PART TWO - WHAT DID YOU SAY?In my last post, I suggested language as a way to maintain national identity in a society celebrating diversity. I’ve recently posted my disdain for
SMS and other lazy language trends. Words and language matter. I love words, hence, my blog name. Until we learn to harness any potential psychic communication, language is the main way we interact with others.
The argument has been made that there’s not an official language of the United States. True. However, I think there
should be an official language and it should be English.
Let me share a few random incidents with you.
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I have a friend, an attorney, who went to work for the prosecutor’s office in Houston. She was “strongly encouraged” to learn Spanish so she could do her job. In Houston. Houston, Texas. Houston, TX, USA.
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I read a story about how a group of people waiting to have their day in traffic court had waited almost all day for that moment. After lunch, the bailiff requested that all non-English speaking defendants come to the front to be processed first because the translator would be leaving early.
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Both of my children have worked at AutoZone. They were told that if they learned to speak Spanish, they’d earn an extra $2.00 an hour.
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Even South Park has weighed in on the language/immigrant debate with their episode titled, “Goobacks.” Episode 806 addresses how an influx of immigrants changes the town. I’ll link to a synopsis of the story later.
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In the mood for cheesesteak? At Geno’s Steaks in Philadelphia, the owner has posted a sign stating, "This Is AMERICA: WHEN ORDERING `SPEAK ENGLISH."'
The Fox News version of the story (from summer 2006) is here.The MSNBC version is here.Lawsuits have been threatened. Vento, the owner, has been accused of being a racist who doesn’t want “brown” people frequenting his place of business. Please, keep in mind that Vento’s grandparents struggled to learn English after arriving from Sicily in the 1920s. He understands discrimination and claims that’s not what he’s doing. He further said no customer had ever been turned away because of the policy and his employees are instructed to help those who don’t speak English learn to order their sandwich.
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As a final anecdote, let me tell you about Palmira. Palmira was born in Nicaragua. She was proud of her heritage and retained her Nicaraguan citizenship even after marrying a United States Marine and moving to the United States with him. She had children here, children who by right of birth were U.S. citizens yet Palmira remained Nicaraguan. For over twenty years, she reared her children to appreciate and live with American values while still appreciating the heritage that came from both of their parents. My friend, Katia (who blogs at
My Nerdy Thoughts but not nearly enough), is Palmira’s daughter. Katia followed in her father’s footsteps and became a U.S. Marine much to the understandable pride of both her parents. Still, Palmira retained her Nicaraguan citizenship.
More than twenty years after Palmira came to the United States, the political climate in Nicaragua changed. Palmira was ready to embrace being an American and applied for citizenship. When the day came that Palmira would officially become an American and share citizenship with her neighbors and children and husband, her family accompanied her at the courthouse. Not allowed to witness the ceremony, they waited outside the door. Afterwards, Palmira exited to join her family. She was crying. Her family, knowing how important this was to her, at first assumed the tears were of joy at what she’d done. They were wrong. Palmira’s tears were not of joy. She was upset.
The officials had offered to let her give the oath in Spanish.
I don’t have a problem with people earning more money because they’re bi- or multi-lingual. That’s awesome and I would love to be fluent in more than one language. I don’t think it should
ever be required that someone in the U.S. be required to learn another language just to do their job unless, of course, that job is as a translator.
The language thing really chaps my ass. When is it going to stop? Sure, language evolves and I love that it does. I like the fact that Spanish and Greek and Italian and Asian and words from so many other languages have become a part of the English language. I don’t want to see signs in the courthouse written in a variety of languages. I don’t want to drive down the road and not be able to tell by the street signs if I’m in Juarez or Kansas. I don’t want to press one to speak English. I don’t want tech support to get pissed if I ask them to repeat themselves (slowly, please) because
I had trouble understanding they hadn’t quite mastered the accent or language. If someone is going to take the naturalization oath and become a U.S. citizen, they should do it in English.
Since the argument “there’s no official language” is still out there, here’s my rebuttal:
If you want to live in America and become a citizen and benefit from the rights and privileges granted by the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights, then learn to speak the language in which they were written.
If you can’t be bothered to learn to speak the language, perhaps you don’t wish to be an American after all. More on that tomorrow…
On a lighter note, I thought the following cartoon was funny.
