Posted on 03/12/2009 7:49:46 AM PDT by WakeUpAndVote
I was at a meeting last night and a members daughter was ecstatic! She just got an A on a paper where no one else dared to go titled, "Welcome to America, Now Speak English!". I hope this posts ok, had to share this young Lady's thoughts.
The first reason is that the government spends a lot of money to help communicate with people that speak different languages. For example, Los Angeles used one eighth of their budget, which is two billion dollars, to print ballots in English and Spanish. The Immigration and Naturalization service spends $115 million every year just to cater to multiple languages. Written language translation alone costs 1.86 million dollars to provide the translation for food stamp recipients. It is even more for oral translation. Oral translation costs 20 million each year. Even in the medical field, there are costs because of the language barriers. For hospitals to provide translators costs 78.2 million dollars. Then if the patient needs it in the emergency room, it can cost 8.6 million dollars every year. As of now, hospitals are reimbursed by two companies, which are Medi-Cal and Medicare, and they only cover part of the cost. So most doctors are ending up paying $500 dollars per visit. On the other hand to provide bilingual education is another section that the country overall spends too much money. The nation spends over $665 million to provide bilingual education. These are only a few of expenses that have put the United States in the damage it is in (Thomas 2).
The second reason is most immigrants who have become Americans cannot speak English at all or not very well. . The number of people who can not speak English at all is 6.7 million people, which equals a shocking 2.9 percent! On the other hand, the number of people who speak another language other than English at home was 13.8 percent of residents. Currently in America, there are over 300 languages spoken in the States (Thomas 1).
If this plan would go into effect to make English as the official language, some people would complain, say that it is racist, biased, and unconstitutional. However, when immigrants come into our country, they state that the reason why they came was for a better life. If immigrants want a better life for their families, why wouldnt they want to learn English so they could have the better opportunities?
Finally, learning English will give immigrants a better chance at jobs. If English were the official language, it would force immigrants to learn the language and they could earn 24,396 dollars more a year than if they could not speak English at all. Even if they know some English but are not very fluent, they will still earn half as much over an immigrant that can not speak the language at all (Thomas 1).
In the words of an unknown author, If you can speak three languages you're trilingual. If you can speak two languages you're bilingual. If you can speak only one language you're an American (Quotes 1). It is great if people can speak more than one language; however, if the United States wants to excel as a united country, then having one language as an official language would help. If America had one language, it would stop the government from having to spend so much money, eliminate the language barrier, and open more opportunities for the immigrant to have a better chance at good paying jobs.
Outstanding !!!!
"Mexican Americans love education, so they go to night school and they take spanish and get a 'B'..."--Cheech Marin
When in Rome, do what the Romans do.
When in America, speak English.
I am surprised that she got an ‘A’ though, going against the establishment and all.....
While you were typing that I wrote another tune...it’s, like, the same thing, only different - you wanna hear it? :)
I am soooo proud of the one who wrote this! A++++++++++!
Very nice. Our society has gotten very good at stifling thoughts and opinions, even when they are pure common sense. We throw around trite expressions like “diversity makes us stronger” which can be true if we mean diversity of experiences and philsophies, but only if diversity is not an obstacle to communication and collaboration. Inability to speak to each other does not make us stronger, nobody could make the case that it does. It balkanizes us and that is not good.
E Pluribus Unum!
Excellent Essay Ping!
Back during the last big immigration wave post-World War II, applicants for immigration were asked to affirm that they were not part of the nazi government or sympathetic thereto. Any who lied were found and deported, even the 80 something geezers in wheelchairs today.
Back then, we were concerned about weeding out immigrants who were incompatible with American values and American society. Why can't we do the same now?
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