A Bilingual nation?
The Spanish language is the primary language for more than 35 million Americans, and those numbers are growing fast as more immigrants come to the states. But some local governments have passed English-only amendments to immigration bills and in some cases have declared English the official language of that state.
Even though English and Spanish are the most commonly used languages in American, this country has no official language and dual-languages seems an impossible concept.
And to assume that 35 million people have the ability to learn English fluently and overnight is ridiculous.
If you look at the Hispanic immigrant population in America, there are a significant amount who are middle aged, Spanish-only speaking people. It’s unreasonable to attempt to force an older generation to pay for and go to school to learn English. Should there be different customs for their children and younger generations? Of course. Latino youths should learn English and take advantage of the benefit of being bilingual in America.
But declaring English the national language and as a result seeing less Spanish in the media, politics and just day-to-day life isn’t helping but hindering.
English-only laws force assimilation of non-English speakers and are discriminatory.
Some people say that it isn’t about pushing out Spanish, but preserving English. That having one nation under one language can unite the population and make it easier for everyone to understand each other.
But it seems to me that forcing people with Spanish as their primary language to learn English and assimilate is a way to divide the country, not unite it.
Many immigrants even want to learn English. But the lives of many of them is hard enough, and their time is consumed with working long days and feeding their families. It becomes difficult to even find the drive to learn English.
I’m not saying that English isn’t beneficial and that immigrants shouldn’t learn it. It’s a detriment to this country that the ability to speak more than one language isn’t more common among its citizens. But forcing one language on a person who may not have the time, inclination or wealth to learn it is, if anything, un-American.
