These colors don’t run. Neither do these words.
The restaurant Geno’s Steak in Philadelphia recently won an injunction over the use of its sign that implored its customers to “PLEASE SPEAK ENGLISH.” Notice how I use caps.
So does the real sign.
The real sign also reads “This is America,” complete with the eagle and the flag to boost everyone’s patriotic morale surrounding a hybrid, Germanic language that even our own government doesn’t recognize as official.
A reasonable request granted? Or a xenophobe’s defiant victory cry? Give me your tired, your poor … but I only speak for myself. I can’t guarantee the rest of America feels the same, and in fact, might I suggest losing your home culture, as not to stir up resentment among our citizens over their imaginary borders and arbitrary social customs?
Pride in the English language is one of the many tools these race-baiting idiots employ on a daily basis. Beneath their garbled nonsense, wrapped in thick layers of ethnocentrism, comes the statement that if they are going to come HERE, then they ought to learn the language.
I agree. Just as when we go to their countries, we expect them to know the language. If they’re going to know it there, they should know it here. It’s only fair.
Granted, the people I’m talking about have never been to a foreign country. The farthest they go is the local Fred’s, or perhaps Wal-Mart if they happen to be wearing their Sunday best.
I know for a fact they go to Wal-Mart because that’s where I first heard this incessant complaining. A steel look of terror locked on an awestruck face, limbs frozen. Hours pass. They finally process the word: Entrance. More hours pass. They finally process meaning: where one enters.
Then, they notice the word below it. Hours pass. They finally process the word: Entrada. What on America could it mean? A foreign language in this country foretells the decline of America and the destruction of the capitalist system in favor of a Fascist-Marxist-Communist-Socialist-Democrat-Literate hybrid. Reagan help us all.
They don’t care about other countries or other cultures. They don’t care that a world exists outside these borders. And they don’t care about other languages because they’ve never had to.
A disturbing 9 percent of Americans are bilingual. Instead of introducing children to foreign tongues when they’re children, most don’t encounter any until high school. Fluency is not necessary, and the prevailing attitudes in this country certainly don’t encourage it.
Why trouble yourselves with learning a foreign language when everyone already speaks English? As one of my teachers in France put it, “Anglais, c’est la langue de la mode.” She said this in response to a question I asked about a French advertisement for a new e-book. The product’s name? Cybook, not the equivalent CyLivre. English dominates the world in most business areas; in Asian countries, teachers of English are in high demand, native speakers preferred.
The form of English they teach is important, as a linguistic snobbery exists known as “Formal English,” or prescriptive grammar. These, along with organizations such as L’Académie Française, rely on a rigid form of the language that was obsolete long, long ago. Purity of language is absurd. How can languages, entities that are constantly changing, have a “pure” form? Isn’t there some inherent contradiction between the two?
The prescriptive perspective promotes elitism and illiteracy. It encourages lower-class people to feel shame in the dialect they speak, and by extension, shame in themselves. The same applies to immigrants who wish to preserve their native tongue in their homes.
The push for Americans to learn a foreign language simply does not exist. For now. You see, Spanish on doors and signs and “oprima numero dos para español” was only the beginning. According to the 2000 U.S. Census, 28.1 million people speak Spanish at home. It’s the second-most-spoken language in the United States; 40 million Hispanics here, the fifth largest Spanish-speaking community. A lot of our politicians use Spanish. The White House’s official Web site has a Spanish language section.
Are the English-only Movement and Teddy Roosevelt, who said “We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house,” losing the war?
Hardly. No matter the number of imaginary threats you must conjure to give meaning to your pathetic lives, your beloved American offshoot dialect isn’t going anywhere. English will continue to dominate for many years to come.
Both here and everywhere else.
So, tranquilo por favor!
