English-only push is given a proper veto

[Harold F. Schiffman]

English-only push is given a proper veto

Published on: 02/14/07

Profiles in political courage are rare, indeed, but there's an early
contender for the awards Caroline Kennedy hands out every May: Nashville
Mayor Bill Purcell. On Monday, defying the xenophobes, know-nothings and
nativists, Purcell vetoed a local ordinance that would have enshrined
"English-only" as official city policy and dictated that virtually all
government communications be in English. "This ordinance does not reflect
who we are in Nashville," the mayor said at a press conference.

Wow. Rather than taking the easy path to cheap acclaim, Purcell took the
high but rocky road of leadership. Will his gesture be widely emulated?
Probably not. Politics is too much about popularity, and Purcell's stand
against the nativism that has taken hold among so many Americans certainly
won't be popular. As the backlash against illegal immigration has grown,
immigrants' use of their native tongue especially Spanish has engendered
an over-the-top hostility. American voters are not only fed up with the
costs of educating schoolchildren who speak little English. They are also
outraged over automated customer service menus that offer the option of
instructions in Spanish. I've received countless e-mails from readers
inflamed by the choice.

Apparently, a different language or accent is one of those identifiers
that stir anxiety, fear and foreboding about the strange "other." In a
2005 interview, Emory University psychology professor Drew Westen mused
about humankind's inability to relate easily to those with superficial,
but obvious, differences: "I've wondered for a long time whether the
ability to empathize with someone who has a skin color or culture or
language different from our own takes not just an effort but a deliberate
suppression of mechanisms that lead us to have an immediate reaction of
repulsion or lack of interest." Those mechanisms no doubt worked quite
well 100,000 years ago, when primitive man needed the ability to
immediately identify likely enemies.  But that mechanism is a hindrance
now with jets and the Internet shrinking the planet, with immigration
producing diverse nations and with a global marketplace demanding
tolerance.

Indeed, those educational leaders who are most visionary insist that
American children ought to be fluent in at least one language other than
English. They will be competing with multilingual graduates from, among
other places, India, China and Malaysia. The global marketplace will put a
premium on language skills. Instead, Georgia's political leaders are more
likely to take the short-sighted, narrow-minded view dismissive of foreign
language instruction because of its cost. Gov. Sonny Perdue, for example,
has proposed ending a $1.6 million foreign-language pilot program in a
handful of elementary schools. Some critics have noted that the program
serves too few schools; others claim the program doesn't help kids who do
have access to it. "I had a child that had that, and I don't know it
particularly helped him one way or the other," said House Speaker Glenn
Richardson (R-Hiram).

The answer is to ramp up foreign language instruction, not kill it.
Experts agree that children learn second and third languages most easily
before the age of 12. That, by the way, is exactly what the children of
immigrants are doing learning English. Despite all the caterwauling to the
contrary, they're not out there refusing to speak the official vernacular
of their adopted land. According to a study published last year in
Population and Development Review, Latinos are assimilating just as other
immigrants did.  By the second generation, the study said, English is the
language most often used at home. By the third generation, only 17 percent
of Mexicans still speak Spanish well; by the fourth generation, only 5
percent do.

Of course, immigrant kids want to speak English. They want to watch
"Heroes" and imitate the unfortunate antics they see in the "Jackass"
movies, just like other Americans kids. Some demographers believe that
widespread access to TV and the Internet is helping current immigrants
learn English faster than immigrants of the late 19th and early 20th
centuries. The immigrants of yesteryear Italians, Germans, Poles often
lived in contained neighborhoods where granddad and grandma never learned
English. And they, too, were resented by WASPy native-born Americans who
thought they'd ruin the country. They didn't. Neither will the current
crop of immigrants. We need more courageous politicians such as Purcell to
say so.

 Cynthia Tucker is the editorial page editor. Her column appears
Wednesdays and Sundays.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/tucker/stories/2007/02/14/0214edtuck.html

***********************************************************************************

N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members
and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of
the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a
message are encouraged to post a rebuttal.

***********************************************************************************