a big difference between being an occasional tourist in a place and not speaking much of the language and being a citizen and not speaking it.
I go to France all the time, and if you’re simply polite and smile, and don’t clomp around looking like you’re going to the gym or going off to clean out the garage, people will generally treat you well. In fact, I’m usually treated very well — as is a friend of mine who can barely say “bonjour.”
My friend Pierre, a retired master woodcarver who’s 70 and grew up in Paris, tells the reverse of your friend’s little story. I once asked him how to say a particular thing correctly in French — I think it was the difference between “retourner” and “revenir,” to say to a salesgirl that I would come back to perhaps buy a particular item. No need to know, he quipped — all the salesgirls speak English. (Actually, not true, but many do — at least some.)
Pierre, by the way, who is one of the boys climbing the St. Sulpice fountain in the old Doisneau photograph, happens to speak no English. I work a little harder on my French every week so I can talk to him. Speak other languages abroad, you may learn something.
Encourage all Americans to at least be proficient in English — and Aaron is right that immersion is best — and it means that all Americans will be able to join our economy to the best of their ability.
Aaron:
Good post.
I say, lets all start flyin’ planes with a language specific to geography or national law and see how many people of any native language want to get on the plane then.
Or have Microsoft originally produce software in a multilingual work environment … maybe that what went wrong with the Vista roll-out, do ya’ think?
I’d like to take issue with the English immersion advocates. Yes, many students will learn to survive if immersed in a language other than their own. But most will not, or at best, will take longer to acquire the new language.
Think of it: when you are in a foreign country or any place where a different language is spoken for that matter, don’t you invariably translate to acquire understanding. Imagine being thrust into the world of a new language, like say, your European ancestors were (of their own adventurous will, however). I don’t think their response was, “Oh my, we must really pay attention to the natives and learn their language, since this is, after all, their country.” English immersion does NOT work as well as bilingual education does because we all translate.
The only advantage to English immersion favors English-only speakers. The result is poor grammar and diction without an understanding of the subtleties and nuances of the language. This is perfect, though, because it saves prospective employers from having to hire truly bilingual persons to tell prospective employees that they are still Mexicans or Salvadoreans, which is the TRUE reason they will not earn as much as English speakers.
I am a degreed person with a credential to teach ESL. I am of Mexican descent and I have had an uphill battle just to secure a position in my field. Most teachers and districts where I live seem to believe (though they don’t express it openly)that a male of Mexican descent couldn’t possibly teach ESL as or more effectively than a person of any other subgroup.
One of this issue’s respondents claimed that the ability to speak English will yield 50%-60% more earnings. WOW! If they work for minimum wage that would give them, hmmm, less than survival money.
My mother decided early on to speak only English to me. What did it accomplish – only a fluency in this language. It did not earn me any more money. It did however cost me student loans to get my degree and a debt that still haunts me because I cannot get a job in the field of my choosing – because I am still Mexican in a country that disrespects, hates and blames us for all its maladies.
Hey “papa bear”
WAKE UP! let’s make it even more retro. Let’s all speak Spanish.
Take a look at this Domain. It has really
helped my girl. Maybe is helps you or your loved one as well:
http://www.real-english.com
I really don’t see where this is such a big issue. There are so many more important things to worry about and I don’t see the harm in Mexican people speaking Spanish.
The writer of this blog claimed Mexicans could make 50-60% more if they speak English, well that also works the other way around. In many states especially where the Mexican population takes up majority (where I am from in New Mexico) there are many jobs that actually REQUIRE you be bilingual and offer bonuses for those who are in other professions as well.
My mother teaches bilingual education to 5 years olds and her students for 14 years consecutively have scored higher in the English competency exams when compared to the children taught in one single language. This has proved itself over and over again also statewide with the performance of her students.
So this author also did not experience “first-hand” effects of bilingual education. My mother was a first-generation American having been born and raised in Mexico. The criticism she got and embarrassment she went through because she was harassed about her inability to speak English had a major effect on how she viewed school and being unmotivated and disliking the education system here in the U.S. This is why she chose her profession in bilingual education.
We all so ignorantly scream “speak English!” when if it were that easy to learn a language, everyone would know it. We are in a comfortable position knowing our language so we point fingers at everyone else. Lets focus on our own lives and deal with real issues that actually effect people.
i believe that if you want to move to america, speak english!!!!!
well if an immigrant comes to America to reside in America and be an American, then isn’t adaptindg to our culture part of the deal as well?
i mean if i decided one day to become a citizen of France, then they wouldn’t change their school system, or pay for a translator just so i could understand what they’re saying, thay would tell me to F*** off ar something, it’s their country, their culture, and their language, i would have to adapt to ot of i chose to become a citizen of their country, it’s just the way it works.
so why do mexicans or russians come here and take advantage of us???? i mean welcome them here, we are completely made up of immigrants, but they should speak english fluently as well, it drives me crazy when solicitors call me and i cant understand them, its bad enough that they constantly call, but when i cant even understand them then its just plain rediculous!
or when your waiting in line at an airport or cash register and your stuck waiting for 20 minutes because the bozo in front of you cant understand what the english speaking cashier is saying, it really pisses me off, and i usually end up saying something….
HERES MY MOTTO:
ADAPT OF STAY HOME!!!!!
To pch1013:
Because the article in question is about speaking spanish, not chinese or polish or whatever – get a frickin’ grip! And yes, you come to America to live, work or even visit, you should be REQUIRED to speak ENGLISH!!!!! Case closed.
While at a McDonalds recently, I noticed that they had a computer terminal set up for job applicants. One Site was in English the other in Spanish. I asked the manager where is the site for all the other languages spoken in this country.His response was typical of other companies that I have asked this question. Well most of the people here speak Spanish. Correct me if I am wrong but last I heard equal employment is offered to all Americans regardless of race religion or creed. It is not dependent on what percentage of the population they represent.How many people must exist before McDonalds as well as other companies will recognize they have rights also. It would seem to me that this is grounds for job discrimination. Could we have grounds for a class action suite. I work in the ESL as a volunteer for about 8 years now so tell me that my position is racist.All my students, from all over the world are hard working and smart. Learning English will help them. Any comments