Multilingual: Foreign language battle as contentious as ever
Editorial
Millions of adults in this country struggle to learn a foreign language, mimicking improbable recorded dialogues on their commutes, attending evening classes or paying for expensive immersion courses abroad. And yet, whether people are allowed to freely speak a foreign language at school, at work and even at home is as contentious an issue today as ever. Recently in Houston, a small furor erupted when a supervisor in the Houston Police Department posted an order, now rescinded, banning Spanish speaking on the job. Complaints stemming from such edicts are increasing across the country, from 77 cases filed with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in 1996 to 253 such cases filed last year. According to the EEOC, the law allows English-only policies only when employers can demonstrate a "business necessity," such as in an air-traffic control tower. But the real problem with colleagues not being able to understand each other probably has less to do with public or workplace safety or with communications barriers that disrupt business than with mutual distrust. The classroom is a hotbed of language controversy. Spanish-speaking students in California demonstrated with vastly improved test scores that ending bilingual education in favor of English immersion was not the disaster that opponents predicted. Residents here will have an opportunity down the line to evaluate a new Houston Independent School District plan that seeks to teach students English "as rapidly as individually possible." This is a middle ground between total English immersion and the kind of bilingual education that saw too little English instruction. But even the new plan is suspected as part of a nefarious English-only conspiracy. On the home front, Hispanic leaders in Houston were in an uproar recently over a judge's order requiring a woman to speak English to her daughter at home. It is a complicated case, but it's hard to imagine a case in which the First Amendment does not apply in a U.S. household. Meanwhile, Vice President Al Gore and Gov. George W. Bush, both of whom pepper their stump speeches with Spanish phrases to court Hispanic voters, have grasped the importance of multilingualism. In this country it is necessary to speak, read and write English well. But those who are conversant in more than one tongue will reap the benefits of a world of opportunities. |