Posted by Dan Ewert : 7/16/2002 01:18:00 AM (Archive Link)
A recent article in the Denver Post discusses country singer Chad Brock’s remarks at a July 4th concert. In between sets, he asserted that immigrants should learn to speak English. “You are coming to our country. We don't speak Russian. We don't speak Spanish. We speak English here,” he said. I fully agree with him. Many, however, do not. One college professor accused him of being “bigoted, inflammatory, and hateful.” It remains, though, that the predominant language in this country is English. You simply cannot expect to advance and be successful if you don’t speak the language. This should seem obvious and yet the pendulum on this issue has swung back and forth. Thirty, forty years ago, an immigrant’s native tongue was a thing of shame. It wasn’t used except at home, if even then. The previous generation would go to great pains to use English exclusively so that their children would know it well and advance in the wide world. For these now-adult children, however, some of them feel a sense of loss and ethnic detachment in not knowing the language of their ancestors. So perhaps exclusive English isn’t the best. The pendulum swung the other way in the past twenty years, though, and we started nurturing the native language, we encouraged it. We set up bilingual classes so immigrants could better learn things like math in school and so they wouldn’t have crushed self-esteem. Studies have shown, however, that these children never master English as well as English-only students and they ultimately have a tougher time academically and socially. If the pendulum were to stay in the middle, then English would be exclusively used in school and government. The nurturing of native languages would be left up to those families that speak it, with no attached stigma.