No Habla Ingles

My oh my. I cannot wait to see what Ed Gruberman has to say on this. He has always been one of my more vocal commentators when it comes to Hispanic immigration. I will have to do an update this entry once he does. What am I referring to? Mr. Obama’s latest ‘swipe’ at the American people:

You know, I don’t understand when people are going around worrying about, “We need to have English- only.” They want to pass a law, “We want English-only.”

Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language.

You know, it’s embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe, and all we can say [is], “Merci beaucoup.” Right?

“Right?” Is he trying to urge the crowd to agree with him? I’m sorry, Obama, but unlike most any other country in the world, we don’t “need” to speak more than one language in our country in order to work on the international level. Now that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t learn a second language. Over my many years, I could speak Japanese, Latin, and Tagalog. How did any of those languages help me in my day to day life? None at all, and since I’ve never needed to use those languages, I have forgotten most of it over the years.

So why is English-only such a big issue in the United States? Is it because of the large Irish and German populations in the North? Is it because of the large Asian populations in the West? No. It is from the rapid increase on immigrants (both legal and illegal) from the South that are not adapting to the U.S. culture and learning/using our language (English) in public. I should not have to bring a translator with me when I walk into a McDonalds or talk to the janitor in a building somewhere. Not only does not speaking English impact commerce and public relations in our country, it also impacts emergency care providers and legal issues (such as insurance and voting) when there is a breakdown in the basic form of communication.

So let’s focus less upon our children needing to learn Spanish and focus more on ensuring all immigrants entering the country to make sure they can speak English well enough to interact with anyone you come in contact with. This is our country. English has been used in all of our founding documents, so even if we do not have a law stating that English is our official language, it is implied.

Related articles:
The BoBo Files – “Tired of Pressing or Saying ’1′”
The Common Conservative – “Merci Beaucoup Sen. Obama, But I Speak English”