Thread: "SPANGLISH" California Mocks Senate English Push

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/artic ... lish_push/

"Spanglish" California mocks Senate English push

By Aarthi Sivaraman
May 19, 2006

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A day after the U.S. Senate proposed declaring English the national language, Californians wondered on Friday what all the fuss was about. Most immigrants embrace English, and Spanish exists happily alongside.

"I do have my own language but I do feel that if you are here, want a career and a good life, you should embrace English," said Spanish-speaking immigrant and cafe manager Sam Simonian.

On the streets of heavily Hispanic Los Angeles, both Latinos and non-Latinos said what is decided on Capitol Hill won't change their plans to learn the language.

"If you went to France, you would learn French. This country is built on English so you need to learn it," said Elmira Ross.

Seeking to add an amendment to the contentious immigration reform bill, the Senate agreed on Thursday to make English the national language and moments later also adopted a milder alternative calling English the country's "unifying language."

Which version ends up in the bill will depend on negotiations with the U.S. House of Representatives.

President George W. Bush has long opposed making English the country's national language, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told reporters on Friday, but he did not say where Bush stood on the amendment.

Neither proposal would bar the use of Spanish or other languages in government services.

In Los Angeles, some saw the Senate move as an overture to conservatives who say immigrants are destroying the American identity, while pro-immigrant activists denounced it as chauvinistic.

"It is cultural chauvinism at its best and reactionary nativism at its worst," said Nativo Lopez, president of the Mexican-American Political Association.

"It is premised on the false notion that new immigrants cannot be assimilated, which is false. And that has been demonstrated repeatedly in history."

Karthick Ramakrishnan, professor of political science at the University of California at Riverside, said the Senate's move likely stirred up controversy where there wasn't any.

"It is a highly charged symbolic issue and conservatives care about it more than liberals or even Latino advocates," he said.

Ramakrishnan said it might also be a reaction to a Spanish version of "The Star-Spangled Banner," which aired in Hispanic media this month and many Latino activists think backfired.

In a place where many of the city names hark back to the Spanish missions, immigration activist Oscar Sanchez said Spanish was simply "embedded in our culture."

"Are we going to change the names of cities? What are you going to call San Jose or San Diego or San Francisco, if you look at the rules?" he asked.

"Changing French fries to freedom fries didn't work, did it?"

In a place where many of the city names hark back to the Spanish missions, immigration activist Oscar Sanchez said Spanish was simply "embedded in our culture."

What a crock!! There's all sorts of names in certain areas that go towards different cultures but it doesn't mean it's IMBEDDED in it.

Alot here are American Indian names but unfortunatly I haven't seen a one. No Native American language anywhere else. They take things to just idiotic extreems.

Janet Murguia, the head of the largest national Latino civil rights group, National Council of La Raza was on CNN today opposing English as our official language. Her complaints included non English speaking people not being able to understand emergency orders in English and there being no funding for programs to learn English in the proposal to make English the official language.
She also said no one negates that learning English is important and then claimed that immigrants "want to learn English." In my reply to her, I asked what planet she lived on, and did she talk to any native born Americans before formulating her opinions because here in Florida, the vast majority of immigrants have no desire to learn English, refuse to learn it, laugh and sneer at you or get violent when you ask them to speak in English. As for funding for English programs for immigrants, I asked her why these immigrants seem to think that taxpayers have to pay for everything that benefits them. I pointed out that when my son needed a math tutor, my government didn't pay for the tutor....I DID....just as THEY should pay for English classes. Furthermore, I told her that an English proficiency exam should be part of the tests to attain citizenship.
Please write to these officials (emails below) at NCLR and tell them what YOU think about Ms. Murguia's views on requiring immigrants to learn English. I think they are only hearing the LATINO view.
Ana Gámiz: agamiz@nclr.org
Alexandra Jost: ajost@nclr.org
Web site: http://www.nclr.org/