The Effects of the Subjugation of English

Yesterday I sat in court with my client, while opposing counsel sat with his. We waited patiently while the judge handled various other cases. Eventually, she called us and we started to present our case. About half-way through, the judge told us to step back as she had a case that required a Spanish interpreter. We were interrupted, and told to sit and wait while the case involving the Spanish interpreter was called, argued, and decided. This is not the first time that this has happened. It is a common occurrence. Two weeks prior, various other litigants and lawyers were told to step back and wait so that the court could deal with case requiring a Russian interpreter. In fact, more often than not, English-speaking litigants and their lawyers are told to stop their proceedings, or to wait, to allow for a case requiring a foreign language interpreter. This is but one example of how allowing the use of multiple languages for official business results in disparate treatment.

Although I am an American Citizen, I am a naturalized one. When I was a very young child when my parents and I arrived here from Germany. My memories of that time are rather vague, but I do remember, for a time, being unable to understand what people were saying to me. My parents each spoke three languages. For my mother, it was German, French, and English. My father spoke German, Hebrew and English. German was their primary language at that point and it was how they conducted themselves until we arrived at Kennedy Airport. When we arrived in the early 1960s, my parents did not expect anyone to speak to them in German, French or Hebrew and certainly, there were very few people around, except for family members, who would have been able to do that. As aliens, we were required to register at the post office, where no one spoke German. When my parents applied for Green Cards, no one spoke German, either. The telephone book was most certainly not in German, and if you called the Police or the Fire Department, and you needed help, you had to speak English to get it.

While my parents did have somewhat of a head start, English to each of them, was a third language and it took some time and effort to convert it to a first language, spoken by my father with an accent until the day he died in 2005. Five years after we arrived, my brother was born. My brother only spoke English. In our household, the only time my parents spoke German was when there were relatives visiting from Europe, or if they did not want my brother and I to know what they were talking about. My brother did not know what they were saying, but I, almost always did. In the present day, I speak Spanish fluently, and have only small remnants of my first language, German, stored somewhere in my head. My parents wanted us to be Americans. As a child, I wanted to be an American. I wanted to be treated like all of the other kids who lived in our neighborhood in Chicago. If my parents had to go to court back then, no one would have spoken to them in any language other than English, and my parents would not have expected anything different.

In our society today, it seems that there is no expectation that people should speak English. Government services are provided in Spanish and numerous other languages. Census statistics for Los Angeles County identify 15 commonly spoken languages. As a society, we have gone from expecting people who come to live here to speak our language, to one that facilitates allowing them to live here while continuing to speak their native language. We train government employees to speak these languages; we cater to non-English speakers in our court system. We print government forms in multiple languages. All of this was unheard of in the America that I arrived and grew up in.

It is this mindset of catering to speakers of foreign tongues that creates a disincentive for immigrants to learn English. There is no need to speak English if you settle in a neighborhood where your native language is predominant. There is certainly no need to speak English if the government is going to provide for your needs in your native language. But by catering to non-English speaking immigrants we are doing them, and ourselves, a disservice. By catering to foreign language speakers we are not forcing them to learn English. We leave them to function in their own microcosms of our greater society. We leave them in a situation where, more often than not, they cannot succeed economically on the same level as those people who speak English. To be sure, the vast majority of the cases called in the court system involving interpreters involve people of low socioeconomic standing. If these people are to be able to pull themselves and their children up to a higher socioeconomic level, they must speak English. By catering to them in their own language, we are, in effect, keeping them down.

We are also hindering ourselves. While America does not have an "official" language as do many nations, English is our language. When we cater to speakers of foreign languages we create additional burdens for society as a whole. Now we must employ people in the government who can communicate with non-English speakers, we must print items in multiple languages, and in the process, we often cause those people who speak English to be treated differently than those who do not. The example of what goes on in court illustrates this point.

I do believe that knowing more than one language is beneficial. If I travel, for example, to Spain, I do not expect people to speak to me in English. I think it is my responsibility to figure out a way to communicate. Yet, in my own country, people who speak Spanish now expect to be spoken to in Spanish, just as people who speak Vietnamese expect to be spoken to in their native language while in America.

If we want our society to continue to become more and more divergent, we will continue to cater to immigrants in their native tongues. But if we really want our society to be more cohesive, if we want everyone to be treated equally, the way to do that is to insure that people who live here speak the same language. There is certainly nothing wrong with speaking another language at home, amongst friends, or in social settings. There is nothing wrong with expressing oneself culturally in whatever manner is appropriate to that culture. But there is a problem when the expectation becomes one of entitlement to have everything provided to you in your native tongue. If we conducted ourselves, from a government standpoint in English, eventually immigrants who come here would do the same. They would have no alternative. And at that point, everyone would be treated equally.

Comments

[damyanky]

Mr. Silverberg, I share your annoyance. I am a New Englander now living (25 years) in Arizona. There is just no comparison between the diverse immigrants to N.Y. and those in Phx. People arriving on the East coast from Europe were not simply looking for a job, they wanted a whole new and better permanent life. They were often well educated but persecuted. Many had scrimped for a long time, sold everything they had to buy passage and they knew they would not be going back. They came out of cultures that had historically valued excellent education for their children. They worked so hard to get ahead, existed in tenements (N.Y.), went hungry sometimes, and all the while learned English as fast as they could and drummed education into their kids. They wanted to be Americans and knew full well the meaning of the statue in the harbor. I think a lot of Mexicans here are barely literate in Spanish and seem not to want to assimilate. They drag down the schools and want to have a foot in each country. We need better rules.

[confidance government]

We don't have an official language, and we don't need one. I am learning Spanish to adapt to the changing situation, I suggest everybody should speak at least 2 languages if not 3. So far, English (fluent), French (good), German (functional), Spanish, (abysmal).

[AirViceMarshalPark]

Fine. From now on, proper Oxonian English is the official language of the USA. Since you can't write it, I presume that you can't speak it, either.

Please go to the back of the line and wait for the interpreter.

[paul-o]

Just the kind of thing I'd expect from someone who feels the need to use "high-profile" as an adjective in his own biographical note.
As the Kinks put it, "a well-respected man about town, doing the best things, so conservatively."

[jill2468]

I agree with everything you had to say. A very good article. Thank you.

[jill2468]

I agree wholeheartedly with your article.

[K.J. Dwyer - Huffpost Blogger]

Maybe if English were less of an unholy mess, it might be easier to learn and communicate. Good lord, when I think of the hours wasted in school learning how to "spell" (cuando en castellano todo, pero TODO, esta deletreado como esta pronunciado). Not to mention "phrasal verbs" (I came into the room. I came into some cash. I came out to my family. I came over a little harsh. I came in under budget, etc.). WTF? The amount of memorization required to learn english is astounding, because it is a mess.

English, also, is incredibly imprecise (especially depending on who's is butchering it at the moment). Do you really think Clinton could have gotten away with "that depends on what the meaning of is is" in any other language?

And, yes, I know, it's very colorful and beautiful and poetic, as well. But if you really want everyone to communicate on an equal footing, we would all be better off speaking Spanish.

[larry278]

Very true. That is the reason that I prefer to use Spanish. Face it Spanish is more colorful, more beautiful & more poetic than English.
English speaking women give birth. Las damas que hablan el Espanon-da la luz..
I rest my case.

[jsgaetano]

How can we talk about having everyone speak English, when we've failed at getting almost everyone in the Republican party to speak English?

So many children left behind...

[sankyo]

Good article. On may 5th, I celebrate assimilation!

[classicalgeek]

Unfortunately, English is very diverse and as many will attest, not even native-born USAians speak it properly, let alone read and write it properly.

If you make regulations regarding "English-only," you may also be killing cultural diversity among such native USA regions as the South, the Appalachias, and other areas that have their own variants of English. Such a thing happened in Europe, centuries ago, where local dialects were subject to sometimes brutal extermination--with the effect that the speakers of those dialects were driven underground only to resurface later, with huge followings, and the governments were forced to capitulate. While "English-only" sounds good in theory, think of all the translating and interpreting jobs that would be lost, or the printers, or the foreign-language media (not just Spanish in my town, but Russian and plenty of Asian languages as well) that would go out of business. Entire industries might be lost.

Better to have more diversity, more ways to start and nourish local businesses, more ways to encourage cultural and community participation. The US has always been a "melting pot", and way back before your parents came to the US, there were many immigrant communities here speaking largely Swedish, or Norwegian, or Italian, or any one of a number of other languages. The English were not the only persons to colonize the USA; the Spanish, French, and Vikings also had significant settlements. Should we then be like Switzerland and have multiple official languages?

[priscianusjr]

Maybe it's because I grew up in New York, a polyglot city for well over 350 years. We seem to have done all right. To me this is a non-issue, get a life.

[iamjoneskeepupwithme]

once this issue is tackled can we then move on to the Americans who cannot speak or write in proper English?

[dadw5boys]

Good Read !!!!

It is funny that in many States the Hispaincs out number other Americans but English is only spoken well by a few. Less than 25 % of Americans are even fluent in their own native language.

[larry278]

Fred, Some of have learned to speak Spanish as you did. It has now been established that somethings must be translated into Spanish [el Espanol] for the benefit of those who speak only Spanish. That is true in legal proceedings. Some of us use Spanish for our convenience. If you have Spanish speaking workers you can tell them what you want them to do. If your boss speaks Spanish-do I have to go any farther? I prefer the way Spanish call sporting events to the way English speakers call sporting events. I also use Spanish language weather reports. They use celsius(sp?). Yes, I know that Accu-Weather & the Weather Channel have a celsius option. I simply prefer to use Spanish. I started to learn Spanish when I was 21. I'm 72 now & I'm still learning Spanish. I'll continue to learn Spanish till I die {hasta la muerta].

[SkyCap]

But you can speak in both English and Spanish. You aren't hindered by ONLY being able to speak Spanish. The point is for as many people as possible to have fluency in a common language. Your post is kind of irrelevant.

[jhNY]

This what is termed an 'opinion piece.' As such, it is mostly irrefutable, unless one believes the author is making up personal anecdotes to fit his theme, which I do not. But the notion that incentives to speak English have been removed from today's society, in contrast to the golden days of the author's youth, is back-assward. In those days, foiks with no English were tried in court and forced into school without necessarily comprehending what was happening to them, much of the time to their great disadvantage.. Likewise, they were cheated in business by charlatans making use of their ignorance. And in those golden days, it was far more likely, given the relative stabilty of real estate prices and therefore the composition of neighborhoods, to live in ethnic enclaves wherein little English was ever heard-- except among the children, who were often employed as neighborhood interpreters.

Nowadays, folks with little or no English have much less chance of being barreled over by procedures in law, incomprehensible lessons in school or shady business practices by unscrupulous native speakers. In sum, a gain for fair play and desured outcomes. Sorry that sometimes a lawyer must wait for an interpreter, but overall, the system now is better for having them. And as they have always done, anecdotes notwithstanding, most people who come to the US and stay, learn English-- if only so they can talk a little to their grandchildren.

[Tulsas Fave]

So, you're saying that if immigrants had learned English before they came here or as soon as they got here, they wouldn't have gotten in trouble with the law, or been cheated, or "forced" to go to school (god forbid!)? Or, in other words, they would have assimilated more easily into society and had a greater chance at success? Hey - isn't that what the blogger said in his post?............

And I don't know where you live, but I know a lot of people around my city that speak NO English whatsoever - and aren't trying to learn.

[propitiousmoment]

Very nice, twist the comment all out of shape, into a straw man, and then get all hysterical and throw insults and non-native speakers. He didn't say people would not have gotten in trouble with the law. He said they would not have been taken advantage of if they did, or cheated in commercial transactions, or gotten incomprehensible "lessons" in school. You are using typical right-wing tactics but it won't fly here.

[AngelaQuattrano]

No. What the blogger is saying is that we should make it more difficult for non-English speakers to assimilate into society, because in his opinion the only reason they are not all fluent is because they have made a deliberate decision not to become fluent.

Which, linguistically speaking, is crap.