Donald K. Allen for President

Top of the Week

April 21, 2008

Presented at Youngstown Torch Club, April 21

English Should Be the Official Language of the United States of America

Our Declaration of Independence and Constitution of the United States have been translated from their original English into many languages. These documents have been used as a blueprint for our own States’ Constitutions and as references for governments around the world. Non-English speaking nations may find, however, that no translation is one hundred percent accurate in relating full meaning, definition, or intent. It is for this reason among many that English should be the official language of the USA.

A little over a hundred years ago a man and a woman, strangers, separately left their homeland of Lithuania and sought a new beginning in a land offering more opportunity and hope for a better tomorrow. They spoke no English, and it must have been frightening to enter a foreign land where the main language was not understandable. The immigration forms were unintelligible, but they could read and write in their own language, and with a little help from experienced officials, the paperwork was completed. They had names and addresses of Lithuanians who had come to America before them, and this was their link to assimilation.

These were my maternal grandparents. They were required to conform to rules and regulations that were set forth, written and spoken, in English. They sought help from Lithuanians who had become bilingual, and with the help of friends and relatives, they began to learn the new language, too. The man and woman met in Rockford, Illinois, which had a small Lithuanian community, and were about two hours from Chicago, which held a much larger enclave of their countrymen and women. They married, and bore one child, a daughter, Veronica.

Veronica would grow automatically bilingual. She was taught both Lithuanian and English by her parents, functioned strictly in English in school, and she became fluent in each one. She eventually married and had two sons, who would learn only English. In two generations the Lithuanian language was lost and English was the only language the two boys spoke. Nevertheless, all three generations could now speak the new language.

Learning a new language as an adult is hard work. Developmental researchers have shown that there is a time period in our development, a window of opportunity, wherein language is readily learned. Some have extraordinary ability in learning languages and go on to learn several. The incentive to learn a language is up to the individual, and learning the language of the country you are in is a necessity for assimilation; to be absorbed into the culture or mores of a population.

Today there are many enclaves of immigrants in states, towns, and cities that retain their native languages. There are Greek Towns, China Towns, Little Italies, and areas predominantly Swedish, German, Polish, and Russian. Today we even have Iraqi neighborhoods. Language diversity has always been part of America. In size, however, Spanish-speaking immigrants comprise the largest group of foreign language people who reside in this land. Is assimilation harder for Hispanic people than it was for all the immigrants who came before them? Not really. But there are movements in our government to cater to their needs in particular. The primary driving force is the plan for a North American Union.

Never before has this country needed a law to make English our national or official language. But today, some of our legislators believe we should accommodate non-English-speaking factions, principally those who only speak and read Spanish. Accommodation is the easy road for these legal and illegal immigrants — they don’t have to do anything. Translations will be performed for them at a cost, of course, to our government and taxpayers.

President Clinton signed Executive Order 13166, which, in essence, makes demanding services in any foreign language a civil right. So now the government hires linguists to translate everything the Federal government prints into Spanish and any other language a person living in this country “demands.” While millions of immigrants brought their own translators with them to perform legal or governmental requirements in the past, our government now will have to provide the translators. The United States of America is bleeding to death from a thousand cuts.

If our two political parties are taking us down the road to a North American Union and New World Order, they should consider what is happening in the rest of the world. Fifty-three other nations have made English their official language. Business and economics schools throughout the world have declared English the official language of international business, and courses are taught in that language in France, South Korea, and even Spain. It is estimated that over one billion people in the world are currently learning English. About two thirds are English as a Foreign Language (EFL), using English occasionally for business or pleasure. Others are English as a Second Language (ESL), who use it on a daily basis.

ProEnglish.org lists ten reasons why we should make English the official language of the USA, beginning with a quote from Charles Krauthammer in Time Magazine, June 4, 2006, “History has blessed [the U.S.] with all the freedom and advantages of multiculturalism. But it has also blessed us, because of the accident of our origins, with a linguistic unity that brings a critically needed cohesion to a nation as diverse, multiracial and multiethnic as America. Why gratuitously throw away that priceless asset?”

The most compelling reason is the first, “To stipulate that although government may use other languages, to be legally binding and authoritative, e.g. “official,” it must act or communicate in the English language.” If the United States of America is to continue its sovereignty in the decades and centuries to come, English must become the official language of the Nation. If we are to be blended into a North American Union, uniting Mexico, the USA, and Canada, then we will be a trilingual country (don’t forget the French Canadians), and all that has come before is simply curious history. Welcome the New World Order. Our grandchildren will lower the Stars and Stripes for the last time.

There are presently several bills in Congress attempting to make English our official language. Senate Bill S. 1335 is the S.I. Hayakawa Official English Language Act of 2007. House Bill H.R. 769 is titled, “To amend title 4, United States Code, to declare English as the official language of the Government of the United States, and for other purposes . . ” Additionally, House Bill H.R. 768 seeks to nullify Executive Order 13166, and House Bill H.R. 997 addresses a “English Language Unity Act of 2007,” which states, “To declare English as the official language of the United States, to establish a uniform English language rule for naturalization, and to avoid misconstructions of the English language texts of the laws of the United States, pursuant to Congress' powers to provide for the general welfare of the United States and to establish a uniform rule of naturalization under article I, section 8, of the Constitution.”

Obviously, some members of our Congress believe this is an action that needs to be fulfilled. Why, then, hasn’t it been done? Is it simply bipartisanism again thwarting the efforts and investments of time and money (our money) for ulterior motives that might strengthen one party or another? It is a fact that the Democratic Party hungers for the support and votes of the twenty million illegal aliens in our country, and that efforts toward amnesty and fast track to citizenship might buy it. But it will be at a tremendous cost to everyone else, both today and in our future.

It’s time to shake up Washington and regain control of our future for the sake of we the people. It’s time to vote for a new beginning in this country, to take us out of the two wagon wheel ruts of party politics before it’s too late.