November 9, 1986

Bilingual ‘Right’ Is New Political Ploy

The drive to make English the official language of Florida, and ultimately the United States, reminds us how the Tower of Babel fell into rubble.

Biblical authors attempted to explain the diversity of languages with a rather lame reason. God, it is said, was displeased that Noah’s descendents attempted to reach heaven by earthly architecture. He confounded the universal speech of that time. The builders, unable to cooperate, scattered.

Anthropologists are more realistic and attribute “babble” to independent development by isolated peoples.

Whatever. There are now more than 3,000 languages in the world, not counting dialects.

Nearly a billion people speak Chinese, more than any other language. Approximately 300 million speak English, the next most prevalent language. Hindustani is spoken by 200 million people, Russian by 190 million and Spanish by 160 million.

In the past, such diversity was merely quaint. Today, language difference poses serious political, economic and cultural problems. The U.S., as the great melting pot, is most concerned with ethnic communication.

Immigrants in America used to work hard at integration. There was no welfare and no concessions to illiteracy. If they didn’t assimilate, and quickly, they went hungry and were outcast. Newcomers crowded classrooms, eager to speak and write as Americans.

Now we have “safety nets” for the unlearned, the unskilled and the unwilling.

Hispanics, particularly, browbeat the system to accommodate their nationalistic chauvinism.

Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and southern California cater to Mexicans (largely here by illegal entry) with food stamps, legal aid, public education taught by Spanish-speaking teachers, voting rights with ballots printed in Spanish, and bilingual road signs.

Puerto Ricans constitute the largest welfare clientele of New York City, and they insist on ethnic purity of their neighborhoods. Cubans integrate into the south Florida economy, but wield their political clout to preserve their culture and language.

All this pride in national origin may be fashionable, but it is divisive and counter productive. It postpones that day when foreigners become citizens - self supporting, patriotic and socially mobile.

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The key to good citizenship is a common language and writing. In the United States there is no question that English is the language that prevails.

It is all very well to preserve the speech, dress and customs of your roots. However, family pride should not be confused with jingoistic stubbornness.

Foreigners come to America because of dissatisfaction with their native country. Many left their homeland at great danger or cost. Many risked their lives with leaky boats or criminal guides. Many sneaked into the U.S. under cover of darkness, or bought phony marriages, and live here with the help of counterfeit documents.

Such intense desires to participate in the American way surely includes the wish to be American. Without exception, immigrants struggle to make a place here for their children.

The argument that bilingualism is necessary to ease children into the American mainstream is a pander to sentimentalism. Average native-born Americans have a vocabulary of only 850 of the 60,000 English words in Webster’s unabridged dictionary. A vocabulary of 500 words is adequate for normal activities.

Children have little difficulty in picking up a new language. This writer supervised a student foreign exchange program for several years and hosted six foreign teenagers. Nearly all the young people were conversing in their host language within three weeks, and dreaming in that tongue in three months.

One suspects that all the fuss about bilingual rights is nothing more than a new ploy by political activists to gain special interest privileges.

And why not? It’s the name of the game today in American politics.

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Five states have caught on to the political nature of bilingual demands and designated English the official language for public purposes. They are Nebraska, Virginia, Illinois, Kentucky and Indiana.

Dade County , Florida, ( Miami) last year declared English as the official language after an additional 125,000 Cubans and Haitians overwhelmed public facilities and ran up the crime rate. The English Campaign of Tampa, Fla., now seeks to convince legislators of the need for a similar law statewide.

It is astonishing that there should have to be laws making English official. It is so obviously sensible. Yet, special-interest Hispanic groups have been so successful in wheedling Spanish-speaking legislation that it has become necessary to “fight fire with fire.”

How long would it be before bi-Kevin Falconlingualism became tri-lingualism and multi-lingualism? Why shouldn’t San Francisco schools teach in Chinese? Or Chicago schools in Polish? Or Detroit schools in Swahili?

English already is the language of trade and technology worldwide. Consequently it is the most widely used second language. Half the world’s newspapers are printed in English. Two thirds of the world’s radio and TV stations broadcast in English. All airports give landing instructions in English.

“Coca-Cola” and “computer” have become words in every language. The French talk of “rocanrole” and “automation.” Italians put “colcrem” on their faces and kick “futbols.” Russians drive “avtomobiles” and eat “bifshteks.”

Foreign words are easily absorbed by English-such as: taboo, OK, samurai, chocolate, depot, vodka and blitzkrieg.

We don’t have to rebuild the Tower of Babel, but also we don’t have to reduce the greatest nation in history to rubble by a multitude of tongues.

By Lindsey Wilger Williams, retired newspaper publisher and syndicated columnist