“Judging others is too often escapism dressed in the garb of righteous indignation, whereby I dutifully point out in others that which I probably should be pointing out in myself.”
— Craig D. Lounsbrough, author

I just finished up a five-week language intensive at Centre College on Friday. I spent five weeks learning Malay, the native language in Malaysia, for 5-6 hours every weekday. I am traveling to Malaysian Borneo in 2017, and it is important to me that I learn as much Malay as I can before I leave on my trip.

Learning the language of the place I’m traveling to is important to me. I firmly believe that if you want to understand the complex culture and attitudes of a country’s native people, you absolutely must know the language. When you travel to another country where English is not the native language, whether it’s for a short stay or you plan to live there semi-permanently, so much is lost to you if you rely solely on English for communication.

It seems to me that native English speaking Americans seem to feel that if someone immigrates to the United States, they should learn English. There is a backlash in this country against immigrants that move to America and do not learn English to a proficient level. While I do think that in order to immerse yourself in a culture, language is key. However, America is a melting pot of cultures and nationalities, and I think that makes America a very interesting and unique place. If we do not allow immigrants to keep much of their culture and background, America could become a very Anglo-Saxon melting pot and I think we would lose a lot of our value if that happened.

I wondered if expatriates, or Americans who move out of the U.S. and take up residency in other countries, learn the languages of the countries they move to. Are we expecting something out of immigrants to America that we don’t adhere to ourselves when we relocate?

Less than half of immigrants that come to America speak English very fluently, and about 13 percent don’t speak English at all. If immigrants have been in America for three decades or more, the percent who have English speaking abilities jumps to 63 percent and only 6 percent of that pool don’t speak English at all. These numbers make sense. That’s how learning any language works. You become better over time. Among the two nationalities who rank lowest in English speaking in the U.S., Mexican and Guatemalan, 29 percent and 31 percent respectively say they cannot speak English well. It is also important to remember that 44 percent of foreign-language speakers in America were born in America. Nearly half foreign-language speakers are natural born citizens.

Now let’s look at expatriates who relocate out of the U.S. and into other world countries. Only 8% of American expatriates live in a country where English is the primary language. A third of American expatriates only speak their mother tongue (30 percent) or one other additional language (42 percent). Nearly one-third (32 percent) have a problem with the language barrier when moving abroad. Half of American expatriates say they cannot speak the language of the host country very well or at all.

It would seem like we expect immigrants to America (and even foreign-language speaking natural born citizens) to speak English, even though half of American expatriates cannot speak the language of the country they immigrate into. Those with Mexican and Guatemalan roots struggle the most with the English language, according to the Census in 2014, with a third of each not able to speak English well. Allowing for the fact that the two articles I pulled from are not completely comparable in the way the statistics are presented, I think it is safe to say that about the same percentage of immigrants to America and expatriates out of America cannot speak the language of their new home country.

I believe that learning the native language is important, as I’ve said. However, I think it’s important to keep these statistics in mind the next time we think about criticizing someone for being in America and not knowing English proficiently. Americans do about the same if not a bit worse at learning the language of their host country than immigrants to America do with learning English.

The quote at the beginning of this article helps sum up what all of these statistics mean. “Judging others is too often escapism dressed in the garb of righteous indignation, whereby I dutifully point out in others that which I probably should be pointing out in myself.” We must be willing to look inside ourselves as Americans and decide if we are being hypocritical when we require others to do what we will not do ourselves. In this case, I believe we are being a bit hypocritical when we say, in reference to a foreign-language speaker, “You live in America, learn English.” According to Jean-Paul Sartre, "man is completely free and responsible for himself, but also responsible for all men.” You may never move to another country, but there are plenty of Americans who do. They represent all of America in their new homes, and we must keep in mind our views of foreign-language speakers in America are a bit hypocritical.