Barack Obama and the Language Controversy

The other day the Democratic candidate for the United States Presidency, Barack Obama, made yet another blunder in my opinion. What's with this guy anyway? To me at least, it seems as though he is determined to see how many times he can shoot himself in the foot and survive. I saw the tape. He said, all American children should learn Spanish, don't worry about the Spanish speaking children, they will learn English. I find this a fascinating position.

According to the Census Bureau, there are 311 languages spoken in the U.S. among them 149 are immigrant languages and 162 are indigenous and many of them are on the verge of extinction. There are approximately 20 languages that are spoken by .9% or more of the population. 82 % of the population according to the 2000 census speaks English, approximately 11% speak Spanish. Many of the other languages are down in percentage only because the immigrants speaking these languages have made a point to learn English and to make sure their children and grandchildren did the same. The Spanish speaking immigrants are merely newer. However, the remaining non-English speaking population still numbers in the millions.

If this was a case of simply English speaking children being required to learn Spanish and vice versa (although Senator Obama doesn't think we need to require Spanish speaking children to learn English), then what he is saying would make sense. However, The millions of children who speak French, Italian, German, Cantonese, Polish, Mandarin, Arabic, Greek or any of the other languages in the top twenty would now be required to learn a third language. This is a very nice concept in theory. But wouldn't it be easier to simply teach all of the children a unifying language? English? I'm not sure Senator Obama has thought out the logistics or the budget for this Spanish requirement he suggests.

My grandparents learned English soon after arriving in New York during the very early 1900s. They had no choice really if they wanted to be gainfully employed and live the American dream. My dad was born in 1911 and went to school knowing two languages fluently. English and Italian. We are a nation of immigrants, a melting pot of all the world's people. It is my fervent belief, as conservative and un-liberal as it may be, that we should have an official language, English. Honestly, until recently, I could have sworn that we had an official language but that's another story.

Senator Obama may be trying to get a point across that I don't see. Perhaps he is saying that as a nation we are backward in our approach to language? Maybe he is just trying to garner votes from the Hispanic population? I'm not quite sure, and therein lies the problem. The message is muddy and not attractive. It is apparent that his spin doctors need to do a better job clarifying his opinions and positions if he is going to bring the change to the White House that we so sorely need.