Buenos dias, Dear Readers. Well, maybe I shouldn’t say that since, according to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, I would be damaging “the fabric of our nation.”As reported by The Associated Press, Gingrich, now a political analyst often appearing on the Fox News Channel, gave a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women Saturday. His speech served as another example of how rude and mindless some Republicans can be.
For instance, one may recall Barbara Bush’s comment during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when she said the storm victims were actually lucky since they didn’t have to go back to their “underprivileged” homes.
In his hateful, discriminatory comments Saturday, Gingrich asserted that bilingualism, especially bilingual education, is “dangerous” and that English is superior to other languages.
“We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto,” he said. He also said we should only print ballots in English, claiming that we should not have to accommodate people who speak “any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up.”
Although honestly trying to provide immigrants the opportunity to learn English is important, saying other languages are ghetto languages is only spiteful and should not be uttered by a man who is considering running in the 2008 presidential election.
Furthermore, his view of bilingualism is simply wrong.
The Associated Press reported a response to Gingrich’s comments made by Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Hispanic Education Coalition. Zamora said that research shows “that bilingual education is the best method of teaching English to non-English speakers.” He also said that immigrants do want to learn English.
But Gingrich and others senselessly imagine that the goal of immigrants is to come to America and force their language on others, when, in fact, most immigrants feel insulted when Americans assume they don’t know English.
And ballots are not printed – and do not have to be printed – in 700 languages to accommodate most non-English-speaking Americans. In fact, ballots are often provided in only five different languages.
A bilingual country is not an endangered country. Anyone who thinks so should look at the world around them, a world that is made up of many bilingual and multilingual nations. Gingrich’s message was ill-mannered and not even based on facts.