One factor of many Americans’ lack of knowledge about their country’s history has always been the fact that many don’t know that English has never been declared to be the official language of the United States despite its extremely widespread usage. This has led to multilingual airports that discriminate against certain nationalities (e.g. no French at JFK airport in NYC) and far too extensive multilingual education and commercial services.
This may finally come to an end though if a bill introduced in Congress by Rep. Steve King, HR 997, the English Language Unity Act of 2003, becomes law through a constitutional amendment. Its purpose would be as follows:
To declare English as the official language of the United States, to establish a uniform English language rule for naturalization, and to avoid mis-constructions of the English language texts of the laws of the United States, pursuant to Congress’ powers to provide for the general welfare of the United States and to establish a uniform rule of naturalization under article I, section 8, of the Constitution.
I warmly welcome such legislation as this is one area where the United States has lagged behind many Western nations for decades. It may seem a bit discriminatory at first, but in the long run it can only benefit us all by building more bridges between cultures by means of the English language.
Sam
Aug 8th, 2003I think it’s a bad idea. Americans are already known as being a monolingual people (as opposed to people in other parts of the world who speak multiple languages) and this would not help. I don’t think not having French in an airport is discrimination, there just aren’t that many French speaking people in this country when compared to Spanish.
Bilingual education is another issue which is totally and completely unrelated to whether or not English becomes the official language of the U.S.
Fabio
Aug 8th, 2003If we’re already known as a monolingual state then it couldn’t hurt to set it in stone by means of a law.
As for bilingual education, it is related. Right now where there is no official language in most states anyone can argue that the state should provide education in their native tongue. So if you get enough Kazachstani people then you’d end up with a bilingual school with that language. If that snowballs you have a huge waste of money.
If English were declared the official language however this waste would cease. Switzerland is a good example of how beneficial an official language can be. Foreigners are integrated into German, French or Italian language instruction classes (depending on the region) and thereby find it easier to acclimate themselves to their new home.
While I encourage a multicultural environment I think there’s a point at which the self-segregation of foreigners has to stop in order to protect the country. If we are to be strong as one People, we must share certain characteristics, and as far as language goes English is the language of choice.
Erik
Oct 6th, 2003Thank you Fabio. I agree with everything you said. Why aren’t their more people that think like us. So many people are calling people like me and you ignorant and narrow minded because of our beliefs that they don’t realize that they are the ones being ignorant. English does need to be our set language in the U.S. If every english speaking person in the U.S. moved to some non-english speaking country they wouldn’t be happy either if we tried to get them to change. You can’t just show up and say ” We’re here,now change everything about your country to accomidate us. Even though you were here first.”
Jason
Jan 24th, 2004Personally, I am happy to live in a country that is de facto monolingual but de lege multilingual. It is a mistake for the United States to make any move that would make our country look any more unwilling to accommodate diversity and truly embrace cultures. After all, cultures can only really be understand in their native language; language and culture are inseparable. My ancestors came to America under the impression that they could find liberties: of culture, of religion, and of language. Of course, they came over about fifty years before the United States was even thought of.
My final thought is this: the Native Americans “accommodated” our ancestors when they came to America. In two hundred years, English speakers may be struggling to file their tax forms in Spanish.
Thomas D
Mar 7th, 2004Has anyone thought of making are county two offical languages, like many other countries do, Im all for unity to. but to make a certain group of people suffer because were close minded, it a little harsh. for example spanish consist of about 33% percent of america. There 10,966,566 million spanish speakers in CA alone, so we just tell that ten million tough!!
Morning Star
Mar 30th, 2004I think it is very narrow minded of us, as Americans, to expect everyone to conform to “our” culture… which really just consists of many cultures thrown together. America was founded by people who wanted to preserve their way of life, and not concent to a government telling them what to think or how to live their lives. I think that we should continue this openness throughout our world today. Just because we speak English, and maybe your ancestors spoke English, does not mean that everyone should have to concent to surrendering parts of their culture. They don’t want to give up their way of life any more than the early Americans did.
So why should America change now? Are we so different from our founding fathers?
Jim Rediker
Apr 4th, 2004When I arrived in this Country with my family, I recited the Pledge of Allegiance with the phrase “ONE NATION UNDER GOD”. and in ENGLISH, I was very proud then, and I am still proud that America stand as “One Nation under God”. This country was built under the premise for religious freedom and freedom of speach in English. America has honored me with citizenship and I am ever so proud to be an AMERICAN.
In my home land my mother tongue and religion, set my family out as a minority, an ethnic manority and we became less than second class citizens. In the region of this country my mother tongue was the overall majority language of the entire Country. However, in the region, where we lived, we no longer had the right to earn a living using our native language. We could not advertise any products or services in our native language. All public signs, names for business, street signs, traffic signs, and road directions were mandated to be in this other manority language. Language police patolled the streets and enforced business’ to comply with this language mandate. Implications were, that all Business’ would be forced to replace their exectutives with the other manority language speaking peoples. We had to prove our ethnic origin and we were given certificates allowing our children to be educated in their native language. Emigrants to this region, it was manditory to educate their children in this other ethnic language.
This fight and uprising of this particular manority became a reality in 1976 after years of rebellion, terrorism, street bombings, mail box mercury bombs that blew up in your face when you posted a letter, kidnaping and murder of regional government officials and a British Diplomat that suported the overall majority. Thier families were threatened and terrorized. The bottom fell out of the economy, Construction came to a hault, real estate values dropped by more that two thirds of their original values. Towns, villages, and cities were remaned and hunderds of years of history and tradition was lost forever. Umemployment was on the rise. In 1977, 250,000 refugee families left this reqion for other parts of the country and many left their home land forever. Over half of the busines with their national head quarters left the region for other parts of the country. As business’ and individuals we were stripped of our basic freedom of rights.
Politics became the religion of this ethnic majority and the new regional government became fanatical. They disserted their Catholic Christian religion and faith in God and they prayed and worshiped to their political enigma. Families and family values were almost totally destroyed. With in five years our our departure, 44 percent of their children being born were out of wedlock. Their driving force was politics, their faith in God was shunned and their churches fell in almost total ruin. They produced a Ghetto for themselves and now 30 years later this regime is screaming to the national government to pour billions of dollars into the region to promote bilingualism to help rebuild the lost economy, to rejoin and communicate with the rest of the world. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent to preserve one lanuage, one cullture and at the expense of a another culture destroyed in this region forever.
We left our home land and arrive in the USA in June 1977 and America has truly blessed our family with open arms in the same tradition of millions of emigrants before us looking for religious freedom and the American dream. My Mother land is Canada and this political tyranical region is Quebec. A near banana state and tyranical regime to the north. Go a head, you go and try living there without the freedoms you enjoy each and everyday.You won’t stay long! You will understand fear.
For all those who wish to abolish the Elnlish official language and “One Nation Under God” please I beg you to take what dollars you have with “In God We Trust” and go and buy some disserted desolate piece of land and make your own damn country without God and without America and in every language you wish to choose. Indoctrinate your hatered and intolerance and multi-lingualism else where! That is a freedom that America also allow to you.
We all tend to forget 911 and the freedoms we have here. Go to other countries and find out first hand why so many people want to hurt and destroy America. Their hatered is for what we have and what they can not achive. Live is some of these countries and see if you don’t miss the freedoms you have enjoyed all your life. Try a few of the countries with daily bombings and constant rebellions, and lets see just how fast you come back home to ENGLISH America and “One Nation Under God”
MEMEMEMEME
Apr 22nd, 2004I what i think about English becoming the offical language in the US is that English is one of the hardest languages to be spoken. It is a known fact that people that do not speak English and have to learn it is really hard for them. I am not just saying that we shouldn’t make English be the offical speaking language because i think it would be nice. But what i am saying is that people that dont know how are going to have to learn and it might be really hard for them. So what i think about English becoming the offical language is a good thing in a why. I mean how do you feel when you are in the mall and there are people speaking a different language that you do not know and they could be sitting there saying stuff behind your back and you wouldn’t even know. I mean how lame is that. English is a grrreat language and i think that people should use it as an offical language in the US. I mean people that speak English around there kids well thier little kids learn it and before you know it you have millions of people in the US speaking language that many Americans dont know. So what i think is people need to learn English and try it before saying they cant do it. I mean i am in High School and i am in Spanish and that class isnt that hard. I went into my Spanish Class not knowing even ONE little thing about Spanish and i am learning it just fine with a flowing GPA of 3.0. So these people need to get off of there BUTTS and they need to make ENGLISH THE OFFICAL AND NATIONAL LANGUAGE….THANK YOU