What Good Is English Anyway?

I was recently speaking with some friends who were all excited about their daughters first day of school. They were pleased at her progress as they had worked hard to teach her phonics and letter and number recognition before entering kindergarten. She was dressed in her new school cloths and sent on her way. When she returned she was lacking enthusiasm and looked confused. They asked their daughter what she had learned today and if she had made any new friends? She simply shrugged and said I didn’t understand anything that was going on all day because everything was in Spanish.

The shocker came when my friends took their daughter to class the next day. This school room in downtown America had a Hispanic teacher and 27 students. The teacher told them that their daughter would have to learn Spanish in order to keep up with the class. The students broke out as two white kids, one Asian and twenty-four Hispanic. The teacher let them know that in a couple of weeks of intense language their child would function just fine.

How did we get here? This isn’t a case of rural schooling with a large agricultural migrant worker base. These people work and live in a capital city with high ranking government and state activities being determined. How did real Americans suddenly become the minority? Why is it that our children are being forced to learn a foreign language in their own land?

The world has come to realize that if you are going to survive in the big global market you better be able to transact business in English or Mandarin Chinese. These are the future markets for goods, where all other languages are simple local communication. If you want your economy to grow and survive you will need to get with the big players.

Yet, here we are reducing our own economy in the classrooms of America. I have nothing against learning another language by personal choice. In fact I see it as large growth step that would indeed improve a person. Yet, why would one want to learn a language that is going no where? We have had Ebonics in the news as another dead end language trying to make a come back. Why do we insist on limiting our skill sets?

Here we have a situation where Americans have less access to education then foreigners. We see this playing out all over with racial quotas and incentives for minorities. These very programs support, if not promote, racial profiling and bias. We have created a society where reverse prejudice is acceptable. We once looked to the day where all would be viewed equal, but our social engineers have completely missed the mark and instead have turned the whole thing upside down.

If ever there was a case for establishing English as our national language, this would be it. We have now seen to the complete breakdown of our borders, language and culture.

How long will America last?