United we speak?
You and a companion are enjoying a nice leisurely drive with no rush to go anywhere. Suddenly another strikes your vehicle. You are injured badly and your companion is unconscious but alive. The driver of the other vehicle approaches you with a look of bewilderment in their eyes; they do not appear to be injured in the slightest. You cry out for help and they just look at you. You call out once more only to hear them reply with two words in a heavy accent, “No English.” A situation such as this is a possibility in today’s American society. Many might ask how when English is our national language and they would be completely and totally correct and incorrect at the same time. English has been the common language since Colonial times, yet at no time has it been the official language of our country. Hence the described event could very well occur. Consider the last time you entered your state’s local motor vehicle department, did you see material in other languages besides English? We can find a reason for this by reading the quote in David Masci’s article for CQ Weekly.
… President Clinton's Aug. 11 [2000] signing of Executive Order 13166, which mandates federal agencies to strengthen services to non-English speakers. “This basically requires every agency in the government to provide services in any language that anyone speaks,” Boulet says. [Jim Boulet Jr., is executive director of English First in Springfield, VA.] (8)
Even though Executive Order 13166 applies to federal agencies, state organization have followed suit, and “The government has gotten itself into the translation business by providing bilingual services in the voting booths, the classrooms and elsewhere” (as qtd. Masci 3). Thus, we have non-English speaking licensed drivers sharing the roadways with us. It has been over 200 years since we became a nation and the question of whether or not we should have an official language in our country has yet to be decided.
We know the meanings of the words bilingual and multilingual. They generally apply to countries in a similar sense as they do to a person. For clarification that is more concise the definitions of two additional terms are:
National Language: A less restrictive term than "official language," a national language is generally accepted as the most prevalent language in a country, and the language of the country's government.
Official Language: ... conduct governmental and business dealings in a particular language without hindrance, so that, for example, one may write a letter to a government official in the language and expect to receive a response in the same language. All government documents must be reproduced in the official language ... and government officials are required to either speak, or have interpreters who speak, in all official languages, and all public signage should include any[,] and all[,] official languages. (Rich 1)
We could find ourselves going in linguistical circles, as those in the past have done, confusing “official English as "English-only" and therefore [appearing] discriminatory to non-English speaking citizens” (Rich 1). “Some critics charge that ... to make English the official language is an attack on people's freedom to speak any language they please. Nonsense. Ethnic and minority groups across America - Poles, Puerto Ricans, Italians - treasure the culture of their homelands” (Hughes) [syc]. In considering a national or official language, I do not equate it to anything
biased, prejudicial, or unfair. I have a close and personal understanding of the language barrier non-English speaking people deal with. As a first generation American, I heard about the process my parents had to complete in order to stay in this country. Both of them did so with no special accommodations from the government to aid them. My mother arrived already multilingual, English being one of her three languages she had learned by age 16. Six months after she completed high school, at age 21 because our school system had her start as a freshman, she completed the naturalization process. My father came over on a work visa in his mid twenties and was only bilingual; he learned English here and obtained his lawful permanent residences (LPR) “Green Card”. His parents came to the USA, obtained their own LPRs in the mid 1970’s, and lived here without ever learning English until they passed on. Other family members on both sides have moved here and done one or the other as well.
“Declaring English as the nation's official language would only be interpreted as inhospitable by new arrivals, Munoz and others say” (as qtd. Masci 3). Yet consider,
Every immigrant to the US who seeks naturalization as a citizen must prove proficiency in the English language. That proficiency enables immigrants - or should enable them - to evaluate the platforms of candidates for election, cast ballots, and generally exercise their rights as citizens. If authorities have to print ballots and conduct other government business in non-English languages for minorities who are citizens but cannot speak English, then the immigration laws are being defied. (Hughes)
Also “according to the 1997 Political Handbook of the World, the United States is one of 8 countries (out of 191 entries) that do not have an official language” (as qtd. Schildkraut 10), and not to mention that “Debates over [official] language also are raging in other countries” (Masci 1).
Whites in South Africa were split by the insistence of former Afrikaner governments on making Afrikaans - a little-known or used language anywhere else in the world - an official language equal to English. Disputes over multilingualism have roiled Canada, India, Belgium, and Sri Lanka. (Hughes)
Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi sent shock waves through Japan … when he released his government's goals for the new century. …. one recommendation in particular -- to make English the nation's official second language -- that dominated newspaper headlines for days (Masci 1).
When Pope John Paul II arrived for his historic visit to the Middle East … he spoke to his hosts not in Arabic or Hebrew, but in English. Likewise, when Air France pilots request permission to land at Charles de Gaulle Airport outside Paris, they do so in English, not in their native French. … Italy's then-Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema addressed a conference … he stood under a huge banner emblazoned with his party's slogan: “I Care,” it read, in English. (Masci 4)
Ironically, twenty-eight states have adopted English as their official language. “Three states have designated dual official languages: Louisiana (English and French), Hawaii (English and Hawaiian), and New Mexico (English and Spanish) (Rich 3). The majority of them are in the Southeast corner of the United States while the others are located around the Northeast and West. The most of the remaining have States already considered official language legislation, less than ten have not, so one might wonder what occurred at the national level.
Since its earliest times, the federal government has not ignored the issue. From Schildkraut’s book, you could choose from two schools of thought: the Constitutional Framers did not believe the issue of an official language was important enough to include because, “… Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people ... speaking the same language … [or] ... fears that a language provision would thwart the ability to form a union …” (10). As our nation grew, Congressional debates about language lessened while immigration policy became a common debate. Since then major legislation pieces that addressed language, directly or indirectly, occurred in: 1923, McCormick’s American for English; 1952, the McCarran-Walter Immigration and Nationality Act; 1964, the Civil Rights Act; 1965, the Voting Rights Act (VRA) and an amendment to the 1952 act; 1974, US Supreme Court Lau v. Nichols; 1975, and another amendment to the VRA; and in 1992, both a 15 year extension of the VRA and an additional amendment. Since 1981, a number of bills were introduced in either the House of Representatives or the Senate; they passed in one house but not the other, or failed to survive at all. The most recent attempts were in 2003, H.R. 931 and 997; 2006, H.R. 4437, S. 2611, and S. 4738; and in 2007, S. 1337. Where the federal government has not succeeded in the past many of the states have advanced with legislation of their own, those numbers were noted previously. S. 1337’s ending statement, “This Act and the amendments made by this Act may not be construed to preempt any law of any State” (6), raises an additional question. In accordance with the 10th Amendment, any and all powers not delegated to the United States, i.e. federal government, are reserved to the States unless Article 1, Section 10, denies it. So why has Congress been debating the issue of an official language then? Simple, art. I, § 8, cl. 4 gives Congress the power to establish rules for naturalization. Proctored and enforced by the USCIS, the process has specific requirements for all applicants about the English language, the common language of our country.
Vulgar-Latin differed from its classical version. The later was spoken by the ‘nobility’ of the times while the former was the common language. Vulgar-Latin gave birth to the Romance Languages still in use today. What Vulgar-Latin was to the Roman Empire, English is to the modern world. In a newspaper article, Mauro E. Mujica, Chairman and CEO of U.S. ENGLISH, Inc., wrote that, “English is the sole official language in 31 nations and has an official [language] status in 20 other nations ...”. Well, English already has been, “… de facto a "world" language, recognized as such by other countries in recognition of the political and economic progress made by English-speaking nations in the past 200 years (Medina). Point is that,
... more than 1.5 billion people around the globe speak English with varying degrees of fluency. A little more than a quarter of that group, or about 460 million people, speak English as their native tongue in countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. An additional 375 million people use English as a second language in their native countries. While they may speak their nation's indigenous tongue at home, they turn to English to communicate with their countrymen, often at work. English is also commonly used as a second language in countries that were once ruled by England or the United States, including India, Nigeria and the Philippines. By far, the largest number of English-speakers -- roughly 750 million people -- use English to communicate with people outside their own cultures. People in this group can range from a Tokyo businessman to a hotel proprietor in Greece. This group is likely to grow, as an estimated 1 billion people are currently trying to learn English. (as qtd. Masci 4)
The absurd contradiction is that, “The popularity of English is largely due to the economic, cultural and political dominance of the United States. … [and it is] used on more than 75 percent of all Internet sites.” (Masci 5) yet we do not even recognize it as our national language at a minimum. If we are waiting to appease everyone, it will never happen. Take for example another of Mujica’s observations that, “Many far-left opponents of official English, such as the ACLU, refer to our legislation as "English Only."”He continues about an official language by saying that it, “... simply requires that government conduct its business in English. It does not dictate what language must be spoken in the home, during conversation, cultural celebrations or religious ceremonies. It does not prohibit the teaching of foreign languages. It does not affect private businesses or the services offered by them.” It in fact offers a stable, sound and common foundation for all of us. Like my parents, “Immigrants from previous generations came here to be Americans. We don’t have that same sense of assimilation today” (as qtd. Tardy 17). In her journal article for Discourse & Society, Christine M. Tardy , an assistant professor at DePaul University in Chicago, has even more examples, like that, of what is coined as ‘grandparent’ stories. With the current lack of transculturation we have to exam that the,
The United States has a rapidly growing population of people--often native born--who are not proficient in English. The 2000 Census found that 21.3 million Americans (8% of the population) are classified ax "limited English proficient," a 52% increase from 1990, and more than double the 1980 total. More than 5.6 million of these people were born in the United States. In states like California, 20% of the population is not proficient in English. The Census also reports that 4.5 million American households are linguistically isolated, meaning that no one in the household older than age 14 can speak English. These numbers indicate that the American assimilation process is broken. If not fixed, we will see our own "American Quebec" in the Southwestern United States and perhaps other areas of the country (Mujica) [syc].
It may be possible to salvage the situation by explaining cultural accommodation is the end goal and not an assimilation process that forces abandonment of individual cultural identity. We must overcome our ethnocentric prejudicial discriminators to remove the pyramiding effect caused by the cultural lag. Children playing in a sandbox are wiser than any of our leaders for they celebrate and explore the differences between themselves. If only we could be so fortunate.
So returning to the scene of our accident, how fortunate would we all be if it were required to conduct business with an official language? If that had been the case, the other driver might have read the sign saying, “No left turn,” and you would not be injured and concerned for your companion. It is time we emerge from this dark age and step in to the light. Those that came before us learned the language of the land and held on to their cultural identity, we can do the same without violating anyone’s civil rights while using an official language. The ‘durus ex varietes’ that made us the country that we have become can only grow stronger. Then when we speak, it will be united as one with a common tongue to celebrate and explore the differences and similarities between US.
