Ever the demagogue, Sen. Harry Reid has declared the amendment to make English the national language of the USA to be “racist”. Of course the reverse is true. Any encouragement to immigrants (in the current situation, Spanish-speaking immigrants) to think that they can live and work here in their language of origin is the most surefire way to condemn those same immigrants to a life of poverty and bad jobs. Generations of immigrants have integrated themselves into our economy first and foremost by learning English. And this is even more true today when English has become the international language of technology. If you don’t know English, you’re out in the garden pulling weeds. Does this mean anything to Harry – or does he even understand it? I’m not sure. What I do know is that the Senator from Nevada never loses the chance to put himself in the Guinness Book of Records for partisan hackery.
UPDATE: BTW, I of course applaud the study of foreign languages. That has nothing to do with the above.
MORE: On the issue of official “second” languages mentioned in the comments, we would face a huge problem of discrimination. Here in Los Angeles County there are (roughly) over a half million Koreans, nearly a million Chinese and about a half million Iranians (Tehrangeles). Should Korean, Chinese, Farsi be second languages along with Spanish? Starting to get confusing, isn’t it? Howabout Tagalog, Japanese and Thai, also heavily spoken in this area? Someone once told me there are almost a hundred languages currently being spoken at Hollywood High. Official second languages start to become absurd when you think about that.
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43 Comments
1. Jeff T:Of course, there is a world of difference between encouraging immigrants to learn English and making English the official language.
Reid is “condemn[ing] those same immigrants to a life of poverty and bad jobs”?
Truly, this looks like a bit of demagauery on your part as well.
May 19, 2006 - 12:56 pm 2. Skookumchuk:It is just the bigotry of no expectations.
May 19, 2006 - 1:15 pm 3. JK Ribera:As an American of Hispanic decent, of course Mr. Simon is correct that English has been to be emphasized for immigrants here. The commenter about is non-responsive to the point that reliance on Spanish makes for generations of busboys.
May 19, 2006 - 1:16 pm 4. JK Ribera:I meant “commenter above” of course. (Preview!)
May 19, 2006 - 1:16 pm 5. Fausta:As a Spanish-speaking woman born and raised in Puerto Rico, Jff, I agree with Roger 100%. I speak from experience.
Look at the professions where English prevails, not only in the USA:
engineering
computers
other technology
natural sciences
medicine
financial institutions such as banks, stock markets, commodities markets, and government-issued securities
accounting
economics
international law
A person who isn’t fluent in English is paring down the list of professions where they can attain high earnings. Here are the best-paid jobs in the USA. Additionally, India’s become a preferred place for outsourcing jobs because India’s an English-speaking country. India’s economy, at least according to Wikipedia, fastest growing economy in the world, and its annual growth of 7% to 8% outpaces most other countries.
The US is an English-speaking country. It should remain as such. I also feel very strongly that every person has the moral duty to integrate into the society they have immigrated to.
May 19, 2006 - 1:17 pm 6. Michael J. Totten:I have no problem designating English as the official language of the United States. I also have no problem designating Spanish a second official language. I realize, of course, that Puerto Rico is not a state. But Puerto Ricans speak Spanish as their first language, and they are Americans.
I studied Spanish for seven years – mostly as an adult – and I still can’t speak it properly. How I wish I could have learned it in First Grade when it would have been easy. But that was not possible where I grew up, and as far as I know it still isn’t possible in any public school in the 50 states. Why don’t we teach it to children? It’s not like English is going to go out of style. Second languages do not displace first languages, and a second language is obviously a good skill for a person to have. I know of no country that harmed itself by teaching its children a language spoken by one of its neighbors.
May 19, 2006 - 1:18 pm 7. Fausta:Michael, At least in NJ public schools teach Spanish from 3rd grade on. That’s also the case in FL.
I don’t want any kind of official status for any second language. The politics that get tossed around with that are ridiculous, as I learned from having lived in PR for 19 years.
Additonally, it’s hugely expensive to have every official document, road sign, government notice, etc. available in 2 languages, and then on top of that you’d have to have every single job in the state, local, and federal bureaucracies staffed by an English speaker and a Spanish speaker. The bureaucrats won’t be happy to miss a chance at empire-building by simply hiring a bilingual staff.
No second language, thanks.
May 19, 2006 - 1:28 pm 8. Skookumchuk:Having also grown up in a bilingual English-Spanish household, I can on the one hand say that having two languages was a wonderful springboard from which to learn others and to discover the world.
But that discovery also led me to work in parts of the world – like the Balkans – that suffered from the burden often imposed on societies having profound ethnic and linguistic divisions. Not a road we should travel.
May 19, 2006 - 1:33 pm 9. Michael J. Totten:Okay, Fausta, good points. I didn’t know children could learn Spanish in 3rd grade anywhere. I wish I could have.
I just returned home from living in a city where the average person speaks one language fluenty and at least one second language almost fluenty. Many speak three languages fluenty. It is good for them that they can do this. Their need is greater than ours, granted, but still.
Requiring us to duplicate everything in multiple languages may be a bad idea. But teaching children to speak multiple languages isn’t, especially when those children are immigrants.
May 19, 2006 - 1:40 pm 10. David Thomson:Harry Reid is making a fool of himself. This is one of the dumbest examples of employing the race care that Iíve ever seen. What in hell does race have to do with it? An amendment to the constitution on this matter to might be an example of overkill. Still, we must sure to preserve English as the official language of the United States. A single tongue makes it easier for all Americans to communicate with each other.
Is it abstractly ìfairî that English is our dominant language? What about my ancestors who were German speaking. What about Eskimos? Why not the French? All I can say is this—get a life! You have too much time on your hands if this matter greatly upsets you. English dominates and thatís the end of it. It’s too late to turn back the clock.
Is Harry Reid taking bribe money from Karl Rove? He has just handed the GOP a campaign issue. Most Americans disagree with Reid and wonít take kindly to being described as bigots.
May 19, 2006 - 1:40 pm 11. Fausta:The teaching of foreign languages in all US schools should be mandatory; that’s an issue of education and learning.
However, that is a separate issue from the issue of the USA remaining officially an English-speaking country.
Anyway, will someone tell Harry Reid that ‘people who speak Spanish’ come in all races?
May 19, 2006 - 1:49 pm 12. vegetius:OH!!! CANADA (see QUEBEC) Says it all about two official languages in one nation. Need I say more??
May 19, 2006 - 1:50 pm 13. Terrye:No matter how much trouble the Republicans get in you can always count on the Democrats doing something stupid and helping them out.
May 19, 2006 - 1:51 pm 14. Kevin Peters:Roger:
May 19, 2006 - 1:57 pm 15. Skookumchuk:Being multi lingual is a fantastic thing. We should do a better job of teaching foreign languages to our kids. But that has nothing to do with the bill. If I choose to live in france I am going to learn French ASAP. If I move to Mexico I am going to learn Spanish. It is plain common sense. Canada has a multi language, mult-culti mindset and they have had a strong seperatist movement in Quebec and one of these years it is going to win. Anyone who doesn’t learn to speak English or teach their children to learn as fast as possible is hurting their childs chances of high achievement.We will always have a country that has many languages and many cultures and that is great. But if their is not a single unifying language the danger of balkanization is great. It creates political divides. In Southern California we have at a minimum, 50 large ethnic groupings that speak different languages. If they can’t speak a common tongue they will be seperated unaturally. Making English the official language says nothing negative about other languages or cultures. It just makes reality official.
Fausta:
Yes, it is profoundly ignorant. A sheepherder in the Pyrenees, a villager in Peru, an Argentine with a Polish surname – they are all Hispanic.
And those US government “ethnicity” questionnaires are simply beyond parody.
May 19, 2006 - 1:57 pm 16. Fausta:a villager in Peru
May 19, 2006 - 2:19 pm 17. Skookumchuk:Off-topic: And let’s not forget the former Peruvian president, who, after failing to obtain Japanese citizenship, is trying to leave Chile to avoid extradition back to Peru
Aside from the ignorant and pandering politicians, there is also the problem of the sheltered academics and others in the media and elsewhere who see ethnic conflict instigated against the dominant culture as somehow romantic, as something positive. I think of the school adminstrators who allowed the Mexican flag to fly above an upside down American one. Again, not the road we should go down, if we have any sense of self-preservation.
May 19, 2006 - 2:39 pm 18. Percy Dovetonsils:Funny that you should mention that… I know a couple that wishes to retire to France. Guess what language they are studying so they can blend in there?
That said, my gut tells me that this official language business is a sideshow to the far more critical issue of taking our immigration laws seriously.
May 19, 2006 - 2:56 pm 19. beautifulatrocities:Reid may be the next Daschle, someone who gets so far out there to raise his national profile, he loses his seat
May 19, 2006 - 2:58 pm 20. Larry J:Your mention of Tagalog is a good example of what happens in a country with many languages. My wife is Filipina. Her native country consists of thousands of islands and dozens (at least) of dialects. The national language of the Philippines is Tagalog but the dialects still persist. Some Filipinos can’t speak Tagalog and it really limits their opportunities to their native provinence. It would be just about impossible for a central government to function there without a common national language, just as it would be impossible for our country to function if we had to pander to every language group here.
My wife speaks fluent Tagalog and is fluent in a few other dialects but grew up speaking English at home. Her language skills have proved very valuable in her nursing career. My attempts to learn a foreign language (German and Hebrew) weren’t very successful and I envy her abilities in this regard. While I encourage everyone to try to learn more than one language, it’s imperitive that the US maintains English as our national language.
May 19, 2006 - 2:59 pm 21. Curmudgeon:I think Harry has just handed his next opponent an excellent anti-Harry soundbite.
May 19, 2006 - 3:19 pm 22. Kevin Peters:Roger, your points about the desirability of lesrning English from the immigrant’s point of view are true, but really not the issue. Requiring English of the immigrant is highly desirable from the United States’ point of view, even if it were a net burden to the immigrant. It’s a sad commentary on our national state of mind that we feel the need to apologize for that.
Roger:
May 19, 2006 - 3:29 pm 23. chuck:Belgium is another country that has political splits that are based in seperate languages. Having English as the official language does not stop those families who wish to emphasize the culture of their birth. But is done in the home. If I came from another country I would want to have my children retain the positive aspects of my home culture. Chinatown, Little Italy, Germantown, and all of the ethnic conclaves are allowed to flourish without the Government protecting or encouraging their development. They will happen on their own. In Garden Grove their is a strong Vietnamese culture in California. English has to be the language that cements the myriad of cultures that make up our country. “Oh, this is silly, everyone speaks english eventually anyway, so why bother.” Let’s turn that around. Why are you fighting it? If it is a sideshow, then lets pass it and get rid of it as a political issue. Their is a whole level of beurocratic powerbases set on the multi culti ethos. It’s divisive.
I just returned home from living in a city where the average person speaks one language fluenty and at least one second language almost fluenty.
Yes, Michael. And Lebanon is a wonderful example of why this is not a good idea. Who the hell wants to be Lebanon if they have a choice? I suppose there is a certain romantic cachet to being a foreigner and living along the boundaries, but Lebanon is not anywhere I would choose as the ideal; Kumbaya is for kids. Skookumchuk put up a wonderful post on the matter, Was My Cabbie Right?
May 19, 2006 - 4:16 pm 24. Michael J. Totten:Chuck,
Lebanon’s problems are based on the fact that it is a religiously torn country and that it is constantly messed with by its neighbors, esp Syria and Iran. That Beirutis are cosmopolitan and speak English and French doesn’t create any problems that I’m aware of.
May 19, 2006 - 5:03 pm 25. ex-democrat:making English the official language is wonderful news – though i do wish it had happened before i went to all the trouble of learning to speak American
May 19, 2006 - 5:11 pm 26. Barbara Skolaut:“If you don’t know English, you’re out in the garden pulling weeds. Does this mean anything to Harry – or does he even understand it?”
Of course he does.
He and his cronies want to keep people around who will do their gardening and other service work on the cheap. Plus, he gets to score political points with his far-lefty buddies in the process.
The Lefties “know” that brown people aren’t as smart as white people; they “know” what’s “best” for those “unfortunate” “second-class” people. And what’s “best” for them is to be kept down with promises to keep them voting for the Left – who never deliver (or intend to deliver) on those promises.
A pox on the Left’s houses.
Pfui.
May 19, 2006 - 5:14 pm 27. chuck:it is a religiously torn country
Yes, and? I also seem to recall that it is ethnically and tribally divided, and that a shift in population and the resulting power struggle had much to do with the original troubles: it wasn’t all Syria and Israel. Tribal subdivisions is really what the two languages/ethnicity policy is pushing here in the US. It’s a disaster in the making. We get folks from all over and if they aren’t comprehended in a larger culture we will become Lebanon. Historically, this was even somewhat the case in cities like Boston and Pittsburgh that had ethnic enclaves and fighting at the boundaries. WWII did much to break these up and finally integrate the Irish, Poles, Italians, and so on in the suburbs. But at least they all spoke english to begin with and had patriotic impulses.
May 19, 2006 - 5:20 pm 28. Marathon Pundit:Reid is not the only one who made a stupid statement about the English provision.
This is what I put in my blog:
From the Chicago Tribune, free registration may be required:
Whereas I’m glad there were no drowning deaths on the Potomac last year, I find it not at all surprising that Durbin framed the debate over the provision in a manner that a trial lawyer would. The trial lawyers are the ones who tell juries that not no matter what warning signs are put in place, they’re never enough of them, they’re never big enough, and they’re not in enough languages.
May 19, 2006 - 10:58 pm 29. Huan:The learning of second and third languages should be encouraged if not mandatory.
But English should remain the official language. Having one offcial language in a melting pot of many unites the different groups. not divide them. we have to be able to communicate with each other.
btw, english is my 3rd language.
cultural relativism superficial endorses all as equal, in an ideal environment. but in one in which dominates, it relegate them to isolations.
May 20, 2006 - 4:50 am 30. Neo:So just how many laws have been passed in Congress that are written in any other language than English ? None. Even Sen. Reid has offered none.
Perhaps, Sen. Ried should offer one, but not in Spanish. Instead let’s write and pass a law wriiten in Klingon, a language with a greater common usage than the international language, Esparonto.
May 20, 2006 - 8:01 am 31. corbusier:I lived in the island-nation of Singapore when I was a kid. The population is about 80 percent chinese, 15 percent Malay, and the rest Indian, Arab, Philippino, and Western expatriates. Lee Kwan Yew was wise enough of to endorse English as the official language of Singapore, as a way of preempting inter-ethnic riots. It has also helped Singapore in positioning itself as a major economic player in the region. The usage of English in all daily affairs was so successful that young Singaporeans were losing the ability to speak their family’s native language. Therefore the Singaporean government launched the “Speak Mandarin” campaign during the Nineties.
I myself speak four languages fluently, and I’ve exposed myself to several others. You can teach foreign languages in school all you like, but the only true way to really learn a language is to travel to the places where the language is spoken. If a population is multi-lingual within a territory, it’s mostly due to geography more than anything. Europeans are admirably multi-lingual, but living in a Continent just a little bigger than the U.S. where more than twenty different languages are spoken, it’s awfully hard to stay with one language (and yet many Europeans are still fiercely monolingual). The American cultural realm far exceeds American national boundaries, and many young people feel little incentive in acquiring a new language when they find it hard to imagine to need to leave their country one day.
So long as the U.S. maintains its political and especially its cultural hegemony, it will be difficult to get Americans interested in learning new languages.
I’ve written a related article about the utility of foreign languages here:
May 20, 2006 - 8:04 am 32. Sandy P:http://architectureandmorality.blogspot.com/2005/11/parlez-vous-pushtu-foreign-languages.html
In the immortal words of Triumph, The Insult Comic Dog, “You’re in North America, learn the language!”
May 20, 2006 - 8:25 am 33. Sandy P:Europeans are admirably multi-lingual???
You need to be when you can drive thru 3-5 countries in 1 day.
I spend 8 hours driving, I could still be in Illinois. And yes, there is a different culture down in southern IL.
May 20, 2006 - 8:28 am 34. Sandy P:We are linguistically the same, but culturally different in many ways.
It makes us less tribal.
May 20, 2006 - 8:32 am 35. Neo:In South Korea, children are taught Korean, and English, because English is considered the language of commerce.
May 20, 2006 - 10:31 am 36. exguru:Dubya is just as bad as Harry Reid. He supported “bi-lingual education” as governor of Texas, and probably still does, though he might not say so. After his embrace of English as a national language last week, and his agreement to making immigrants learn English as a condition of citizenship, he probably feels he has made a big concession to us red necks.
May 20, 2006 - 4:31 pm 37. vet222:— Dubya is just as bad as Harry Reid.–
There’s the real lefty logic coming out. A prominent Senator of the Democratic persuasion calls a legislative act that the majority of Americans support a racist act (at the same time insulting his friend Sen. Inhoff).
So Senator Reid’s knee-jerk race mongering –at a time when we are trying to sort out the illegal immigration is just the same as holding a position about bi-lingual education. I suppose flying the American flag upside down and proposing to take back Aztlan is just the same as debating Social Security identity theft.
Too bad there isn’t some statemanship in the Senate. Shame –there isn’t leadership among the out of power party that doesn’t reflexively term any policy decision racially motivated. Maybe that’s why they are out of power.
Dubya is NOT just as bad as race whoring Senator Reid.
May 20, 2006 - 9:55 pm 38. MarkD:The poster above who commented about living in areas where the language was spoken being a requirement to learning the language is dead on. My wife has lived half her life in Japan, and half in the US and is bilingual. I can function at a basic level in Japanese but that’s about it. Our children, alas, know less of the language than I do by far.
Having said that, I support the idea of English as the official language, if only because of the example of Quebec and the utter absurdity of getting a message in Spanish telling me to press 1 for English. I’ve nothing against Hispanics, the Spanish language, or anything else, but I grew up in an English speaking country, took French and German in High School, and just plain don’t know or need to know Spanish. I spent more time in Holland than I did in Mexico, and I don’t know one single word of Dutch…
It would be better if English became our official language, all government business was conducted only in English, and businesses were free to do what they like to serve their customers.
May 21, 2006 - 2:29 am 39. AlanC:“…it will be difficult to get Americans interested in learning new languages.”
It’s not the interest, particularly, it’s the opportunity. As has been pointed out, it is impossible to become fluent in a language unless you have to use it. If, as was pointed out, you can drive through 3 to 5 countries in a day the odds are pretty good you’ll need to be bilingual (or more). Even if American’s learn a second language in school where and when are they going to practice it? I took 3 years of German in high school (being from a long line of Krauts) and had no need for it until I joined a German company 30 years later. Ooops, everyone there SPEAKS ENGLISH! No multi-national company can exist without the vast majority of the employees speaking English.
My father-in-law is a flaming LLL moonbat, as you would expect from someone who is a lifetime resident and “Educator” of Mass. Even HE claims that teaching foreign languages in high school is a waste of time for this reason and insists that what is needed is better ENGLISH teaching. While a LLL politically, when it comes to education he’s a real old time conservative.
May 21, 2006 - 8:50 am 40. Akatsukami:“I didn’t know children could learn Spanish in 3rd grade anywhere.”
Michael, my elementary school (a public school in Glastonbury, CT for the record) mandated that children take courses in either French or Spanish (they were offered in alternate years)…over forty years ago!
Was my school so far ahead of the times? or has education deteriorated so much since then? or (no insult intended) is this a lack of awareness.
May 21, 2006 - 9:15 am 41. eaanders:Being from Nevada, I’m almost embarrased to comment. How did we elect this guy, anyway.
It seems to me that the disagreement over a comprehensive solution is mainly about whether to do everything at once or prove that we can control the borders before embarking on any path to citizenship or guest worker programs.
Why are the Democrats opposed to doing it in sequence rather than all at once? Do they really think they are going to get points from the electorate in November for supporting the what the other side is calling amnesty before we have demonstrated that we can control the borders? The two reasons voters will come out in November are the war and illegal immigration. If there is still of flood of illegals crossing the border in November those politicians who were soft on border and interior enforcement are going to suffer. And that apparently includes all Democrats and the Bush Republicans who support corporate interests.
May 21, 2006 - 11:12 am 42. John Anderson:This comes up from time to time over the decades here in Li`l Rhody: last I noticed, things like the driver license exams were in some seven languages. The usual idea (which I support) is to make [American] English the official language but retain translations (and translation services, eg in hospitals) as well. Hardly a new idea: for centuries, the RC Church held [vulgate?] Latin as its official language while using Italian, French, etc. as convenient — often drafting contracts, treaties, and such in a current tongue until agreement was reached, then translating into the Latin for the official document.
Official second language? No. Had that been proposed in 1820 or so, the language would probably have been German (Penn Dutch): nothing wrong with the language, but how relevant is it today?
May 21, 2006 - 5:46 pm 43. dclydew:My problem with the law has little to do with race, language or even people from other countries who shouldn’t be living here…
My problem has to do with a law that has no impact on society. Laws, by their very nature reduce the freedom for society to change in some fashion. Therefore, if we are going to pass a law that restricts freedom, there should be some tangible benefit. There should be some real effect.
However, most pundits, politicans and commentators I’ve heard have clearly stated that this law will not change anything about our society. In the NPR report I heard, one Rep stated that it was Symbolic. Statues, Walls, Memorials, and large Banners are good for symbols. Laws, on the other hand, tend to make poor symbols.
If there is going to be a law, then there should be some tangible purpose for it. If the law is going to make all ATM’s and phone systems use only English, then fine… if its going to reqire that all students in all schools learn English as their primary language, then ok. However, if the law is going to have no effect, whatsoever, then I think its foolish, a waste of our money and nothing more than laws for the sake of political points.
And that, I can honestly say I disagree with.
May 22, 2006 - 8:18 am