Thread: English Language Unity Act

English Language Unity Act
by Robert M. Engstrom
05/06/2009

For millions of Americans, poor English language skills resulted in lost opportunities for higher education, better employment and higher wages, according to a study by the Lexington Institute. Enclaves of isolated non-English speakers live in poverty, while employers struggle to find qualified applicants capable of interacting with coworkers and customers, causing an estimated $65 billion reduction to the nation’s gross domestic product.

In answer to President Obama’s call for investing in a skilled workforce for the future, Rep. Steve King, (R-Iowa), is pressing legislation to declare English the official language of the United States and efforts to scrap multilingual education in favor of English immersion programs in schools and the workplace.

Don Soifer, the institute’s vice president and educational policy researcher, authored the Lexington study which concentrates primarily on the Latino population, He said that despite the multi-millions of dollars spent by the federal and state governments to teach English to non-English speakers, there has been a “broad economic failure by the educational system.â€

While school never could teach me proficiency in German, I was lucky enough to spend time in Germany and learned to speak fairly well, even learning the local cuss words.
Kids thrown into a foreign society adapt more easily to the language than their parents, and often end up translating for their parents. There is no excuse for Hispanic kids not to be proficient in English if they had been surrounded by a society that does not speak Spanish. These kids have no need to learn any English as their entire swarm of friends and neighbors speak Spanish.

I live in southern Calif. and I can vouch for that. Everywhere you go, Hispanics are speaking Spanish rather than English. From the grandparents, parents and right on down to their school-aged children.
Now mind you we do have the right to speak any language we want to but when out in public WHY do they choose Spanish over English which is our national language? IMO it means they are not assimilating into our society and that they are being defiant of our national language. Many of them are hoping that Spanish will have the same status as English in this country eventually. I have even gotten hostile looks when I just looked their way while they were speaking Spanish. I have never made any remarks to them nor have I given them "a certain look". This tells me that they know what they are doing is not condusive to being respectful to the national language of this country. The thought always crosses my mind with the hostile looks that they are thinking "you stole our land". Which is of course ludicrous because the Mexican indians were from way south of this country. Do we really want to legalize those who are hostile and have a grievance against the white majority and the language of this country? I don't think so!

and what took us so long to wake up?

If you do a search you will find that English is the most widely spoken language in the world, the second is Chinese but the usage in more condenced. Learning English is required if you want to get anywhere in this modern world! Air traffic controlers all over the world are required to speak English.

In the case of California, the majority of 10th grade students have been in the public school system since the 1st grade, were still not rated proficient in English, and had higher dropout rates.

Obviously it doesn't work.

There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile...We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language...and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
--Theodore Roosevelt, 1919

One Language, One People...

English has been the unifying language for centuries. Multi language and multi culturalism are just dividing forces...

Anytime people try and greet me or address me in spanish, I simply shoot back:
"This America...I speak English."