May 22, 2003

if you can read this then it doesn't apply to you

Okay, not to sound like a neocon or anything, but...

The school board where I live (Georgia college town- population 20,000) is hearing motions today on whether or not to use a part of its already overextended budget to buy Spanish language textbooks and hire more bilingual teachers. The county's non-English speaking population is 6.1%.

Okay... not to sound like Limbaugh but here goes- in this part of the country as is the case in other parts of the country (even moreso in most), English is the language of government, newspapers, popular culture, commerce, traffic signs, and medicine not to mention being the language of Shakespeare and Jesus. Why isn't it the official language?

I'm completely jiggy with states and cities having the right to make other languages co-regnant as official- if Miami for example wants to have Spanish, Creole, and English as official languages all is well. But as coldhearted as it may make me I believe firmly that it should be requisite for foreign born immigrants to conform to our customs than for us to make allowances for theirs.

I'm not saying that the children of immigrants, even illegal ones, shouldn't be allowed in school, but I do not believe that teachers should have to learn another language to communicate with them. I would not only support government sponsored ESL classes but would make them mandatory for anybody hoping to remain as a resident alien, and not to be "white man's burdened" but I think it's in the best interest of the immigrants as well: how much quality of life or opportunity for advancement will you ever have when you can't even read the menu at Waffle House?

I don't ask them to give up their culture: they can speak Spanish until las vacas vienen a casa in their own houses, but they shouldn't expect me or any other citizen to go out of my way to communicate in their language. (And they should keep their damned dogs at home, but that's another story.)

Thoughts? Is this a racist or culturally elitist notion? Would you vote to make English the official language of the USA (providing, as I said, other cities and states can add official languages within their own borders)?

FTR, I speak as much of the German I learned in college as I can remember but aside from being, I'm told, well versed in French kisses I'm not skilled in any foreign tongue.