Language and Racism

Let me start by trying to put my soapbox away...


I decided to look at the US English Facebook page in order to understand a perspective different than my own.  The US English website makes some (relatively) fair and honest arguments about the history of English in the US, but what do its supporters say? Surely they have logical, sound arguments as well.


The first post I read: "US law has to be clear to all citizens, therefore all citizens need to know one language."


Oh dear.  There are too many assumptions and logical fallacies for me to describe here...


Further down the page: this picture.


Surely that picture comments on that man's impolite gesture in relation to his language of choice and not the color of his skin, right?


Another gentleman: "I will work hard to recruit members as well as work to make English the Official language of the United States."


He must've accidentally hit shift on that one.  Forgivable mistake.  He's still in high school...


On the topic of Puerto Rico's commonwealth status: "all leeches..."


Or another poster: "If they become a state, they lose their "nationality" and become Americans.... therefore, welcome to hard work and speaking English! You will no longer be able to refer to your heritage as "Puerto Rican" -- that will be gone, because you will be Americans and salute the Stars & Stripes! (BTW, our National Anthem is in English too!)"


And another: "Down here in Texas if two people looking at same job the one that speaks english & spanish will get the job even if he is not as qualified for it.This is why the White male is the one being discriminated against the most. All over the USA."


There we have it.  Finally.  Language and race, intertwined and interconnected.  See, I am not trying to say that the two are always one and the same.  Instead, I am arguing that there is an undercurrent of racism hidden in the "English Only" movement.  Just looking at some of the lovely quotations above, we can see how people connect language to race, to the idea that Puerto Ricans (and possibly all immigrants?) are welcome to learn "hard work" upon achieving statehood, and that non-white, non-English speakers corrupt the moral and/or social framework of the country.  How can you tell that the guy in the picture doesn't speak? Because his skin is darker? How do you know he wasn't born and raised with the English language? Because he makes a vulgar, un-American gesture?


Unfortunately, this is one of the many reasons I cannot support any push for English to be the official language of the US.  I also disagree with the idea that one language equals one nation or vice versa, and that the "White male is the one being discriminated against the most," and that the cost would be too great for the government to bear.  But most of all, I cannot stand by a movement with such racist sentiment lurking below the surface of its arguments.


Oops, did my soapbox sneak out again?

English Instruction and Policy

Inspired by Max's last post, I went online in search of a site that commented on the connection between language instruction and policy with regard to "power" languages.  We had spent the past week in class talking about European languages dominating Africa during the colonial and post-colonial eras, and we speculated about the current prowess of English.

Well it turns out that the world outside Duke is also interested in these kinds of issues.  One blog post describes the difficulties in teaching English today.  I was particularly interested in his discussion of English in the Soviet Union, where he describes the "havoc" that teaching English to younger and younger students wreaked on the educational system as a whole.  Instead of teaching students fundamental skills in their local languages, instruction of the most economically viable language often takes away from students' other courses while adding a marginal amount if "power language" [my words] instruction.

So, should a government promote power-language instruction to increase the economic viability of its young citizens, or should a government promote multilingualism? To me, the answer falls somewhere in between either extreme (didn't we agree that binary models never really work?).  To respond to my own question with an example by Haarman, I think that while a country like the Soviet Union should have promoted Russian language acquisition, I feel they failed at adequately supporting local languages, and therefore promoted an "us vs. them" mentality.  In the same way, I don't think English should dominate schools abroad at the cost of creating a regional, ethnic, or cultural divide.