I have nothing against Spanish, as I speak it fluently after studying in Mexico, serving in the Peace Corps in Panama and Colombia, having worked in every country on earth where they speak Spanish and one of my books was even translated into Spanish by a Mexican publisher. And, my grandson just finished Spanish immersion elementary school. Yet in this country, this bilingual mania and expensive entitlement is telling people to go slow. California, feeling guilty that only Mexicans have bilingual education, now has a requirement that public documents be also available in Korean, Chinese, Tagalog (language of the Philippines), Vietnamese, Russian and two American Indian languages. It has gotten so out of control that parents of Spanish-speaking children are now fighting not to have their kids taught in Spanish. So the next time you are asked to indicate your language preference on a credit card swipe, ask yourself what is this for: liberal guilt, for the advocacy bureaucrats that have little knowledge on how languages are learned, politicians seeking ethnic votes, advertising agencies that insist that people will buy things only if the ads are in people's native language.
Panama and Colombia RPCV John Frievalds writes: We've entered linguistic tangle
Column - John Frievalds: We've entered linguistic tangle
As I chose No. 1 the other day in swiping my credit card, I wondered how we got to this point in having Spanish reach into the remotest parts of the United States. And as we debate the various health bills, no one has brought up the "unintended consequences" of legislation, which is why we are now pressing buttons to specify what language we want to use.
Texas had a U.S. senator by the name of Ralph Yarborough in the late 1960s. He faced tough elections and he catered to Mexican-Americans to win. His 1970 election was going to be really tough, so he wanted to get as much of the Mexican-American vote as possible. He introduced all kinds of bills directed to that group to the point that The Dallas Morning News wrote "his name is probably attached to more legislation than any other senator in Texas history." So in 1967, he introduced Senate Bill 428, which was the seed that created the Bilingual Education Act. The motivation was not academics but rather "to cultivate ancestral pride ... provide children with a sense of personal identification essential to social maturation." But remember that Puerto Ricans in New York and Cubans in Miami did not push their congressional representatives for this type of legislation.
Eventually the act directed at Mexican-Americans allocated $15 million, but we now have costs in the billions both from the government and private industry. And we created a huge bureaucracy to administer it and thus a force in lobbying to continue it. With the passage of this act, the idea that the United States was one big melting pot of cultures came to an end.
I am sorry to say that none of this makes any educational or economic sense. I have nothing against Spanish, as I speak it fluently after studying in Mexico, serving in the Peace Corps in Panama and Colombia, having worked in every country on earth where they speak Spanish and one of my books was even translated into Spanish by a Mexican publisher. And, my grandson just finished Spanish immersion elementary school.
Two refugee experiences and a lot of research, not ethnic pride, shaped my views. I was born in Latvia and came to the U.S. speaking only Latvian and German. And lo and behold, in six months I was speaking English. To people born in a small country learning several languages is no big deal. I later repaid my refugee debt by sponsoring a Cuban family of five with three kids under 12. In six months, the kids were speaking fluent English and interpreting for their parents. A linguistics professor once explained to me that before puberty children have "free floating neurons" in the brain. This enables them to learn numerous languages and to do so without an accent. If someone learns another language after puberty, they will always have an accent.
It is truly ironic that around the world, billions of people are learning English as fast as they can so that they can enter the global marketplace while keeping their native language and customs in tact. In India, where many call centers answer customer service queries from the U.S., millions are learning how to get rid of their Indian accents. Yet in this country, this bilingual mania and expensive entitlement is telling people to go slow. California, feeling guilty that only Mexicans have bilingual education, now has a requirement that public documents be also available in Korean, Chinese, Tagalog (language of the Philippines), Vietnamese, Russian and two American Indian languages. It has gotten so out of control that parents of Spanish-speaking children are now fighting not to have their kids taught in Spanish.
So the next time you are asked to indicate your language preference on a credit card swipe, ask yourself what is this for: liberal guilt, for the advocacy bureaucrats that have little knowledge on how languages are learned, politicians seeking ethnic votes, advertising agencies that insist that people will buy things only if the ads are in people's native language.
The late Sen. Yarborough's need for votes opened up this linguistic Pandora's box, and it will be hard to shut it. He forgot that the key to success in any country is that you must master that country's main language if you want to succeed.
Comprende?
John Frievalds lives in Iowa and is writing a book about a Texas Panhandle cattleman.
