I watched part of the Republican debate last night, and one candidate (I believe it was Tom Tancredo), talked in horrified tones about how the US is becoming gasp bilingual.
The way he said it made it clear that he thinks this is right up there with bisexuality and other scary things that start with “bi.”
So, what’s the deal? (And why is it that so often the people who defend English seem the least able to use it effectively?)
I have no idea. I love being bilingual. Gets me laid more often.
He says it has to do with “assimilation” but I think it as way more to do with racism.
I don’t get it either. The only thing I can think of is that he thinks knowing knowing a language other than English is somehow a cultural attack.
It’s because he’s ignorant and doesn’t know the difference between a bilingual society and one which has more than one official language. You can have the first one without the second one. But maybe he thought “bilingual” meant “a country where two languages are spoken, but not everyone speaks both”. I’m guessing that’s what he actually meant.
Here’s the story as reported on CNN’s site:
Since he used “Balkanized”, I think we can assume that he used the term as I suspected.
Well, in fairness, (not that I am inclined to support such nonsense), he is talikng about the country using two languages (in the manner of Canada), not of individuals being able to speak more than just 'Mer’can.
The reality is, and continues to be, that by the second generation of immigrants, the overwhelming majority speak fluent English and even among the immigrantrs, themselves, the percentage who speak enough English to get around is well over 70%.
However, it is one of the great bogeymen arguments (and articles of faith) anmong those who oppose “excessive” immigration that the U.S. is about to be overrun by people who cannot and will not speak English and that this will destroy the country.
The 2000 census figures for people who speak Spanish in their homes , (after all, Tancredo is going to worry most about them), were:
Count Speak English Percentage
28,101,052 total 1.00
14,349,796 very well 0.510649779
5,819,408 well 0.207088617
5,130,400 poorly 0.182569677
2,801,448 not at all 0.099691926
Census figures on Language, 2000 ( .pdf)
So over 71% of Spanish speakers have learned English well enough to get along in this country without putting up the artificial barrier of an “official” language.
My friend’s high school kids were in public school in California and flunked algebra because the class was taught in Spanish with a Spanish textbook. They didn’t know Spanish. For some reason, they weren’t allowed to take an algebra class in English. So, now, their transcripts indicate that their math skills are poor, though their circumstances really did nothing to measure their math skills. This rubbed all of us the wrong way.
Being unable to speak the language around you is a terrible handicap. As far as these kids were concerned, it’s an accident of history (or something) whether they speak the prevailing language in some setting. But common sense dictates that American public schools should make algebra classes available in the language spoken by families that have for generations become completely Americanized.
I’d be most pleased if all American immigrants learned English in some convenient and accessible venue, perhaps hosted by our government, and fully participated in all things American to our mutual benefit.
I think speaking multiple languages is nice, but also realize that an institution or a person being bilingual doesn’t mean either of their languages is one you or I speak. Does bilingual imply English and Spanish? Would many people support it if it meant, for instance, English and Russian? One day on the NYC subway, a man who spoke no English asked me for help, because he didn’t know how to recognize his stop. He had it written down, and showed me. It was in Russian (that is, it was transliterated into Cyrillic characters). Since I could speak a little Russian, I recognized his stop and explained to him how to watch for it, and then we had a nice little conversation. But the bigger problem is that there are thousands of languages, and learning one is a big job, and there is no practical way for everybody to be able to work together unless we all speak the same one (at least). One can wish for such a situation without having racist motivation, I think.
I am not challenging that you have been told this, but that strikes me as more than strange. About the first week of September, I would have been in the face of the board of education, followed quickly by visits to the state board and then the media if this had happened to one of my kids, much less to more than one of them (implying multiple years).
Because a candidate can stand up in public and say he’s opposed to bilingualism. Or he can say he wants tougher enforcement against immigration. Or he can say that he favors law and order. Or he can say he likes states rights. And then he can piously declare that nothing in his posistion should be considered as supporting racism. But the racists in the audience will know who their candidate is.
I agree. Could it be that the story got relayed incorrectly or got embellished? Perhaps the parents thought their kids did poorly because the teacher was bilingual and spent too much time, in their view, explaining the material in Spanish as well as English for those who didn’t speak English well enough.
If you will check out the information on the Bureau of Census site, you will note that people who come to this country tend to learn English in overwhelmng numbers. There are a few immigrants who fail to do so (at a cost to themselves), but it is simply not the bugaboo that Tancredo and others pretend.
And people forget that up until, say, about WWI, there were plenty of ethnic enclaves where you were much more likely to hear some European language other than English. My grandfather grew up in a german-speaking family–they spoke german at home but english outside the home. When he was about 5, his parents decided that no one in the family should speak german any more. German-speaking and german-identity was very common until WWI caused lots of german-americans to downplay their roots.
If the majroity of immigrants learn English anyway, then what’s the problem with making it the official language?
Because it’s an encroachment on our liberty. The government has no more business telling people what language is official than it has telling people what religion is official. People should be able to decide what to speak, how to pray, who to have sex with, and what to eat, drink, or wear without government approval.
I think you’re overstating the case. If English becomes the official language, you can still speak whatever language you want, you just won’t necessarily be able to do business w/ the government in that language. And maybe that’s even overstating things-- CA has a English as an official language, and I still get all my voting info in English and Spanish (and can get it in any number of other languages if I request).
There are many countries in the world which have an official language, or official languages. I suspect that the US is unusual in that we don’t have any official language(s).
Bilingualism is a big deal because it can cause big problems. And it may be possible to prevent those problems today, but it may not be possible in 10 years.
(A rough analogy is global warming. Some people think it’s a big problem, some people don’t. And those who do think it is a problem are in a state of panic, because they really believe the world is in danger. While others watch calmly, unworried, saying everything worked out fine in the past, so this too will pass. )
So what kind of “problems” are we talking about?
Well, look at Canada. The French and English speakers in Ontario hate each other. They have separate cultures, separate political parties and have twice tried (and very nearly succeeded ) to destroy the united nation of Canada by splitting it into two separate countries.
It is not unreasonable for Americans to want to prevent problems like Ontario, before it is too late
A nation needs a common, shared culture. And language is a big part of defining culture.
America has a wonderful history of successfully absorbing all the previous waves of immigration. But that is not relevant to today’s problem. The previous waves of newcomers were just that–waves. Each one crested, and then subsided. The current immigration is not a wave–it is an inundation. And some people are afraid of drowning as the water level rises.
It was ugly racism to hate the Irish, the Italians, the Poles, the Jews, etc who
obeyed the law when they stood in line for the border patrol at Ellis Island, and then proudly used their newly learned English in public, no matter what language they spoke at home.
It is not racism to expect that today’s newcomers do the same thing my grandparents did.
Yep–my grandparents lived in an enclave where there was little English spoken in the local shops. But the enclave was clearly defined by certain streets , and outside of that enclave, they never expected to find a job unless they spoke English.
(and please don’t accuse me of jingoism. I have lived on 3 continents, and speak 2 languages. But when moving to a new country, I have never demanded that the native residents adapt to my culture.)
What would be the point?
Well, the analogy with Canada isn’t a good one because no one is talking about making Spanish co-equal with English in the country. (Well, no one except maybe the farthest fringe groups on this.)
This is yet another non-problem that ends up stopping us from dealing with the very real problems that are confronting us. States can decide what they do or do not do wrt language matters and the feds just don’t need to get involved. When someone demands that Congressional sessions be carried out in both English and Spanish, I’ll get worried. Until then, let’s talk about something important for a change.
Exactly. It would be a meaningless gesture and would serve only to feed the xenophobia in the anti-immigrant crowd. As I said, we have English as the official language here in CA*, and you’d never know it.
*has been since Prop 63 was passed in 1986.
When people say they want English as the national language, that generally doesn’t just tend to mean a bit of paper somewhere saying it’s the official language. It may mean they want government business conducted solely in English, or election details, or the immigration process, or many things. Not that it really matters due to my location, but I’d be entirely happy with “English is the national language” as the gesture. It’s when you get to the details that things get iffy.