English only
 

I was watching CNN last night, and they were having a segment about places trying to get "English only" laws passed; i.e., only English in official government docs, taught in schools, etc.

HEATED arguments ensued between opposing viewpoints. What do you think of this?

I will give you my opinion, and remember, I'm an Anglo living in an area with an 80% Hispanic population.

--first, I really don't think that "English only" is a good, practical, or beneficial idea. It's not a requirement that citizens speak English, and second and third generations always lose most of their old language anyway.

--second, and this is really the kicker-- I don't care how many times they deny it, to me the "English First" stuff is nothing but thinly disguised bigotry and hatred, and I won't have anything to do with that.

I am so tired of institutionalized fear, bigotry, and hatred.

I know this issue is related to the illegal immigration problem, too, but not exclusively. Plenty of legal aliens and citizens in my town speak only Spanish.

ETA: Here's the CNN page covering this stuff:

http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2007/hispanic.heritage/

Going to an "English only" society will only cause problems and heat up racial tensions. America will never become a Spanish speaking country, never.

Sounds like a waste of time, money, and effort. not to mention reactionary, and fear motivated. I'm all for it.

Habla Espanol, cloud?

I'm not offended by having to push the "English" option at the ATM, but I am offended by the amount of money wasted on printing govt. forms in numerous languages.
And I wouldn't want to see ESL programs go away - but immersion works. Graduating kids who can only speak Spanish handicaps them - they become future landscapers instead of future whatever they want to be's.

I kinda agree with you there, Jinx, about the expense for printing extra languages. I wish it wasn't necessary.

Yes, LJ, I speak decent Spanish. In fact, I should speak better Spanish than I do. I've studied it all my life. My accent is perfect, but I still don't consider myself fluent.

What's wrong with the US having a couple of languages? Why not three or four? What's the BFD? Will what's left of our democracy completely collapse if someone dare to communicate in a "foreign" tongue? Where I live, I am treated to two Navajo language radio stations which broadcast over hundreds of miles. Is this an insult to the English language? Maybe since the Navajo were here first - the "REAL" Americans, we should have Navajo Only campaigns. I also have Spanish speaking friends who trace their families back to the days when this part of the US was still a part of Mexico. The conquerers always impose their language on the conquered, right?

Then I have a neighbor who thinks New Mexico is still Mexico, and everyone from New Mexico is in this state illegally. JEEZ! Will this stupidity never end? :headshake

I think we should all speak German.

i don't support english only legislation because i think it will only create more bureacracy. that being said, i absolutely hate seeing ads for government agency jobs that require foreign language fluency.

if i moved to mexico, legally or not, and i had to go to a government office i wouldn't expect them to be fluent in english. if they are, great, but if they aren't it isn't their fault that i didn't bother to learn the dominant language in the area i chose to move to.

I agree wholeheartedly!!!

english only is fucking retarded, english mandatory...not a bad idea.

Seems as I recall hearing that we almost did.

I've been behind the idea of legislating English as our National Language since I was in elementary school. That was a good bit of a while ago. I have chosen to become proficient in a language other than English, but I wouldn't require that any business be conducted in the language of my forebears. I am an American, not a hyphenated one.

We don't need to rebuild the tower of Babel.

Seems like we have those already.

I hope that you are right, but we seem to be heading more and more in that direction.

My opinions on this debate have changed radically over the last two years. I grew up in an area with an 98% white english-only speaking population. Where I live, if you don't know english, you can't survive. Going to get groceries would be difficult for you. So, basing off of my expieriences back then, I would've been all for english-only...because it's more beneficial to the speakers of other languages.

Now, I've opened my head a little, something I'm pretty proud of myself for being able to do...and I know that there are places where you don't HAVE to speak english to live. Communities that will support other languages, I think that's really cool.

Admittedly a big part of my mind change comes from my bf. His parents moved here from mexico, he was born here but raised to speak spanish until he went into school (because his parents have a very hard time speaking english.) However, they knew that he would need to learn english in order to be sucessful and move out of the area that they live...so they pushed the schools to put him in regular english classes as a kid instead of ESL. He's perfectly fluent in both now...but I feel like I should be a bit more fluent in spanish before meeting his mom :rolleyes:

There's more than a bit of German (from the Saxons):

"English is the result of Norman men-at-arms attempting to pick up Saxon barmaids and is no more legitimate than any of the other results."
- H. Beam Piper

If we enact a "single language" law, then that language can change with the demographics.