US Needs All the Languages It Can Get

By Domenico Maceri, PhD, contributor

The question of language has been, and will, in all likelihood,continue to be a controversial issue in the US. In the last severalyears, the anti-immigrant climate has pushed a number of states,including California and Arizona, to pass initiatives to eliminatebilingual education from the public schools. More than twenty-sixstates have approved legislation declaring English the officiallanguage. (Legislation in Congress was also introduced to declareEnglish the national language but it has not moved forward.) The hopeis that by focusing on English we would also save money, sinceservices in other languages would not have to be provided. We wouldnot need officials who speak other languages to meet special needsrequired by immigrants.

But the focus on English goes beyond monetary cost. Americans’insecurity about controlling the borders certainly influences voters.The push for English monolingualism sends a message to those whoadvocate multi-lingualism and multi-culturalism: the US is onecountry, with one flag, and one language. Monolingualism is the gluethat holds the country together. We don’t want to be like Canada,which, some believe, can come apart at any time because ofbilingualism.

Unfortunately, monolingualism will provide no answers to problemsfacing America. Whether we like it or not, the US depends on othercountries to maintain our standard of living. We can’t isolateourselves from the rest of the world. Building an English-only fencearound our borders and not going out nor letting anyone in is out ofthe question. Thus we need to face up to the fact that language is thekey to our relationship with the rest of the world.

I always find it interesting that when newspapers show world leadersshaking hands, they appear to be talking to each other. In fact, inmost cases they aren’t. They can’t. They need interpreters, otherwisethey would be speechless. The fact that interpreters never appear inthe photos gives us the wrong impression about the importance oflanguages.

There is little doubt that we live in a multi-lingual andmulti-cultural world. To a certain extent, the US has always been amulti-lingual and multi-cultural country. Rather than passEnglish-only laws, which make immigrants feel unwelcome, we shouldlook at the linguistic abilities newcomers possess and make use ofthem. These are talents that can and should be used to solve problemsin the US but are also tools to solve international problems.

We did so during World War II. Japanese Americans, Italian Americans,and German Americans provided critical linguistic resources to the USin the war effort. American officials also used the Navajo language asa code, which, because of its linguistics complexities, our enemiescould not break. Multilingualism does not translate into problems, asAmericans seem to believe. Languages do not cause countries to breakapart. If that were the case, Switzerland, with four languages, wouldhave come apart centuries ago. Languages are the link to the rest ofthe world. If we can’t talk to people and show them what we are reallylike, we’ll let extremists describe us. And that leads todisasters.

The author is a foreign language teacher inCalifornia.