Should the US officially recognize itself as a bilingual state?

Great Debates
1

I was born in NYC, to a multilingual family. My grandparents spoke Slovak, and my aunt’s family (my father’s brother’s wife, who took care of me when my mother was either teaching or working on her doctorate) spoke Yiddish, so hearing and functioning in different languages was no big deal. I also heard a lot of Italian and Spanish, and I could use street “Spanglish” as a kid, which most kids of any ethnicity who live in Manhattan can do-- it didn’t make me fluent in Spanish, but it made Spanish not sound especially foreign to me.

I didn’t encounter a lot of hostility to bilingualism until I moved to Indiana, although of course, hostility of bilingualism as an official policy, exists everywhere, including places in Manhattan.

But I live in Indianapolis now, and Spanish is quite prevalent here. Most things are labeled in Spanish as well as English. Call any city number, and you have a choice of liatwning to your message in Spanish. Go through the self-checkout at Walmart, and you can use the Spanish-language option.

I have just begun a course of study of Spanish in earnest, and since I have lots of Spanish-speaking neighbors, it’s going very well.

I would say that here, in Indy, about 35-40% of the population speaks Spanish, and about 10% of that population speaks ONLY Spanish, while about half of it functions very poorly in English.

Indy is a big city, but it’s not a typical destination of immigrants: in New York, Texas, California, and Florida, there are about 15-20 million Spanish speakers, and maybe half of them don’t function very well in English.

The national average is about 10% Spanish speaking, but that means that is includes all the states with few Spanish speakers. The US is the 5th largest Spanish speaking nation in the world. Knowing Spanish, and being able to put it on a resume is a big asset.

Personally, I think it is time for the US to lift “English only” state laws or constitutional amendments, and for the US to officially recognize Spanish as a national language.

Many countries have more than one language, and get along just fine. I don’t see why the US could not.

It doesn’t mean that every adult in the US is going to be required to go out an learn Spanish, although it probably does mean that is will be offered as a “special” (like gym and music) in elementary schools in school districts with few Spanish speakers, and it will be an elective in junior high, instead of waiting until high school, which is when most districts wait to offer second-language instruction. It also means that adults who wish to learn it will have an easier time finding high quality classes cheap or free.

What do others think?

2

I think this is all downside and no upside.

We can easily raise the availability and ubiquity of Spanish instruction without doing something that will inevitably become a rallying point for fearful nativists. Let them slowly adjust to the realities of a more Spanish-speaking America without providing a focal point for their misguided fear.

3

There is no downside to maintaining a single official language while being accommodating, on a civil level, to others. Spanish has always been prevalent, even dominant in parts of the southwest arc, just as the northeast has its places where French is a strong second language.

I believe the US should remain accommodating to the languages of its non-Anglophone citizens… but that the obligation is on the citizen to learn the language of the nation, not for the nation to foster separate cultures and thus greater division and separatism.

Maybe 100 years from now this argument will apply to a vast Spanish-speaking majority not accommodating an Anglophone minority… but the principle remains the same. One nation (of polyglot sources); one language shared by government and civil bodies with all.

4

I always sort of liked that the US doesn’t have an official national language. Kind of speaks to our history of being a country of immigrants.

As to the rest, I’m not convinced there’s really a problem to be solved. In my experience (and it sounds like yours), places with sizeable non-English speaking communities usually do (and in many cases, legally have to) provide services in the relevant languages. And Spanish usually is offered in most US HS’s.

5

I’d like to know (and I don’t) what the advantages and disadvantages are of having a “bilingual state” (whatever that really means).

I could see that we would, as a nation, be marginally less productive, and somewhat less homogenous, but I don’t know how much, and what the ramifications of that are.

We have benefitted historically by not having the social, religious, linguistic and cultural infighting that other nations have had.

6

One US state (Hawaii) is officially bilingual. Several US territories are officially bilingual. A few states (Louisiana and New Mexico) have what could be termed “de facto” bilingual status. And several states and the US require certain government forms and public interactions to be conducted in English as well as one or more other languages. And a number of native nations are officially bilingual or multi-lingual.

As other posters have said above, I’m not sure what we would gain by being “officially” bilingual. We can conduct government business in multiple languages where necessary.

Take something like the patent office. Filing a patent is somewhat complex, and most inventors have a patent agent or attorney filing for them. I think it’s quite reasonable for the patent office to conduct business only in English, because the vast majority of people they deal with are trained professionals who are dealing with jargon.

But, for an agency like the IRS, well, we probably want people to be able to file their taxes even if they don’t have a good grasp of English. Plus, taxes are full of complicated terms which are difficult for native English speakers to grasp, let alone someone who learned English as a second language. If putting out tax forms in multiple languages makes it easier for people to file their taxes error-free, I’m all for it.

So, I’d say we don’t need to officially be bilingual, but we should look at the specific government function and determine if the government needs to provide resources in other languages on a case-by-case basis.

7

Hell, I had enough problem understanding a wife from New England.

8

I was recently gazing out the window of a Boston MBTA train, and going past a row of houses, I spotted one where they had driven around from the driveway to the middle of the rear lawn.

My god, they really do…

9

I’m not aware of any state that HAS an “English only” law. A number of states (about 30) name English as their official language.

10

I think this makes it he most sense as a local issue.

11

This principle isn’t particularly widespread. A lot of countries (if not most) have several official languages.

12

That’s begging the question. You’re arguing Americans should learn English because English is the language of America.

English may be the language spoken by the most Americans but it’s not the American language. You can speak Spanish or French or Mandarin and be an American.

The analogy I look at is religion. Most Americans are Christian. But you don’t have to become a Christian to be an American. You can be a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or an atheist and you’re just as much an American as a Christian is.

As for the government, it exists to serve the people. It should not be choosing what language the people use. The government should observe what language people are using and then accommodate itself to that. If people are speaking English and Spanish then the government should work in English and Spanish. If a significant number of people start speaking !Kung then the government should start clicking.

13

Most of which are formed from fairly arbitrary groupings of generational language cultures that have to get along and often don’t. Not nations that were founded and developed with one dominant language that then absorbed others.

Yes, I am. If you want to chalk it up to flag-decal chauvinism, be my guest; I believe it’s essential for national identity, focus and future, to which institutionally promoting separatism and division are entirely contrary.

14

:dubious: That’s not been my experience for the last 14 years here. Only 8.2% of households in Indiana speak a non-English language at home (cite). And Indianapolis doesn’t hit the top 25 metro areas of high non-English speakers at home - so less than 28.6% (and that’s ALL non-English, not just Spanish).

15

I assume he meant 40% of the Hispanic population because 40% of the general population speaking Spanish is too wrong.

16

[quote=“Little_Nemo, post:12, topic:702250”]

…
English may be the language spoken by the most Americans but it’s not the American language. You can speak Spanish or French or Mandarin and be an American.
…QUOTE]

And immigrants aren’t the only ones who speak primarily a language other than English. I met a woman on a train in the US who was born in France to a US mother and a French father and grew up in France speaking French as her native language. She was struggling with English and was quite interested in getting better at it. But she was a native-born US citizen.

17

And some communities have embraced this. For example, many Amish communities in the US are very keen on raising bilingual children and nearly everyone there speaks both German and English. German is important for their culture and religion and English is necessary for life in the US. They can have both and seem to be doing a pretty good job of it.

18

For individuals, on the personal level, being bilingual is wonderful and enriching.
But for a society, at the national level, bilingualism causes more problems than it solves.

See: Belgium, where Flemish speakers want to cut the country in half. Or Canada where the French speakers want to cut the country in half. Or Russians vs Ukrainians, etc…

America has a great history of absorbing immigrants…and doing so by encouraging them to learn English.

To the OP: you remember your Slavic and Yiddish grandparents fondly …but of course you don’t expect everyone else to speak Slavic and Yiddish. How would you fit into society today, if the language you heard at home was the only language you knew?

Over a century ago, my ancestors came through Ellis Island knowing 5 languages, in 3 different alphabets. At home, those languages were nice for sharing personal warmth among 8 individuals.
But outside the home, English was the only language for daily life.When you have to communicate with thousands of people every day, you need a common language.
A society needs a basic level of common culture, based on a common language. .
Individuals can add local color in other languages–but not with the expectation that they will dominate the larger, existing culture.

A simple analogy: For America, the English language is the main course of the meals you eat every day. Other languages are the spices you add for variety.

19

None of those people want to cut their countries in half because they’re bilingual. It’s because they have deep histories of ethnic animosity which happen to dovetail with language.

It depends what you mean by “English only”, but a number of states and subdivisions go farther than making English their official language: they require all government business to be conducted in English.

20

Ayuh!