Immigrants and English

An official language erects a needless barrier

TO SOME Americans, the heavy influx of immigrants presents a threat to our culture. They see store signs in Korean and hear street- corner chat in Spanish, and they worry that the America they know is somehow dissolving.

That anxiety feeds the movement to make English the nation’s official language. Congress is considering several bills to restrict government-sanctioned use of foreign languages. A couple of the bills would ban bilingual ballots and end federal funding for bilingual education in public schools.

Each of these moves would erect new barriers to immigrants who seek to join America’s mainstream. An elderly naturalized citizen who speaks mostly Spanish, for example, might follow an election campaign through the Spanish press but be unable to vote if the ballot is English only.

And ending bilingual education could make it harder for immigrant children to adjust. Insulating them for years in bilingual programs is a mistake, but so is forcing them to study math and science in English when they haven’t even had a year or two to learn the language.

What’s more, there is ample evidence that today’s immigrants are as eager to learn English as immigrants in previous waves. A study of Census data by Calvin Veltman, a professor at the University of Montreal, found that Hispanic immigrants today are learning English faster than previous immigrants. The 1990 Census showed that 95 percent of people living in America use English as their primary language.

What, then, is the big problem?

The mildest of the official-language bills before Congress is co-sponsored by nearly 200 House members, including Rep. Marge Roukema, R-Ridgewood, and Rep. Dick Zimmer, R-Hunterdon, the leading GOP candidate in next year’s U.S. Senate race.

The bill would ban the printing of government documents in any language but English. And it would require that government business be conducted in English only.

Again, it seems to battle an imaginary problem to attain an imaginary benefit. A study by the General Accounting Office found that 99.4 percent of government documents are printed only in English. As for the use of other languages, Rep. Robert Menendez, R-Union City, wonders whether the letters he exchanges with Spanish-speaking constituents would be somehow illegal.

“English-only is a dangerous solution to a non-existent problem,” he says.

Some supporters of English-only say that immigrants need an extra incentive to learn English. But there is ample incentive already.

Learning English helps immigrants succeed in school and at work, make friends, even watch TV. In Los Angeles, 50,000 Latinos are on waiting lists to enroll in English classes.

This tension is not new in America. At the turn of the century, Germans in Buffalo could enroll their children in all-German schools, funded with tax dollars. By World War I, the pendulum had swung. One town in Ohio imposed a $ 25 fine on anyone overheard speaking German on a public street.

English speakers have no need to feel threatened. From all reliable evidence, English is and will remain the overwhelmingly dominant language in America. Immigrants are embracing it now, just as always.

America has always welcomed immigrants who didn’t speak English, and they somehow made the adjustment without an official language.

Nothing is gained by making English the official language now.



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