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LETTER: English is America's language

William D. Strinden, M.D., Lufkin

Sunday, September 04, 2005

A recent decision by a Dallas area school board to require school administrators to learn Spanish so they can speak to parents of the children in the schools is terribly misguided. Only the judicial decrees ordering ballots and other government documents to be printed in convenient languages is more misguided. No one is a greater advocate for foreign language instruction than I. In the hugely populated country of India, it is understood by the educated populace that despite the hardships and indignations of British colonialism the greatest gift bestowed upon the people was the English language. In an enormous land with over a hundred languages spoken regionally, there was no way they would ever have been able to come together to achieve a common nation unless there was a common language. They would not have been able to discuss their differences peacefully.

This is not some occult mystery, but has been proven over and over throughout history. If an influx of immigrants, legal and illegal, refuse to learn the language of the land, it sets the groundwork for civil war. Kosovo is a recent good example, but the German population in Sudentenland helping to ignite the second world war also comes to mind. Even French-speaking Quebec in our ever-so-polite neighbor to the north agitates decennially for independence.

I think every ethnic group in the American melting pot should maintain their own language proficiency, thereby helping America in international trade. However, it is imperative that we speak a common language. No ballot, driver's license permit, or any official paper should ever be printed in anything but English. If we enable this particular immigrant group to carve out its own ethnic enclave in contradistinction to the hundreds of other immigrant groups over the history of America, I predict bloody civil strife in 50 years. If Hispanics are forced to be Americans, I predict that America will remain the bastion of opportunity which drew our ancestors here in the first place.