Random Terrain's Tetraternarium

Signs of things to come. Supervisors in Oregon laid off or demoted because they don't speak Spanish:

Message to United States citizens: It seems Spanish speaking people do not have to learn English, so you're going to have to learn Spanish if you want to keep your jobs in the future.

If you move to France, you better learn how to speak French. If you move to Germany, you better learn how to speak German. If you move to Mexico, you better learn how to speak Spanish. And if you move to the United States, you better learn how to speak English Spanish? If nothing is done to preserve English, we'll be bilingual for a while, but you know that Spanish will eventually take over if you have even a drop of foresight.

People talk about preserving various cultures, but what about the integral part of United States culture where English was our common language? Many legal immigrants used to be proud to learn English as a part of becoming an 'American.' English was a major ingredient in this Great American Melting Pot that held us all together:

English is part of our culture and we should hold onto it. Making sure that English is our official language does not mean that other languages would be banned, it just means that we won't lose English as our common language when Spanish speaking illegal immigrants and their children eventually become the majority in the United States. Below is a quote from wikipedia about the English-only movement under Criticism:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English-only_movement

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum, in an essay entitled "Here come the linguistic fascists" charges English First with "hatred and suspicion of aliens and immigrants" and points out that English is far from under threat in the United States, saying "making English the official language of the United States of America is about as urgently called for as making hotdogs the official food at baseball games."

He said that in 1991. Only a fool would try to use that as an argument in 2008. It should be clear to even the most dense by now that illegal immigration is a serious problem that threatens our cultural language. It has nothing to do with hatred and suspicion. I hate everyone equally no matter what skin color they have or what language they speak. I simply like the English language. I like how you don't have to wiggle your tongue in strange ways or make squeaks or clicks or noises like you're trying to scrape up a big ball of phlegm. I like how most common English words roll off the tongue with little effort. No oral gymnastics are necessary. The unprecedented illegal immigration problem in the United States is going to keep chipping away at our language unless we protect it while we still can.

Related Links:

http://www.us-english.org/

The lack of an assimilation policy for immigrants to the United States is rapidly changing the successful integration ways of the past. Gone are the days of the American Dream and the upwardly mobile society for immigrants. In its place are low expectations and government policies that encourage Americans to learn the language of the immigrants, instead of the other way around.

http://www.proenglish.org/

Today America's linguistic unity, which enabled the melting-pot crucible to forge one nation out of millions of immigrants from all over the world, is under attack as never before. Record numbers of non-English speaking immigrants threaten to overwhelm the assimilative process. And instead of encouraging new immigrants to acquire the English fluency needed to succeed in our society, the policy of our government is to promote "diversity" by operating in ever growing numbers of foreign languages.

This multilingualism is causing a growing underclass, which is segregated and walled off into linguistic ghettos. A century ago such immigrant ghettos were marked by extreme poverty, 80-hour workweeks and child labor. As the industrial revolution matured, immigrants discovered that language skills were the key to entering the emerging "middle class." This, coupled with mandatory public education and reduced immigration, resulted in the successful assimilation of ethnic communities into American society.

But today, in segregated classrooms, so-called "bilingual education" keeps immigrant children from learning English, by teaching them in foreign languages. And millions of people cannot find good-paying jobs, because they lack the ability to speak English with customers, co-workers or employers.