‘When in America’: The Official English Debate A classic aphorism that exemplifies the methodology behind the assimilation process is “When in Rome, do as the Romans.” While usually interpreted on a personal level, the phrase has immense bearing on the political debate over immigration. Immigration has changed in the past few decades. Many states experienced a numerical surge in immigration of over eighty-eight percent from 1990 to 2000. Additionally, immigrants are migrating in sizeable groups and forming cultural enclaves, segregating themselves from the rest of society and retaining their own language (Sox, 312-18). These enclaves pose a vital question: should immigrants ‘do as the Americans,’ and assimilate to the popular language of …show more content…
Proposed legislation is referred to as ‘English Plus’ rather than ‘English Only,’ placing no regulation on an individual’s right to speak their language, but merely eliminating government responsibility for supporting minority languages (“Does U.S. Need Official Language?”). The United States was founded on the principle of majority rule, minority right, yet our current legislation undermines majority rule (“Majority Rule, Minority Right”). Under English Plus legislation, individuals who choose not to learn English retain their rights as Americans, but lose the ability to bend the nation’s government to an underwhelming minority. The designation of English as our official language removes a major financial burden from the United States, both in the cost of translated documents and interpreting services. Current laws require federal documents and programs, including drivers examinations, voting ballots, public education classes, health care, welfare, court cases, and government statements to be made available in any language that crosses a numerical threshold, at a high cost to taxpayers (“Facts and Figures”). Although the cost of government-paid health care has been a heated topic of debate, the cost of patient interpretation services remains overlooked by the public. Yet, providing an English interpreter in hospitals exceeds the
The government implementing English as the official legal language of America is imperative because a conformity of communication within our borders is needed to unify the vast diversity. Our mighty country was founded on providing all citizens with equality including inalienable rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The United States is a progressive nation that welcomes people from far and wide to come and savor the God-given freedoms enjoyed by all. With all of the diversity from the countless immigrants coming in to our port cities, looking for a more prosperous future, a necessary tie is needed to bring the people of the nation together. Interaction with others
For more than 300 years, immigrants from every corner of the globe have settled in America, creating the most diverse and heterogeneous nation on Earth. Though immigrants have given much to the country, their process of changing from their homeland to the new land has never been easy. To immigrate does not only mean to come and live in a country after leaving your own country, but it also means to deal with many new and unfamiliar situations, social backgrounds, cultures, and mainly with the acquisition and master of a new language. This often causes mixed emotions, frustration, awkward feelings, and other conflicts. In Richard Rodriguez’s essay “Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood”, the author
The United States has been a host to a wide diaspora of people. Immigrants have had to transition from their familiar land to a new-fashioned foreign land that they must consider home. They bring with them the essence of their initial homeland such as customs, traditions and beliefs that inadvertently change the dynamics of culture within the United States. As a result the United States is an extremely culturally diverse nation. The continual changes or accretions that Americans encounter have always been a controversial topic depending on the experiences of individuals and communities that have immigrant populations. This essay will critically explore
The fifteenth chapter of Susan Tamasi and Lamont Antieau’s Language and Linguistic Diversity in the US is titled “Official English.” This particular chapter briefly looks into the history of linguistic laws in the United States followed by an examination of whether or not the United States should have English as its official language. Tamasi and Antieau provide multiple convincing arguments for each side of this issue, which consists of those for English as the sole language of government and those against such a measure. Overall, however, there are many underlying beliefs and nonlinguistic concepts—like national identity and history, politics, and economics—related to language and its usage in America. First of all, Tamasi and Antieau debunk
Although the founding fathers decided to leave the idea of establishing a national language out of the Constitution, there have been several movements to establish English as the national language since then. Even though none of these movements could garnish enough support to make this into a reality, they have been influential in that English is the official language in 31 states. In recent years, five additional states have considered legislation that would mandate English as well (Schwarz 2014). Since many individual states have sided on the issue, it poses the question of if the national government should follow the trend as well. A strong argument can be made that the United States should make English as the official language because it would promote unity and patriotism among Americans, be economically beneficial for the nation while rightfully placing the responsibility to learn English on the non-English speaking immigrants.
“No Habla English”. “21 million people living in the United States cannot speak English. Citizens are not just speaking Spanish, but Chinese and Russian are rising fast.” (U.S. Bureau of Census, 2009) To force a citizen to speak a new language is discrimination. Non-English speaking citizens and immigrants that are without good English skills will fall academically, in the judicial system and when receiving proper medical care.
In the state of Massachusetts the state law states that the emergency department patients with limited English proficiency have the right to a medical interpreter (Ginde, Clark, & Camargo, 2009). Having a medical interpreter for patients that have limited English proficiency will increase the quality of health care they receive; it also increases patient compliance and increases patient satisfaction. The use of professional interpreters is shown to decrease revisiting the emergency department, and increase this population’s use of outpatient clinics for follow up care (Ginde et al., 2009).
It is expected that ultimately there will be a loss of ethnic distinctiveness for immigrants in the U.S., meaning the lack of attachment to the country of origin. (Golash-Boza, 2006) It is argued that all ethnic distinctiveness will no longer exist by the seventh or eighth generations. Before exploring the influence of foreign born vs. U.S. born parents on their children’s cultural assimilation; the different theories of assimilation will be explored. The idea of Assimilation came about in the early 20th century. (Golash-Boza, 2006) Assimilation is surrounded by two theories, the first that all immigrants will assimilate sooner or later and that the generational status of the individual is one of the main factors in determining the
Immigration, legal or not, has been a problem for the United States for a long time. In the U.S., promoters of bilingualism have supported the use of other languages for public services, including government documents, hospitals services, voting ballots, and bilingual education. In their essays “A Nation Divided by One Language” and “Viva Bilingualism”, James Crawford and James Fallows claim that it is not necessary to declare English the official language of the U.S. On the other hand, in their essays “English Should Be the Only Language” and “Why the U.S. Needs an Official Language”, S. I. Hayakawa and Mauro E. Mujica argue that English should be made the official language. They contend that
For immigrants in America, two radically different choices of culture exist. First, the immigrants can choose to stay loyal to their ancestral roots and deny mainstream culture. Instead of contributing to the melting pot of opinions present they isolate within themselves by refusing to learn both the English language and American culture as a whole. Because they cannot communicate with a majority of the population, they don’t maintain any amount of control over American ideals including both politically and socially. The second opportunity available would be to embrace this new found culture, no matter how foreign it is to them, and develop a sense of unity with America. If immigrants wish to break the currently controlled system of power and privilege in America and truly become a part of American customs, they must learn to assimilate culturally.
In the article “English Only Laws Divide and Demean” Warren Blumenfeld explains the negative aspects of the English only law. The English only law, which is currently based in thirty-one states, mandates English as the primary language. This means that all government operations may only be done in English, including all public documents and records. Blumenfeld states that the law marginalizes and demeans non-native speakers. Blumenfeld supports this argument by including a testament from a friend of his, who grew up in San Antonia, Texas. Blumenfeld tells story of his friend who was forced to attend Spanish detention for having spoken Spanish in the children’s playground. According to the writer this instance negatively affected his friend’s
Many immigrants come to the United States in pursuit of opportunity, however they struggle to adopt the dominant culture’s language, which limits the job opportunities available to them. Historically, immigrants assimilated by having to learn dominant language, but this challenge led them to create ethnic enclaves that make them feel more welcomed. Many enclaves in the United States, for example the Latino population in San Francisco’s Mission District, give a sense of comfort and nostalgia of home because people from that community have similarities to their homeland. Newcomers do not need to step out of their enclave because they have all the support they need in their communities. Although many immigrants come to the United States in hope of opportunity, they are limited to achieving and moving forward because of their ethnic enclaves. Because these enclaves do not allow them to expand into different cultures, they are limited both socially and economically.
Whether or not English should be the law in the United States is an argument that is widely being considered. Some believe the United States should make English the official language, some do not. Various Americans believe it would unify the country by giving us a common thread, it would help immigrants in school and in the job market and it would be less expensive than having a multilingual nation. Many opposers of the law do not agree with it because they think they will lose their language and their culture, which is not the case. Many authors give substantial information in the text that it would help the country become more unified, it would greatly help immigrants coming to our country by giving them
Furthermore, the secondary sources illustrate some of the manners in which immigrants attempt to integrate into society, their reasons for coming, and the opposition that they encounter assimilating. First, the source from Social Science Weekly illustrates that most immigrants coming to the United States do in fact want to assimilate by learning the English language, which goes against the misconceptions of the majority. Additionally, another manner in which immigrants attempt to assimilate, highlighted by the article by Stephanie Kotin, Grace Dyrness, and Clara Irazabal, is religion and community activism, which allows immigrants to portray themselves in a positive way to battle the misconceptions of the right majority. The chapter by David
There are emotional and legal concerns surrounding whether immigrants should learn to speak English. Domenico Maceri (2009), an award-winning author and foreign language instructor at Allan Hancock College in Santa Maria California, states “I never met an immigrant in the United States who needed laws to be reminded that English is necessary to succeed” (par. 9).