[SJSAMPLE]

Welcome to America.

I take exception to this:

The lyrics to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” take on a whole new significance when you hear them sung in Hindi, Mandarin, Russian, Korean and Spanish.

This is the United States of America.
That song was written in English by an American. It was meant to be sung in English because that is the language of America.

Singing it in any other language Balkanizes us all and drives a wedge (hyphen) between those newly-naturalized and those born here. That would be a huge mistake.

[CaptainAmiigaf]

Wrong. Consider history. Americans my age grew up surrounded by family and neighbors who obtained citizenship, but NOT the ability to speak English. Entire neighborhoods displayes store signs in GREEK, HEBREW, CHINESE, ITALIAN and a hundred other languages from foreign lands These people were AMERICANS and were proud of it.
History then shows that the children of these foreign speaking citizens went into the American school system and graduated as Americans, speaking English, loving the country, and eventually taking over the country.
History shows the 1st generation Americans fought and won WWII, many fighting in and/or against the native lands of their parents and grandparents.
This was the OLD America, not the zoo we have today. Let these new citizens speak what they can and will, and observe they have more pride in their new country that all too many of the “native born” idiots.

[Graybeard58]

Born in 1888 into a Russian Jewish family who came to New York City to escape religious persecution when Irving was five years old, he quickly shed his religious roots and fell in love with America. He became an American citizen when he was 29.

That song was written in English by an American.

Indeed, written in the same year that he became a U.S. citizen at age 29 in 1918, also, the same year he was drafted into the U.S. Army.

American as apple pie, Berlin loved his adopted country.