English Only??

So being bilingual, and especially since Spanish is my second language, I've always considered that adopting an "English Only" federal policy in the U.S. to be ignorant at best and racist at worst. Nonetheless, I think I may have just been convinced otherwise. If you're interested, listen to the "English Only Movement in America" podcast on this webpage.

As the spokesperson interviewed for "U.S. English" (citizen action group to make English the official language in the U.S.) points out in the beginning, bilingualism is great for an individual, but horrible for a country. I have to say that after living here in Europe for 4 and a half years now, I agree.

Language is the bearer of culture. Language differences, in many cases are tantamount to cultural differences. The U.S. is a mixture of cultures and that's part of what makes it a great country; but at the same time, part of America's success is also due in large part to the fact that its citizens self-identify as Americans, which is helped by English being a common language.

That is to say that for the purpose of a unified country, one language is extremely useful. The interview gives the example of Quebec, which has proposed several times to succeed from Canada (in large part due to language differences). Look at Belgium for example, they've been without a central government for something like six months! There are of course a number of reasons for the problems between Flanders and Walonia; but it is all complicated by the Dutch/French language barrier. Think of the U.S. if in the South, another language was spoken at the time of the Civil War.

In terms of immigration, I recall a New Yorker article from a few years ago about violence by radical (Dutch) Islamics in Holland being partially due to that country's hand-off immigration policy: in an effort to respect an immigrant's cultural identity, there is no effort (such as the citizenship test in the U.S.) to integrate these newcomers into Dutch mainstream culture; as a result, children of Muslim immigrants were growing up isolated and turned to radical Islam in search of a peer group. With the excuse of allowing these immigrants to maintain their cultural identity, they were in effect, marginalized from mainstream society. Something similar happened in France, though I'm not sure to what extent language played a part. Still, a common language is a uniting element among the citizens of a country and is indicative of some shared culture.

If Spanish were to be granted official language status in the U.S., the argument is that immigrants would have less incentive to learn English. This is true. And if we follow the reasoning so far, this national bilingualism would weaken the country overall. Translations are so tricky...could legal translations lead to misunderstandings of the law? What about interpretations of the constitution? I can see the argument.

In Spain there are four official languages (Catalan, Galician, Basque and Spanish). In general, I think Spain is a good example of a funtional multi-lingual country. Each "state" where a co-official language is spoken, it is also required to teach Spanish in the schools, thus there is very little problem (linguistically speaking) with respect to national unity. However, just recently, the Spanish legislature decided that they would allow senators and representatives to speak in their co-official languages. The Spanish parliament now looks like the U.N.--everyone has an ear piece to hear the translations of what their fellow representatives are saying, regardless of the fact that ALL of them speak Spanish! Ridiculous.

But isn't it also true (and this comes up in the interview) that an English Only stance could lead to the idea that learning a second language isn't necessary? I am still a strong believer in the importance of bilingualism (individually), and I think it's important that the federal government place more importance on second language acquisition in the U.S. Here in Spain, I've been working for four years now as part of a government initiative to motivate and improve second language instruction in Spain. An official stance, spending federal money to bring native speakers into the classroom sends a clear message to the Spanish citizenry about the importance of learning another language. A similar stance taken by the U.S. government, in my mind, could be nothing but good. Perhaps not to the same extreme--bringing in native language assistants, etc.--but at the very least setting federal standards for foreign language learning which would include beginning instruction in elementary education.

But then, if everyone starts learning Spanish...is it the same as if we raise Spanish to "official" status? Does the act of learning a second language take away incentives to learn English if the learning takes place on a large scale, even though it's not an official policy? Where do we draw the line? It's definitely not an easy question, and I'm very pleased with the interview on the podcast, because I think it presents a clear, critical vision of the complexity of the matter. Take a look...or have a listen. ;)

What do you think?