Recently I read a news report about a small Illinois town that wants English to be the official language. One Hispanic in the “no” column said he got involved because a flyer being distributed asked the question, “Are you tired of pressing 1 for English?” He said that’s racist. Huh?
It’s a fact that “everyone speaking the same language” brings people together. What’s racist about trying to bring people together? Nothing! So if we want to bring Americans together, what language should we all try to speak? Good question.
It’s important to honor one’s culture and heritage so maybe we should speak the language we’ve used for most of our songs, films, plays, ads, TV, poetry, newspapers and books for the last 400 years? Or maybe, to make things as easy as possible, we should speak the language most of us speak now? Or maybe we should forget about easy and work hard to learn the language the rest of the world uses to talk to each other? Lucky for us, English is the answer to all three.
Most of the American culture has been spoken, written, displayed and broadcast in English for 400 years. Most Americans speak English now. Many of the world’s leaders were educated in our English-speaking Universities. Most U.N. diplomats learn English as a second language because they live, eat and work in New York. Most kids in India, China, Japan, Europe and the Middle East learn English as a second language to help them succeed.
Luckily, most American kids are immersed in English every day. Some want to change that by having us communicate in both English and Spanish. Huh? Why would you want to start separating Americans? Complaining about pressing 1 for English is not racist – it’s touching, actually.
English language advocates want us to come together, to understand each other better – it’s a love thing.
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