Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Spell it out clearly in English: We don't need this law
Chicago Sun Times Editorial - Spell it out clearly in English: We don't need this law
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
May 21, 2006
In a moment of calm, away from the heated rhetoric and pitched emotions of the immigration debate, many or most Americans would support a law requiring U.S. citizens to speak English on at least a basic level. We don't have to proclaim it our official language -- or our "national" language, as the U.S. Senate voted to do last week and the House may be on the verge of doing -- to embrace it as such. English is the primary language with which we do business, practice law, commit art and communicate with each other, and it also is a crucial part of our heritage. As translatable as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights may be (we won't risk our calmness by bringing up the Spanish version of our national anthem), the words don't resonate in Spanish or Polish or any other language the way they do in English.
As immigrant activism intensifies in cities across the country and the political stakes over illegal immigration are raised ever higher, anger and resentment dominate discussions about it. Democrats including Minority Leader Harry Reid have denounced the language bill as racist. Conservatives who want a security fence to be built along the U.S.-Mexican border are calling for an equally definable line to be drawn between English and Spanish. But before any meaningful conclusion can be reached about the legislation, we must go beyond the emotional talking points of the debate and determine what the practical ramifications would be.
Would a law that says "the English language version of [any federal form] is the sole authority for all legal purposes" undermine our melting pot tradition by making it more difficult for immigrants, legal as well as illegal, to pursue citizenship? Would it risk people's lives by denying them access to and understanding of crucial services? States don't always fall into step behind the feds, but what if they were pressured, for example, to make driver's license applications available in English only? What if manufacturers were pressured to stop printing bilingual product labels, and banks and drugstores stopped making bilingual phone services available? And what of warning signs? To use an example cited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), there would not have been the precipitous decline in drowning deaths on the Potomac River credited to having signs also posted in Spanish (and Vietnamese) if an English-only policy was in effect. (Many of the drowning victims were immigrants.)
Though this is sometimes lost in the shouting, speaking English is something to which a vast number of immigrants, Mexican and other, aspire. Many of them already face long waits to get into English as a Second Language classes. Puffing out our chests to declare that English is our official language without providing financial assistance to expand those programs is to settle for symbolism. But rather than focusing on this issue under such pressure-packed conditions, Congress should put it aside and apply all its energies and focus to hammering out the reasonable and humane immigration policy that has been so unsettlingly elusive.
Copyright by The Chicago Sun Times
May 21, 2006
In a moment of calm, away from the heated rhetoric and pitched emotions of the immigration debate, many or most Americans would support a law requiring U.S. citizens to speak English on at least a basic level. We don't have to proclaim it our official language -- or our "national" language, as the U.S. Senate voted to do last week and the House may be on the verge of doing -- to embrace it as such. English is the primary language with which we do business, practice law, commit art and communicate with each other, and it also is a crucial part of our heritage. As translatable as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights may be (we won't risk our calmness by bringing up the Spanish version of our national anthem), the words don't resonate in Spanish or Polish or any other language the way they do in English.
As immigrant activism intensifies in cities across the country and the political stakes over illegal immigration are raised ever higher, anger and resentment dominate discussions about it. Democrats including Minority Leader Harry Reid have denounced the language bill as racist. Conservatives who want a security fence to be built along the U.S.-Mexican border are calling for an equally definable line to be drawn between English and Spanish. But before any meaningful conclusion can be reached about the legislation, we must go beyond the emotional talking points of the debate and determine what the practical ramifications would be.
Would a law that says "the English language version of [any federal form] is the sole authority for all legal purposes" undermine our melting pot tradition by making it more difficult for immigrants, legal as well as illegal, to pursue citizenship? Would it risk people's lives by denying them access to and understanding of crucial services? States don't always fall into step behind the feds, but what if they were pressured, for example, to make driver's license applications available in English only? What if manufacturers were pressured to stop printing bilingual product labels, and banks and drugstores stopped making bilingual phone services available? And what of warning signs? To use an example cited by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), there would not have been the precipitous decline in drowning deaths on the Potomac River credited to having signs also posted in Spanish (and Vietnamese) if an English-only policy was in effect. (Many of the drowning victims were immigrants.)
Though this is sometimes lost in the shouting, speaking English is something to which a vast number of immigrants, Mexican and other, aspire. Many of them already face long waits to get into English as a Second Language classes. Puffing out our chests to declare that English is our official language without providing financial assistance to expand those programs is to settle for symbolism. But rather than focusing on this issue under such pressure-packed conditions, Congress should put it aside and apply all its energies and focus to hammering out the reasonable and humane immigration policy that has been so unsettlingly elusive.
posted by Carlos T Mock at 9:23 AM
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