Monolith of Monolingualism

Interesting story this morning on NPR about the re-emergence of this "English only" movement in conjunction with the immigration debate. Jorge Ramos (who's hot, by the way) says that the bill is moot, because you can't regulate the language people speak in their homes and what they listen to on television and the radio. I think that the point of the bill, really, is that Congress will no longer provide federal funding for materials such as voting instructions in other languages. Which is a shame... one of my friends worked for the New York City school board's translation/language department (not sure of the exact title) where they worked to translate school communications into 8 different languages so all parents could keep abreast of school happenings. Pretty cool.

Anyway, Ramos says that in many places of the United States, Spanish is already a predominant language. True in South Dade, in my sunny hurricaine-ridden home state. My grandma once had to ask for "leche" in a Pollo Tropical (a Cuban fast-food restaurant which really should expand nationwide so I can get my fried plantains). In any case, Steve Inskeep (the reporter) commented that Europeans have languge boards (like L'Academie francaise) which govern the spread of foreign influence in their languages. Ramos stated that Europeans tend to speak a second language and even be trilingual. I have to say this is a gross over-generalization. From personal experience, many Eastern Europeans are fully fluent in several languages; however, the French and the Spanish have a very cavalier attitude towards second languages. They may speak a little, may be able to get by, but many are far from fluent. In all the classes and all the friends I made in Paris, none spoke English well enough for me to converse with them in the language. We usually spoke in French becasue my French was superior to their English. Obviously this is not true all the time, and many Europeans who have lived here speak English without even an accent.

However, many Europeans see the importance of learning a second language, while some Americans are stubbornly monolingual. And now our government is encouraging this monolingualism.

In any case, Ramos commented, ask any Spanish-speaking immigrant if it's important for them to learn English, and the answer is always, "Where can I sign up?" We need to provide more and better classes (I know, I should be teaching one) for immigrants to learn English.

Univision's Ramos: No Stopping Growth of Spanish (NPR, June 14th, 2006)