| April 24, 2004
Non-English
speakers should learn English –
Non-Spanish speakers should learn
Spanish.
By Patrick Osio,
Jr./HispanicVista.com
Writers responding
to a recent article on the need in the
Western Hemisphere, home to the Americas
and Caribbean, to learn at least two of
the four prominent languages in use,
provided an assortment of opinions. A
great number took exception at the
suggestion that Spanish should be the
second language in the US as it is, after
English, the most important but the most
used language in our hemisphere far
outpacing Portuguese and French, the
third and fourth hemispheric prominent
languages. It seems that the word
Spanish, as in language, is held to be
synonymous with Mexican legal and illegal
immigration by many.
Writers also
exhibited a number of misconceptions
about the Latin American immigrants
themselves – chief among them is the
‘they refuse to learn English’
followed by ‘they refuse to
assimilate.’ Today’s
descendants of European immigrants have
conjured a myth about their first
generation – ‘they quickly
learned English,’ ‘they quickly
assimilated.’ And, the further myth
that the US has always been an English
language only country. This is simply not
true, but it has become a mindset that is
used as the benchmark against Hispanic
immigrants.
Bilingualism in the
US dates back to pre-Independence days.
English, German, Dutch, French, Swedish,
Irish and Welsh were in common use,
though English had attained hegemony in
the colonies. In the 1750s Pennsylvania
Germans voted Benjamin Franklin out of
the colonial assembly after Franklin
attempted linguistic assimilation
programs promoting English over German.
Unlike Franklin’s mindset, the
Continental Congress published numerous
official documents including the Articles
of Confederation in several languages to
accommodate non-English speakers.
The backlash against
England after the American Revolution was
such that languages other than English as
the official language were considered
such as German, French, Greek or Hebrew.
None were chosen because as James
Crawford, a noted educational author,
noted one patriot was quoted saying,
“It would be more convenient for us
to keep the language as it was (English)
and make the English speak Greek.”
But, there was no legislative move to
establish English as the ‘official’
language though it became the ‘national’
language.
During the great
periods of mass European immigration to
the US, the newly arrived as a majority
spent their lives working in the
meagerest jobs due to the lack of English
and education. Their children were more
likely to fail in English only classroom
instruction – in 1908 only 13
percent of them went on to high school
compared to 32 percent of children whose
parents had been born and raised in the
US. Full assimilation took place with the
third generation.
So how does this
differ with Hispanics?
Mono-lingual/cultural
Hispanics are primarily foreign born
(First US generation) making up 28
percent (13.4 million) of the US-Hispanic
population (40 million). Their children,
the second generation, finds 59 percent
(23.6 million) are acculturated speaking
mostly English but maintaining much or
some degree of Spanish and some to much
of their culture. The third generation
finds the vast majority assimilated into
the US culture.
The Pew Hispanic
Center’s National Survey of Latinos
– 2002 found that 78 percent (31.2
million) of third-generation Latinos are
English language dominant and 22 percent
are bilingual, but 71 percent expressed
an overwhelming preference for English
language.
These findings
indicate Hispanics/Latinos are traveling
the same road to assimilation as former
immigrant groups from other countries and
ethnic backgrounds. The major difference
it would seem is that 21 percent of the
Latinos indicated both English and
Spanish as their dominant language,
whereas former immigrant groups have
mostly surrendered their ancestral
heritage, culture and language.
So we come to the
core of the issues – were all to
accept that “English is the language
of the Land,” could we then all
agree that mastering English and a second
language is in the best interest of the
US? And if so, is it not practical for US
citizens to learn the second most
important language in our part of the
world – the language most used
throughout the Americas – Spanish?
Or is the issue not
about languages, but about immigrants
– who they are and where they come
from?
___________________________________________
Patrick Osio, Jr. is
the Editor of HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com).
Contact at: PosioJr@aol.com.
|
