Political Economy of Culture: Where Should President Obama Start: By Designing a Consistent language policy or on Imposing English Language as a Requirement to the Path of U.S. Citizenship?

Sun Feb 3 01:35:32 UTC 2013

*        *
*Political Economy of Culture: Where Should President Obama Start: By
Designing a Consistent National Language Policy or by Requiring illegal
Immigrant to Learn English as a Path to the United States Citizenship?*
*                                                                  By David
Balosa*
*                                             University of Maryland
Baltimore County, (UMBC)*
*
*
*
*
*        *Spanish is currently spoken as a first language by approximately
twenty-two million people
         in the United States. The Hispanics are currently America's
fastest growing ethnic
         community and their numbers are set to rise to 96.5 million by
2050. This is not without
         problems as the United States does not have legislation which
states that English is the
         official language of the Union; it has always relied on the desire
of immigrants for social
         assimilation and mobility to consolidate the pre-eminence of
English.

                (Miranda Stewart, 1999: 6-7)
*
*
In his address regarding "Fixing broken immigration system" entitled
"Vision for winning the future" President Obama mentioned four key points
which he calls accountabilities and responsibilities: 1. Responsibility by
the federal government to secure our borders, 2. Accountability for
businesses that break the law by undermining American workers and
exploiting undocumented workers,
3. Strengthening our economic competitiveness by creating a legal
immigration system that reflects our values and diverse needs, and 4.
Responsibility from people who are living in the United States illegally.
My question for discussion and my reflection will  focus on the president's
point number 4. I think that the President plays too much politics here and
that he is undermining the scholarship on the everlasting debate on
language policy in the United States. Fixing broken immigration system is
one thing, but requiring illegal immigrants to learn English as one of the
requirements is tantamount to English-Only America movement. Until there is
a coherent language policy, by coherent I mean agreed upon by the United
States citizens, a unidirectional language requirement by federal
officials, especially the president of the United States is getting out of
the house through the back door. I am not saying that illegal immigrant
should not learn English or Spanish, the point is that so far there is no
legal basis to require any one to learn English for what so ever in the
United States. If the President is going to initiative a path to language
policy weather English or English and Spanish as official languages, then
the United States will make a big step forward in solving big issues
regarding intercultural relations. To clear understand my point, let's
analyze the president approach to learning English as a requirement to
illegal immigrant path to the United States Citizenship.

     One of the key requirements that the represent mentioned that illegal
immigrants living in U.S. must fulfill to the path of U.S. citizenship is
learning English. The president's statement reads: " Those people living
here illegally must also be held accountable for their actions and get on
the right side of the law by registering and undergoing national security
and criminal background checks, paying taxes and a penalty, and learning
English before they can get in line to become eligible for citizenship.
Being a citizen of this country comes not only with rights but also with
fundamental responsibilities. We can create a pathway for legal status that
is fair and reflects our values." Wait a minute! Is Mr. President here
trying to have his cake and eat it too? Since the president favorite
sentence in this immigration debate is "We are a nation of law and a nation
of immigrants", is the president telling us that English is going to become
the fundamental language of American values? How about the 55 millions U.S.
Spanish -speakers? Do their language and culture also contribute to the
American Values? Should U.S. citizens working for Univisions, Telemondo,
UNI-MAS, etc. who may also contribute to the economic competitiveness of
U.S. be required to learn English for U.S. citizenship?  According to
Stewart (1999:6-7), "The Hispanics are currently America's fastest growing
ethnic community and their numbers are set to rise to 96.5 million by 2050
(quoting, The Guardian, 16.07.98)." Stewart observes that "This is not
without problems as the United States does not have legislation which
states that English is the official language of the Union; it has always
relied on the desire of immigrants for social assimilation and mobility to
consolidate the pre-eminence of English."
     During the 2008 Democratic presidential election primary debate,
President Obama, Senator Obama at that time articulated, when he was asked
by a CNN journalist weather English should be the Official language of the
United States that, "We should not focus on issue that divide us, instead
we should focus on how to fix our broken immigration system." It has been
the politics of escape goat forever when it comes to regulating language
policy in fair and realistic way in the U.S. President Obama, after winning
75 % of Latino votes without questioning weather they spoke English or not
at the time they went voting now is suggesting learning English as a
requirement for legal immigration status. If learning a language was an
easy task, most college graduates U.S. would be speaking Spanish fluently.
Since President Obama likes to look at fair game plays, would not t be a
fair game to say all illegal immigrants must learn both English and Spanish
as a requirement to citizenship?
     One may infers that requiring learning English alone is a support to
English -Only movement. This approach undermines the substantial
contribution of Hispanic culture to the values of the United States. The
"Latinazization" (Benitez, 2007) of illigal immigrants may also be a
valuable inference if we don't require illegal immigrant to learn Spanish
as well. Will various English dialect speakers be required to learn
American Standard English if that what Mr. President meant? The "World
Englishes" (Mesthrie & Bhatt, 2008) as well as the world Spanishes
(Stewart, 1999; Lorenzo-Dus, 2011) can only be used as requirement for
national immigration legal status after they have been adopted as Official
language of the nation. Otherwise they should not be mentioned in the
fixing broken immigration system.

   In Conclusion, It is not only the immigration system that is broken, it
is the entire public policy system that is broken. If Mr. President wants
to start fixing this broken system of public policy the workable strategy
would be looking at the policy of that public or social sector setting, fix
it, that is, make it if it is a commonsensical argument and truly
reflective of U.S. values, a law of the nation. Since thee is no federal
law regulating languages in U.S., it would  illegal to require a given
language learning as a requirement to U.S. citizenship. Requiring learning
English will sound like a cultural hegemonic strategy and  it will not
reflect what the president calls "A smart 21st century" - a century of
 people and communities cohesion by consensus, that is people decide their
intercultural democratic rules of governance not bias policy makers. Either
English alone or English and Spanish as co-official languages for the
United States- why not create a referendum on this issue and stick to what
the U.S. diverse population decide. It will make more sense after people
will look at these two global languages - both spoken by significant
numbers of legal U.S. citizens in the ballot and let the people decide. It
is only after that referendum that all cultural groups will live with the
decision weather they like it or not. Because it will become the law of the
land. Leaving the issue on the policy makers whose bias attitude and
cultural hegemony have been demonstrated through centuries will never lead
the U.S. to the Smart 21st century language policy. Should not a true
vision for the future of the United States plan also for a language which
the numbers of its speakers will reach 96.5 million in 2050? Should the
U.S. language policymakers understand that a language policy that reflects
the cultural reality of the country makes the country more prosperous
economically and culturally? May be the example of Luxembourg, South
Africa, Paraguay, and Switzerland will inspire us as we plan for a "smart
21st century". What do you think?

References

Benitez, C. (2007). *Latinization: How Latino culture is transforming the
U.S*. New York: Paramount
     Market Publishing.
Donnelly, J. (2003). *Universal human rights: In theory and practice (2nd.
ed.).* New York: Cornell
     University Press.
Lorenzo-Dus, N. (ed.) (2011). *Spanish at work: Analyzing institutional
discourse across the Spanish-*
*     speaking world. *New York: Palgrave MacMillan*.*
Mesthirie, R. & Bhatt, R. M. (2008). *World Englishes: The study of new
linguistic varieties.* New York:
     Cambridge University Press.
Stewart, M. (1999). *The Spanish language today*. New York: Routledge.

www.whitehouse.gov/issues/fixing-immigration-system-america-s-21st-century-Economy

-- 
**David M. Balosa*
*Doctoral Student, PhD Program in Language, Literacy and Culture (LLC)**
*Research Focus: Intercultural Communication & Cultural Exchange*
*Interculturalists GSO President 2012-2013
*University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC)
**1000 Hilltop Circle, Baltimore, MD 21250*
*
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