Okay, here's another issue thats going to be brought up in the
fall campaign.  Whether to pass laws making "English" our official
language and mandating all public school classes, government work, and
the like, be taught only in English.
   This is an extension of anti-immigration paranoia in California,
Texas, Florida and other states.  Places like Miami are virtually
bi-lingual and many kids speak spanish as their first language. Currently
"English as official language" legislation is pending in congress
and similar state bills are being considered in California.  Bob Dole
supports the idea, Clinton has promised to veto it if it gets through
congress.
   In this time, when people like Pat Buchanan make political hay out of
paranoia over America being taken over by foreigners, this legislation
might play out well in middle america.  Its a potential hot topic...
    What do you think?  Should laws be passed mandating that English
is our official language in this country?

23 responses total.

 No.

   Because English is not the predominant language on the planet. Spanish is.
There are more speakers of Spanish, except for Arabic and Chinese than any
other language. What should happen is every child in school should be fluent
in English and Spanish and possibly French. I personally communicate, not
fluently, in Spanish, French, Russian (I can greet people), Polish, German
and Portuguese. I wish I was fluent in just one more than English.
  I believe that knowing a person's native tongue makes the world a friendlier
place. What our politicians like Wilson and Dole want to do is make this
country a meaner place, where foreigners are not welcome. I think that they're
forgetting thier own heritage when thier forefathers came through Ellis Island
speaking only Italian or Irish. To adopt a national language is like burning
Ellis Island to the ground and spitting on the Statue of Liberty.
  This country was built on the backs of people like Domingo Ghirardelli, and
John A. Roebling who came from Germany and built the world's best looking
bridge in Brooklyn. And still others like Othmarr Amman. We should never turn
our back on our roots.

  #1...**applause** I agee...I cant state it better, so I wont.

Well, I've read a quote that basically says "Bad English is the universal
language of the Internet".  English will likely get a bit more pervasive, and
I can't imagine why we need to spend more time and money legislating that.

People who learn Spanish at the Expense of English are at a huge 
disadvantage in the United States. This is not a problem with the country,
and it does not need to be "fixed". Black ghetto kids who only speak
in a street dialect have the same problem.

The problem is that they need to learn English to fluorish here.
I think they should be required to learn it, and that my tax dollars should
not be spent to provide basic education in their native language. This kind 
of education is a dead end for them. It does them no favor, but actually 
does them a disservice.

Immigrants can learn English. they always have done so. My ancestors did.
It is a requirement for citizenship, and it should be.

We need a common language in this country, and it is English.
I am not anti-immigrant. I believe that immingrants are what made this country
great, and I think we need more immigrants to keep it there.

There is an "Official English" movement in this country which I partially 
support. I do not support their efforts to make it difficult for non-native 
speakers to obtain basic needs, such as voting. I do support their efforts
to eliminate bilingual basic education. I do not believe that these people are 
racist, in fact I believe there is nothing wrong with their motives.

I agree with the basic point in #4...I'm sure there are communities in areas
with a lot of immigration where one can get by without knowing a word of
English. I'm speaking without firsthand experience or even evidence, but my
gut feeling is that 'That must be very limiting, both economically and
culturally.' On the other hand, people who feel limited by it will hopefully
make the effort to learn English on their own, without the government saying
they have to...and those who don't, it's only their own fault. I think, all
in all, I'd rather see the government's efforts directed at making it easy
for those who want to learn English to do so.

I'd also agree with the point that the bilingual education system is, well, 
not describable in terms legal under the CDA. In some cities, kids with
Hispanic surnames are being stuck in bilingual education programs despite
being third generation Americans who don't speak a word of Spanish, because
the school system gets tax dollars...and the kids who need and want to learn 
English aren't doing so. I guess if they're going to make it easy, they'd 
better come up with a system that actually works first.

The problem is that most proponents of having English as a National Language
are, unlike #4, xenophobic, so there is not much good faith in their
arguments.  The related issue is whether there can be ethnic identity and
pride without the polarity.  Canadians are dealing with this issue too, though
without the immigrant issue / stigma, and it is still difficult.

I disagree. I think that this xenophobia is in the mind of the beholder.

Although the Canadians are back from the brink of dividing their country,
and economic disaster, they have a serious problem. We should be very glad
we do not have a problem like that. We should make certain that we don't ever
allow our country to be divided over language like that.

I don't object to helping those who don't speak English deal with crises, but
I don't want to see the government spend a lot of tax dollars to provide
government forms in other languages, for example. Last year, for example the
IRS printed 500,000 Tax forms in Spanish at a cost of $113,000. We are
heading toward official multilingualism.

If English were to be made the United State's official language, I wonder 
how that would affect territories like Puerto Rico.

It would depend on the way it was done, I suspect. I would not be in favor
of a measure that would make it any more difficult than it is now to conduct
official business in Spanish. I certainly would oppose an "Official English"
proposition that attempted to impose English on PR as a territory. To my
knowledge, "Official English" proposals would not apply there.

A completely different question, though, is whether PR should be able to adopt
statehood as a Spanish State. Clearly it is absurd to expect PR to become
English speaking, but I believe that the cultural differences that different
languages engender are so great, that I cannot favor the idea of Puerto Rican
statehood as a SPanish State. I oppose their statehood for that reason. I'd
much prefer to see their independence.

It is probably moot, because I believe that the residents of PR overwhelmingly
want neither. They prefer the current situation.

This item has been linked from Politics 39 to Intro 6.
Type "join politics" at the Ok: prompt for political
discussions.  (Wasn't politics one of those things you weren't
supposed to discuss at parties?  Naaaah...)

  I don't really see the *point* of declaring English the official language.
It wouldn't really bother me if it happened, but any effect it would have,
like prohibiting non-Spanish classes from being taught in Spanish, could just
as easily be legislated separately (I'd think).
 
  I tend to agree with Steve that teaching basic classes in Spanish to
Americans, while giving English little attention, isn't in most students'
best interests.  An odd exception might be along the Texas/Mexican border,
where many Mexicans cross the border daily to attend our schools.  Though if
they're doing that, better English skills are probably more valuable than
Spanish skills, anyway.

One reason for declaring English the official Language is so that official
Government Publications would not have to be published in multiple languages.
It is reasonable to expect US citizens to learn to speak English in order to
vote, and interact with the government in other ways.

Now if that were to have the effect of reducing the availability of government
services to non-citizens, the impact and desirability of such limitations
would still need to be evaluated on humanitarian grounds, in my opinion.

A possibly related question is whether non-citizens (resident aliens) who 
live in the US legally, or illegally residing immigrant, should have 
access to welfare services regardless of what language they speak.
The US populace has been shifting its opinions in this area.

There are a number of other countries that are multi-lingual (Canada and
Switzerland, for example) and it really doesn't seem to be hurting them.  The
difference between those countries and the US is that they have large
geographic areas speaking their various different languages, rather than just
little pockets.  English is probably a lot more useful to somebody living in
a Spanish speaking pocket of the US than Swiss-German is to somebody living
in a French speaking part of Switzerland.  Still, I'm uncomfortable mandating
that all classes have to be taught in English.  There are a lot of kids in
this country who already know English, and teaching classes in foreign
languages has been shown to be a good way of teaching languages.

I'm always amazed when I go to Europe how tollerant people are of me not
speaking their language.  I managed to go a whole week in Hungary last summer
knowing only a few words of Hungarian, and people there -- even people who
didn't speak a word of English -- were willing to find ways of communicating
with me.  Generally it involved a lot of pointing, or when it came to numbers
or amounts of money, writing it down on paper or some similar technique. 
People seemed to look at this as just a part of communicating with me, rather
than as something they really shouldn't have to do.  It's things like that
that make me somewhat embarrassed to be an American.  Imagine what would
happen if somebody walked into a grocery store here looking for something,
and didn't speak a word of English.  The same techniques for communication
that were so useful in Hungary would probably work here, if people regarded
it as worth the time it would take.  I really don't think the typical American
would be that helpful

I'm starting to drift there, but there is a point to that.  I really think
we should become more tollerant, not less, of those that don't speak English.

This item (as intro 6) has been linked to language 78. 

I agree with Steve - take your pick. We should be very tolerant of languages,
but there is no *need* for government to provide services in other than
English any more than government in Hungary (to follow scg's example)
provides services in other than Hungarian. This doesn't mean not providing
education *in any language one wants to learn*, or being intolerant of
people speaking another language (when I visited Paris with a German
friend we spoke German when pushing our way through American tourists,
and English when pushing our way through German tourists - neither of
us spoke French, when we used scg's method - its very French to wave your
hands a lot). I only have a quandry about how to agree to only publish
government documents in English without having a law that does, or at
least implies, more than that. The xenophobes will attach unwanted
implications to such a law. In regard to the "islands" of communities
speaking Spanish, or Chinese, or Zulu, or whatever - the communities
should provide the infrastructure to aid those having difficulty in
English. One doesn't see Chinese communities asking for the government
to publish IRS forms in Chinese, nor should the Spanish communities ask
for them in Spanish. But communities can help themselves in any way
they wish.

I generally agree with what Steve (Weiss) said.  I agree with most of what
Steve (Gibbard) said, too, but don't see it as particularly relevant.
In general Americans should be prepared to work harder than we do to
accommodate to people who don't speak English, but that's a separate issue.
Just for an example, consider the question of courts.  If someone who doesn't
speak English (or speak it well enough for the purpose at hand) winds up in
court, we certainly need to see that translation is available; but that
doesn't mean that (say) we should provide a separate court system for every
language represented in our country.  Ditto for public libraries and other
public functions.  Ditto for schools.

I also think we should push other languages at *everyone* here much harder
than we do.  Being bilingual is an asset to the bilingual person, but also
having lots of bilingual people (or multi-lingual) available is an incredible
asset to our country, & that's getting truer by the day.

Rane slipped in, giving me an opportunity to speak to a point he made. 
Regarding having official publications only in English: I'd support this in
a sense.  The official proclamation of official decisions should certainly
be in English.  But there are "official" publications, plenty of them, whose
purpose is not providing official notice, but informing the public, for which
a wide variety of media are used, & it would be stupid IMO to suggest that
only English be used for this kind of thing.  For example, government
pamphlets describing things like how to rid your home of cockroaches or how
to deal with Dutch elm disease.  Just as stupid as mandating that the
government try to provide such information on all subjects in any language
spoken by anyone in the US.

And, of course, the distinction I gave has a lot of grey areas.  I'd suggest
that the policy be that this kind of thing is a pragmatic issue, though.

Yes!  The U.S. needs a law proclaming that English *is* the one & only 
official language for anything even remotely government related.  This may
be a country with a heritage of immigrants from all over the world, but its
strength comes from being a melting pot where there is common goal of
supporting promotion of a unified country, and so individual heritage 
beyond the shores of America takes a back seat.  We do *not* want to be in
a situation such as India, where every official document must be published
in 3 languages:  English, Hindi, and the local language of each state.

Live with this:  English *is* the most universal language spoken around the
world, regardless of whether there are more native speakers of Spanish or
Mandarin (Chinese).  English may not be the "best" language, but blame the
Brits - they conquered the world better than or before the Spaniards or
the Chinese.

BTW, did anybody check out "This Modern World" by Tom Tomorrow in the May 1996
_Agenda_?

Since English *is* the most universal language spoien around the world,
we would hardly seem to need a law to enforce it here. It seems to have
taken care of itself. The gray area seems to me to be at the street
level. If you want to offer an English language course in a Spanish speaking
area, it makes sense to put up the signs in Spanish rather than English.
It would be stupid to outlaw that. There are many situations like that.
And it would be impossible (unconstitutional) to outlaw foreign language
radio, newspapers, books, movies, etc. Then, even the government would
have to produce some foreign language material, such as guides to the
National Parks for foreign visitors.....you know, I don't know how one
could even write a rational law on this. I say, forget it.

I'm not particularly in favor of laws mandating English's official status,
either.  I'd say a lot of the force behind calls for such laws comes from
efforts by some, via the courts & other governmental agencies, to mandate
*without* legislation the opposite - requiring (for example) systematic
bilingual education programs.  Efforts to portray *all* opposition to
such programs as nothing but bigoted anti-immigrant hysteria don't
help, either.  So we're going to get calls for laws that go too far,
& pretty sure to get some such laws at least at the local level.

        I believe the more uniorm school is, the better it is. We cant continue
trying to teach in every language, and then complain about taxes going up over
new textbooks and language training devices. I believe all students should
have to learn English in schools in America and they can get tutored on the
development of their first language.

I'd agree that the *main curriculum* should be in English (except for
regular foreign language classes in the curriculum). There are a lot of
extracurricular activities associated with schools, and I think those
should be whatever the sponsors and/or participants want them to be. I
have no problem with Spanish clubs in the school, for example, as long as
they are open to all students. 

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