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This month, the House passed a bill that would make it illegal for the federal government to conduct business in any language other than English. Last October, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned a similar "English-only" amendment to Arizona's constitution that was passed in 1988. The court said the amendment was unconstitutional.
Do we, the people, have any clear idea what we DO think here? In its decision, the appeals court emphasized the necessity for a "tradition of tolerance." The implication that an English-speaking country is being intolerant if it conducts its government business in English is inherently absurd. However, between belligerent Official English proponents and over-zealous government interpreters ready to translate every word written in English, common sense has somehow been mislaid.
Robert D. Park is chairman of the English Language Advocates association. He also heads the Arizonans for Official English committee that seeks to defend Arizona's "Official English" amendment in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a telephone interview, Park asserted that taxpayers should not have to pay for bilingual education or minority-language ballots. He said that cost is not the problem, but rather that such programs are useless and reduce necessary exposure to English.
"People come here voluntarily," Park said crisply. "They know it's an English-speaking country. They land here, and they do quite well getting where they want to go with no English at all." Schools, he said, have a responsibility to teach immigrant children English, but basically his outlook is that, having decided to come here, any difficulty with the language is your problem, not his. Get on with it.
Do we have the right to bully people into learning English if they don't want to? No. Is it necessary to speak the language of the country you live in? Undoubtedly. I'm disturbed by the uncompromising attitude of many English-only proponents, but my own support of the issue stems from personal experience.
I discovered the importance of a common language when my husband's career forced me to live in Germany. Upon arrival, I promptly hooked up with the English-speaking community, and went through the motions of taking German courses. After one year, I could barely string together a sentence in German. My contact with the local culture was limited by the availability of bilingual friends to interpret for me. I felt miserable and alienated.
Enlisting help from friends differs from taking advantage of government translators; it soon becomes embarrassing. Facing three more years in Germany, I had a choice: either learn the language and become independent, or return to self-imposed apartheid. Motivation works wonders. I joined the Mainz public library and graduated from alphabet books to mystery novels within six months. I could even understand the local flyers in my mailbox. They often announced public functions, and with my newly-acquired vocabulary, I could participate.
I learned German because I had to. It's the official language of the country. Without the language, I could understand neither the people nor the political process.
Here, in communities like South Tucson, many Spanish-speaking citizens are restricted in the same way, because they can't adequately understand their fellow Americans. The result is a system of language ghettos, in which everyone loses. The country becomes fragmented, and the melting-pot turns into stone soup, where the ingredients remain unaltered because few exchanges are possible.
The Germans helped me learn their language, not by providing endless translations in English, but by encouraging my efforts in German. I could not have made the leap from books to conversation without their friendship. Help is essential to people in a new situation, but self-help is still more important, and that first step was definitely up to me.
The English Language Advocates are right in asserting that, having come here, the rest is up to you. But if they want to eliminate minority languages from government, they need to meet non-English speakers halfway. They might begin by trading in their confrontational demeanor for a smile of welcome.
Kaye Patchett is a creative writing senior.
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