It takes more than a language to unify a nation

[Alice Faber]

David Bowie wrote:
> From:    Lynne Murphy <m.l.murphy at SUSSEX.AC.UK>
>  > <Judith_H_Marie at COMPUSERVE.COM> wrote:
>
>>> When I voted in November in Berkeley, California, I first had to
>>> choose which language I wished to use. The choice was between
>>> Chinese, Korean, Spanish, English or Tagalog [sic]. It seems to me
>>> not unreasonable that since only U.S. citizens vote, and that one
>>> has to pass an English language test to become a citizen, the
>>> ballet should be in English.
>
>
>> You're making the assumption that anyone who speaks a language other than
>> English had to be naturalised as a citizen.  There are born-citizens
>> in the
>> US for whom English is not their first language, and the right to vote is
>> their birthright.
>
>
> There's a lot of shouting going on in the AM radio band here in Central
> Florida about the "takeover" of the area by Spanish speakers, and the
> nativist crowd seems to be using Judith's line as one of their knockdown
> talking points.
>
> This is odd, though, as i see it, since one of the reasons we have so
> many native Spanish speakers in this region is that we're a major
> destination point for natively Spanish-speaking *US* *citizens* born in
> Puerto Rico, all of whom have been US citizens from birth, and have
> largely been exercising their right to vote in US elections using
> Spanish-language ballots since reaching the age of majority.

It's not just that. 25-ish years ago, when I lived in Florida, the
dominant Hispanic group was Cuban refugees. Even 20 years after the Bay
of Pigs, many of the older (pre-Mariel) refugees were convinced that
they were going to go home, and, seemingly, more resistant to
Americanization. Of course, their children (many of whom I knew as
students at the University), were quite fluent in English, though some
still had discernible accents.

I think the political capital invested in "going home" really
differentiated this particular group of immigrants from others, and that
was clearly reflected in language choices.

--
 =============================================================================
Alice Faber
faber at haskins.yale.edu
Haskins Laboratories                                  tel: (203)
865-6163 x258
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