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<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/6/1/1667921/-5-Reasons-Why-Xenophobic-English-Only-Biases-Undermine-Our-Kids-Education-Job-Prospects">5 Reasons Why Xenophobic <span style="white-space:nowrap">“English-Only”</span> Biases Undermine Our Kids’ Education, Job Prospects</a>
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<a href="https://www.dailykos.com/user/Elisa">By Elisa</a>
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<span class="gmail-timestamp">Thursday Jun 01, 2017</span>
<span class="gmail-time-dot">·</span>
<span class="gmail-timestamp">12:18 PM EST</span>
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<img alt="BERLIN - SEPTEMBER 18: A second-grade a child shows holds a photograph of a circuit board in a book about robots in the elementary school at the John F. Kennedy Schule dual-language public school on September 18, 2008 in Berlin, Germany. The German government will host a summit on education in Germany scheduled for mid-October in Dresden. Germany has consistantly fallen behind in recent years in comparison to other European countries in the Pisa education surveys, and Education Minister Annette Schavan is pushing for an 8 percent increase in the national educaiton budget for 2009. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)" class="gmail-img-responsive gmail-width-xl" src="https://images.dailykos.com/images/380835/story_image/GettyImages-82913938.jpg?1490207763" title="BERLIN - SEPTEMBER 18: A second-grade a child shows holds a photograph of a circuit board in a book about robots in the elementary school at the John F. Kennedy Schule dual-language public school on September 18, 2008 in Berlin, Germany. The German government will host a summit on education in Germany scheduled for mid-October in Dresden. Germany has consistantly fallen behind in recent years in comparison to other European countries in the Pisa education surveys, and Education Minister Annette Schavan is pushing for an 8 percent increase in the national educaiton budget for 2009. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images)" width="915" height="610">
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Berlin, Germany. According to a recent article in the Financial Times,
Germany's economy has grown at its quickest rate in 5 years, at a time
the country has embraced mass immigration...and multilingualism.</figcaption>
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<p><span><span>Donald Trump’s <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/9-outrageous-things-donald-trump-has-said-about-latinos_us_55e483a1e4b0c818f618904b" target="_blank" title="">openly anti-Hispanic rhetoric</a>
– for which he has never apologized -- has only fueled anti-Latino
sentiment and racist acts in the country. Take for instance, the verbal
abuse of Hispanics who speak Spanish in public. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In one recent incident, a white woman <a href="http://latinalista.com/new-headline/sprints-ceos-response-to-customers-racist-tirade-against-latino-serves-as-model-for-others" target="_blank">verbally assaulted a Hispanic man</a>
at a Sprint store in Virginia, threatening him with physical violence
and telling him to “go back to Mexico.” The video, which was viewed by
millions, ended with the woman ranting, “So disrespectful speaking
another language in my country.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Her outburst reveals an historic and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement" target="_blank">deep-seated bias against non-English speakers</a> and immigrants, </span>and<span> a lost opportunity for the United States – </span><em>our </em><span>country, not just hers – to remain relevant in an ever changing and competitive global economy. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Being bilingual isn’t an assault on American values, but a growing </span>necessity<span> for anyone who simply wants to work and function in the world.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I grew up in a Spanish-speaking household, and am
eternally grateful to my proud Cuban father who insisted that we speak
Spanish to him. Being bilingual has proven an asset on the job, allowing
for me to be hired as a translator, reporter and digital organizer in
bilingual communities. In fact, it’s one of the first things I mention
in my resume. U.S. workplaces love bilingual people!</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Because of my experiences, I always knew that I would
raise my children to be bilingual. Once they were born, my husband and I
switched to speaking Spanish in the home. We also helped found a
Spanish immersion school in Oakland, California so that they would learn
to read and write it as well. Not only do they have the foundation to
someday find work in the United States, but overseas!</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>But what about the “national identity” of the United States? <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/02/world/americas/brexit-donald-trump-whites.html" target="_blank">Trump supporters frequently ask</a>. </span></span>Won’t the country decline into chaos if everyone speaks a different language?</p>
<div><span><span>White Americans might fear the loss of some idyllic
anglo saxon or white “identity,” but as a Latina who is every bit as
American as any Trump supporter, I can only say that the U.S. Hispanic
community very much embodies American values: love of country and
family, a strong work ethic, and entrepreneurialism. </span></span></div>
<p><span><span>That we will sink into some abyss because of
multiculturalism and multilingualism couldn’t be further from the truth.
Among the many proven benefits of bilingualism are the following:</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>1. Students learning more than one language outperform English-only students…in English</strong><span>. It may seem counterintuitive, but studies show that bilingual instruction actually makes you <a href="http://news.stanford.edu/news/2014/march/teaching-english-language-032514.html" target="_blank">more proficient in English</a>. </span></span>According
to Stanford University: “The results show that while students in
English immersion programs perform better in the short term, over the
long term students in classrooms taught in two languages not only catch
up to their English immersion counterparts, but they eventually surpass
them, both academically and linguistically.” </p>
<p><span><strong>2. There are cognitive benefits to speaking more than one language.</strong><span> <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3583091/" target="_blank">Related to the above</a>,
“Researchers have shown that the bilingual brain can have better
attention and task-switching capacities than the monolingual brain.” </span></span><span><span>This is due to the bilingual brain’s flexibility in switching off one language to engage in another.</span></span></p>
<div><span><strong>3. Being Multilingual makes for more empathetic people</strong><span>. Particularly </span></span>relevant in the era of Brexit and Trump, children from multilingual households are able<a href="http://www.npr.org/2016/03/21/471316384/studies-suggest-multilingual-exposure-boosts-childrens-communication-skills" target="_blank"> to take in multiple perspectives</a>
and communicate in ways that take into consideration the points of view
of others. The good news is a child doesn’t have to be fully bilingual
to attain this benefit: researchers found that simply being exposed to
other languages helped kids in “perspective-taking.”</div>
<p><span><strong>4. Being bilingual can delay Alzheimer’s, dementia</strong><span>. </span></span><a href="http://www.alzheimers.net/12-11-14-bilingualism-delays-alzheimers/" target="_blank">Alzheimers.net has compiled two studies</a>:
“More studies need to be done to know exactly why this happens, though
some researchers suggest that switching between two languages requires a
specific area of the brain that, when exercised, can delay dementia.”</p>
<p><span><strong>5. Bilingual workers benefit and help fuel the U.S. economy</strong><span>. Between 2010 and 2015, demand for bilingual workers more than doubled <a href="http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/press-release/demand-for-bilingual-workers-more-than-doubled-in-5-years-new-report-shows/" target="_blank">from 240,000 job postings to 630,000</a>.</span><a href="http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/press-release/demand-for-bilingual-workers-more-than-doubled-in-5-years-new-report-shows/"><span> </span></a><span>In
fact, elected leaders from both major political parties and some of our
country’s top businesses and non-profit organizations have come
together to launch “</span><span>a multi-year campaign aimed at
reversing the nation’s language skills gap and making language learning a
national priority. The campaign seeks to build awareness about the
growing importance of language skills to a wide array of careers – and
to our nation’s economy, national security and international standing –
with the ultimate goal of supporting a new generation of Americans
equipped to compete and succeed in the global economy.”</span><a href="http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/press-release/demand-for-bilingual-workers-more-than-doubled-in-5-years-new-report-shows/"><span> </span></a></span></p>
<p><span><span>As a Hispanic mom in the era of Trump, I’ve found myself
telling my kids that speaking Spanish or being Latino is not a crime in
this country. We are every bit as American and deserving to be here as
any Trump supporter. And in fact, we have a leg up over our xenophobic
counterparts. We are bilingual, which is the future of this country…and
the world.</span></span></p><br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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