Just like France has made Parisian French the langue de riguer and wiped out Breton etc.? While I do agree that everyone should know English, I'm against mandatory enforcing of it. People learn English because they know they need to, to survive. If Spanish becomes the lingua franca int he future, then so be it. Learn the language, what's the harm? Or are people just too scared to learn something new?
About four or five years ago I read a piece by Pat Buchanan that detailed a sports event -- I think it was soccer -- in which American athletes were boo'ed and Mexican athletes cheered in L.A.
I actually downloaded it, saved it to a file, re-read it, etc. So, a couple years after that I mention it to a demographer (don't ask) and he backs up the story. So, I ask him why current populations aren't integrating at the same rate as past population groups and he says -- it's because of technology. When the Irish came over, they were pretty much here. Same for the Italians, Eastern Europeans, North Europeans, etc. These people could go back home, but not easily and they could communicate typically only in writing/letters.
Today's immigrants ae more mobile. They can travel back and forth frequently. They can speak on the phone at will. The ties to the "old country" aren't as thoroughly broken.
So, I say, make English the official language, if only as a symbolic gesture.
There are a lot more things that we should be spending our time on in this world rather than teaching everyone multiple languages.
The natural thing to do is gravitate toward one language.
It may come as a shock to you, but some people learn languages more easily than others, but these are relativly few and far between. My sister was one such person. For the rest of us its a never ending struggle.
Would you buy a computer that that could not communicate in TCP/IP?