Here’s another good piece on the recent vote on a Senate amendment declaring English the national language (whatever that means). Ruben Navarrette Jr., a columnist and editorial board member of The San Diego Union-Tribune (I saw it in The Asbury Park Press) makes a point similar to the one made by E.J. Dionne Jr. earlier this week: that anyone living here needs to learn English for a lot of reasons but that designating English as the official language is “divisive and insulting.”
I don’t have a problem with declaring English — as in a related amendment also approved by the Senate — merely a “common and unifying language.” But calling English “the national language” is more absolute, as if no other languages should be spoken. It is also unnecessary, divisive and insulting to any U.S. citizen or legal immigrant who, in addition to English, also speaks Spanish, Russian, Chinese or any other foreign language and doesn’t feel any less American because of it.
Of course, anyone who lives in the United States should learn English. But here’s the key: They should do so for their own good and for the good of their children, and not to stay in the good graces of fellow Americans desperate to remain culturally relevant amid changing demographics.
And this:
The senators confirmed the suspicions of many U.S.-born Latinos that they’re in the cultural cross hairs, that many of those who claim to only be anti-illegal immigrant are really anti-Latino and anti-Mexican, and that the immigration debate has become a proxy for an assault on the language and culture of a minority that is, in parts of the country, on its way to becoming a majority.
Hank Kalet 