Xenophobia, the fear of foreigners, seems to be a common tool used by politicians in communities that have large populations of illegal aliens this election season to win the vote. Fortunately, both of the candidates running for president, McCain and Obama, hold reasonable opinions about how to integrate the twelve million plus illegal aliens from Latin America into our country. But some of our local leaders have new method to play the race card with out actually showing their hand. One way to do this is with the English Only laws. Some states already have an English only law on the statues. Most of the other states want an English only law and will de facto get one by eliminating bi-lingual education programs.
Yes, while it is in the new immigrants' best interest to learn English in order to get ahead in their new home country, it is not going to happen very quickly using an English only policy. Part of the challenge is the English Language's rich history. English is a very old language so its spelling system and grammatical system are quite irregular. Spanish on the other hand while still having a large base of classical literature is much more regular in spelling and grammar. Then along comes the new immigrant who is only quasi-literate in Spanish. She is then confronted with a very complicated and irregular language like English with very few resources to learn it.
Some immigrants with internet connections can learn English online for free but most are very poor so don't have computers let alone internet connections. Perhaps public libraries would dedicate a few computer terminals dedicated to online education.The English only sink or swim approach to assimilation has been the primary method in the past for learning English. New immigrants in the past like the Italians, Germans, and Chinese learned English in America but it took its toll on the immigrant and, like our present situation, created unnecessary strife with the majority population. Another reason America is called a "melting pot", in my opinion, is because of all the heat it takes to make all these different cultures and languages into one. While there will be a lot of friction and heat generated as this newest group of immigrants assimilates, responsible leaders will work to keep the stress levels down by using bi-lingual education. In the past, the resources for creating and operating formal bi-lingual education programs didn't exist. Informal b-lingual education happened around the dinner table with the children showing off their English to mom, dad, grandma and opa. This was a rather slow process so it took at least an entire generation for the immigrants to become fully functional in our society. Bi-lingual education is good for the immigrant and for the general well being of our nation as well. The faster they can learn English, the better they will be able to function in and benefit from our democracy. Hopefully, our new president can lead our senators and congressmen to produce a new law that will extend a helping hand to this newest wave of future Americans.
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