[lg policy] Louisiana: The willingness to learn language as a form of assimilation

Wed Jan 6 18:24:12 UTC 2016

 The willingness to learn language as a form of assimilation
<http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/01/the-willingness-to-learn-language-as-a-form-of-assimilation/#comments>
By onlinecitizen
<http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/author/onlinecitizen/> on January
6, 2016 Commentaries
<http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/category/opinion/commentaries/>

*By Richard Wan*

The State of Louisiana was actually a french territory in the continental
America initially. It was officially proclaimed as a French territory and
named in honour of King Louis XIV by explorer Cavelier de Lasalle in 1682.

In other words, it was the French who founded Louisiana.

In 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana territory to the United States so as
to raise money for his continual war in Europe. As a result, Louisiana was
incorporated into the US and US territories expanded tremendously.

Louisiana formally became a state of US in 1812. At the time, it was the
only non-majority English speaking state in the union. Most residents and
settlers of Louisiana were from France or other French colonies and spoke
French. Despite attaining statehood in US, Louisianians continued to speak
French for another hundred years or so. However, as the American society
progressed, the pressure for Louisiana to use English as its main language
increased.

In 1912, the Louisiana legislature passed an act allowing the Department of
Education of the state to select all books and curricula for public
schools. The next year, English was stressed throughout the curricula,
essentially banning French from the schools. Thus, Louisianian children
that were brought up speaking French at home would have to learn English.
The events were completed in 1921 when the Louisiana State Constitution was
changed so that all school proceedings had to be conducted in English.

Another reason for Louisiana ‘forcing’ itself to switch to English was also
due to World War I. Spurred on by then Theodore Roosevelt’s battle cry of
“One nation, one people, one language”, the need to unify the nation in the
wake of World War I became too strong a force to buck.

In Singapore, our constitution stipulates that the 4 official languages
used in our Parliament are English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil. For practical
purpose, English is now taught in schools as the first language with the
other 3 as second language. Hence, Singaporeans are brought up to be
bilingual.

In the case of Chinese and Malay Singaporeans, their choice of second
language is obvious. However, for Indian Singaporeans, this is not so. Not
all Indians in Singapore are of Tamil descent. As such, many native
Singaporeans of Northern Indian ancestry took Malay as their second
language instead. This in itself is not necessary a bad thing. For example,
with the Malay language, many Indian Singaporeans can converse easily with
the Singaporean Chinese elderly without much problems as many of the
elderly do not speak English. Indeed, bilingualism further helps to enhance
inter-race communications in our Singaporean society, with respect to the
constitution of Singapore.

However, in recent years, MOE has changed its policies allowing new
immigrants to study their own mother tongue as second language. This policy
is reflected on MOE’s website [Link
<http://www.moe.gov.sg/education/admissions/returning-singaporeans/mother-tongue-policy/>
]:

“Our Mother Tongue Language (MTL) policy requires all students who are
Singaporeans or Singapore Permanent Residents to study their respective
official MTL: Chinese, Malay and Tamil.

A non-Tamil Indian may choose to offer as his/her MTL: (a) Tamil, or (b) a
non-Tamil Indian Language such as Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Punjabi or
Urdu.”

In the olden days, this was not possible. Everyone can only choose Chinese,
Malay or Tamil as second language, which are recognized in our constitution.

This change in MOE’s language policy can potentially open up a pandora box.
Many new immigrants may likewise, demand that their own mother tongue like
Burmese, Vietnamese, Nepalese, Tagalog etc should also be taught in schools
for their children. Would MOE change its policy again? Or would our
constitution be later changed then to recognize that all these languages as
official languages of Singapore too?

In a famous letter written by the former US President Theodore Roosevelt to
the American Defense Society in 1919, he wrote:

“In the first place we should insist that if the immigrant* who comes here
in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us*, he shall
be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to
discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or
origin. *But this is predicated upon the man’s becoming in very fact an
American, and nothing but an American…*

*There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an
American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room
for but one flag*, the American flag, and this excludes the red flag, which
symbolizes all wars against liberty and civilization, just as much as it
excludes any foreign flag of a nation to which we are hostile…We have room
for but one language here, and that is the English language…and *we have
room for but one sole loyalty* and that is a loyalty to the American
people.”  (emphasis by the author)

Clearly, the former US President was saying that America welcomes
immigrants but the immigrants have to also reciprocate by showing his
willingness to assimilate himself into the American society.

http://www.theonlinecitizen.com/2016/01/the-willingness-to-learn-language-as-a-form-of-assimilation/

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