Bilingualism in America Essay Example

second language (151). Hayakawa meanwhile talks of the higher dropout rates of students in the bilingual education system (578) and the systematic segregation in schools that offer these systems.

We should not be alarmed by these figures as our education system primarily treats the Limited English Program as sort of special education or a training wheels program. Kids in these classes are taught as what they are learning is just the beginning, and the real thing awaits them after they have moved into the English mainstream classes. Something should be urgently done about this.

Unlike Hayakawa and Mujica, I do not think banning other languages as a means of instruction and making English the only one is the solution. We could do away with these bilingual systems and instead teach these kids in the language they are most comfortable in and let them learn English as they grow and interact with English speakers. It is not as if they would have to relearn what they were taught at school in a different language. Rather than putting these kids in what are essentially handicap classes with relatively poor standards, we should offer the so called mainstream classes in different languages.

In a country that values its freedom of choice, anyone should be free to attend a class offered in a language he understands or one he is willing to learn. In a society with an education system that will teach almost anything worth learning, including evolution alongside religious studies, it’s preposterous that the language they are taught in should be set in stone.

Speaking of evolution, Charles Darwin in his book contends that living beings will adapt to suit the

nature of their surroundings. If we can teach this, why can't we, at least on some level, believe that immigrants will sooner or later pick up on our precious and beloved English language? Wouldn't it be even better if we could also pick up theirs and even attend classes offered in foreign languages?

Immigration is a topic on everyone's mouth these days. There is talk of employers preferring cheap labor from other countries resulting in wage depression in addition to the rising unemployment rates. To a much lesser extent there is talk of erosion of our cultural values including languages such as Spanish replacing English as the preferred language. In their haste to condemn our accommodation of immigrants, the “English Only” movement forgets that the immigrants also have cultures they value. Having their own language helps them to maintain their cultural identities even as they try to learn new ones.

You have heard it being said for instance, “That joke sounded funny in Spanish!” We should not be responsible for gloomy Latinos around! We allow immigrants in our country to bring in something that we do not have. It will be sad if the only things we can get from them is their manual labor and different recipes and shun away from incorporating parts of their cultural practices such as their languages into ours.

Fallows claims that living in a foreign country, there is only so much you can do with being able to read street lines, speak a few lines of greetings or read lines on the voting ballot (3). The immigrants know they have to learn English if they want it to live a more satisfactory

life. If they are to get jobs here, they have to learn the language if they were to keep it.

Coming from non-English speaking countries, they already realize more than Americans that English is an international official language. Their social lives would also be better off as they could enjoy local TV shows, go to the movies or theaters, and their kids will easily make new friends.

According to Mujica, multilingual societies or countries are doomed to failure as evidenced by the French speaking Quebec province's attempts to secede from Canada (584). Hayakawa mentions one benefit of the English language as being the unifying factor of the multi-racial American society (576). He says that the modern generations of Chinese and Japanese immigrants have grown up with English as the only language they know and have thus gone on to discover that they have a lot in common unlike their ancestors who had a mutual dislike for one another.

The sharing of a language breeds unity, and as speakers of the English language, we are proud that it does that too. What Hayakawa fails to mention is that these communities learnt the language even though English was not the official language in the eyes of the law. It is not like they would have learnt the language any faster if it were. Maybe our country would not be as diversified as it is if immigrants were denied a right to speak their own language.

Hayakawa and Mujica condemn the former Miami mayor, Maurice Ferre, for claiming that since the constitution does not mention English as the official language of the US, Spanish could one day be the language in Florida

and anyone who didn't like it would have to leave. I mostly agree with Ferre's sentiment apart from dispelling anyone who couldn't speak Spanish in such a scenario. What Hayakawa and other “English Only” proponents are condemning is the same thing that they are proposing we do, just at the national level. Talk of the kettle and the pot! At the same time, if everyone learnt Spanish and for some reason English became obsolete, wouldn't we still have the same unity that Hayakawa and everyone else holds so dearly?

Being a nation of multiple races, religions, ethnicities and cultures it is true that we need a common language that will help not only in communicating, but also in tolerating our differences. While it may have contributed to American unity, it is a stretch to say that America would not have survived the past 200 years without a common language. A common language did not stop the confederate states from seceding during the American civil war. Our belief in our constitution that holds the rights of freedom, however, did win the war. These beliefs and ideals are the same even if written in different languages.

Unity calls for embracing diversity, part of which is different languages in the society. We could borrow a page out of South Africa's book, a country that gained independence 200 years after America did, which has its national anthem written in 5 languages. America is without doubt a unified country with English as the widely spoken language. It would not be less so if everyone began speaking Spanish or Mandarin or all.

References

1. Crawford, James. “A Nation Divide by One Language.”The Guardian 8 March
   

2001, 595-596.