Recently, while surfing Odyssey Online on my weekly quest trying to figure out what to write about in this week’s article, I stumbled upon an article that really–for lack of a better term–pissed me off. The article, titled “The Problem With 'English Only' In Jersey City, NJ,” spoke about how only using English in the United States of America is racist. I am here to combat this (You can find the original article here).
Before I begin my argument, I first want to explain that I have no problem with the Spanish language or people. I was El Presidente of my high school Spanish Club for two years and am pursuing a minor in Spanish currently. I have a love for the Spanish and Latino cultures, food, and language. I hope one day to be fluent in it, and I truly believe that it is the most beautiful language in the world.
We live in the United States of America, a nation founded in English. All of our laws are written in English. Although we have no official language, English is unofficially official. Many Spanish people come to America and never learn English, and although it is not a problem speaking any language you please to your family members, friends, or anyone else, it is a problem not knowing English in America, and not a racial one. Essentially this problem boils down to two things, money and values. I will discuss both.
As you most likely know, America is trillions of dollars in debt. We have a spending problem, and every little bit of cutbacks on unnecessary costs helps the nation (All facts and figures in this article are courtesy of usenglish.org who has the statistic’s original source listed). In 2003, the city of Bowling Green spent 500,000 dollars on ESL. That same year New York City pledged 20 million dollars to offer core course in the students’ native languages. In Virginia in 2002, criminal court interpreters ran taxpayers a 2.7 million dollar bill. The California DMV spent 2.2 million dollars on language services. As of 2002, it cost 1.86 million dollars a year to prepare written translations for food stamp recipient, and oral translations would cost 21 million dollars.
That was only a small slice of the costs in 2002, to which every dollar then is now one dollar and thirty-two cents. If America stopped spending money on bilingual services, not only would it save huge dollar amount that could be put in to more important areas, but it would give more of an incentive for people coming to America to learn English. That would be good for them and for society as a whole.
America is very commonly referred to as a "melting pot," and that cannot be true without assimilation of our immigrants. One in 25 households have no family member residing in the house over the age of 14 speaking English. This linguistic isolation is redefining one of the points that makes America as great as it is. The land of opportunity that we are, and the American dream that immigrants have always strived for, are not possible without the job opportunities and the melting pot assimilation which open up with the language of English. People who refuse to learn English are closing doors on many chances they may have, and as the government and other organizations continue to make it easier for people not to learn English, they hinder not only the nation as a whole, but the people who cannot speak the language of the land.
