Immigration, ctd.

So I happened to notice this article in the Times (LA, mind you, not that snooty NY Times) about Sen. Salazar slipping a rider into the immigration legislation there about English being the "common and unifying" language of this country and whatnot. But hold your horses...this isn't the federal govt. mandating English as the official language, like more than twenty-plus other states. Immigrants that don't speak English, after all, won't be unable to get their benefits. What this really does is raise the standard for immigrants to pass their residency requirements by knowing slightly more English than is currently required. So in other words, all that's going on is one little tweak which is getting a whole lot more media than it's really worth because no one can debate this issue sensibly...

Sounds a whole lot like No Child Left Behind, doesn't it? :D

Anyway. So let's get past the fact that Congress isn't doing anything new here other than making a proclamation so it looks good when they're running for re-election and get to the heart of the matter:

Should English be the official language of the United States?

I don't particularly see why it should. Either no benefits or other government programs would really be influenced by the new official primacy of English, it would be an empty proclamation (as in the case above). The other case is that the action would withhold benefits if people didn't learn English, in which case the government is discriminating against people because of their current choice of language. That's something that I bet people are just itching to do. "Let's punish people because they can't speak our language!"

By the same token, let's punish people who don't have the internet. After all, they're not working in well-paying jobs that send the government higher tax revenues. Oh, and people that wear bellbottom pants because they're so out of fashion. Or people that wear toupees because they're not supporting the nationally-vital hair regrowth industry.

Okay, those are unfair comparisons. But think of it this way - to succeed in America, to really succeed, you need to know English. It's as simple as that. There's no parallel corporate ladder in this country for people that can only speak Spanish, French, Aramaic, or Swahili. Think about a top management position. To conduct any sort of business with any other company, you would have to know English. It's not as though there's a separate "Spanish-speaking only" economy that exists inside the United States which intersects the mainstream one at no points whatsoever. Not a sizable one that could threaten the mainstream, anyway. If the benefits of learning English outweigh the costs of time, money, and effort needed to learn it, people will learn it. Those benefits rise exponentially as someone moves up the corporate ladder.

Furthermore, let's not forget that there's other avenues that immigrants and their children mesh with their english-speaking breatheren: schools. Even with English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, these are not large enough to teach children entire cirricula of schools. Sooner or later, they're going to be plopped into English-speaking classes.

The stats bear this out. Take a look at this graph from the Migration Policy Institute:

Table 1: Percent of Children Who Speak Only English by Generation and Group

Anyone notice the first column? Hispanics. The second? Mexicans. By the third generation of immigrants (grandchildren), a majority only speak English. Seeing as how natural births are outnumbering immigrants, I think we'll be okay. No need to worry that somehow there will be these self-contained Spanish-speaking ghettos where only Spanish is taught...or any other language, for that matter.

Ever been to Chinatown in any city? Sure, the FOBs (Fresh off the Boats - a term for newly arrived immigrants) may not know English, and those that do prefer to use Chinese, but most people have some grasp of the language.

When was the last time you heard someone cry about how the Chinese are going to take over our country? Yeah, I didn't think so.

So don't worry about Hispanics coming in and taking over America with their non-English-speaking ways. It's simply not going to happen. And you can take that to the bank. They still speak English there.