A Language to Nowhere

There can be quite a few eye-opening things that you learn in the middle of a job-search process, as I find myself now. One of those things I'm seeing for the first time is the requirement, or at least preference for, a bi-lingual language ability. Of course, bi-lingual does not mean English-Chinese, or English-German here. It can only mean one thing in this day and age: a requirement for Spanish. I'm seeing this in a surprising number of job ads, especially when you might be dealing with the general public.

I'm not implying that this whole thing doesn't make some sense from a business-marketing standpoint, especially if the job is in sales and your trying to reach as many customers as possible. Companies need to do what it takes to thrive and profit. But the core question is why American society allows this to evolve at all in this way?

If English is your country's language, why not reinforce it's use? If Spanish is your native language, why not adopt and embrace English as a U.S. citizen?

English is the closest thing we have to a universal world language if there is one. It's hard to travel to a place where not even a few people speak it, even rudimentarily. From Iran to Nigeria to Finland or Uraguay. From what I've seen and read, you can almost always function at a basic level in far-flung places like these, speaking only English. Try that with Spanish. And the people in places like these recognize the advantage they have if they can learn English. They welcome the chance and the challenge if they get the opportunity.

I'll never forget my first couple of forays into Mexico on business. I saw several examples of companies, including my own, conducting English classes for very eager employee-students. They understand the advantage it can give them. They want to succeed with American, Canadian and even European companies coming into their towns to do business. They can't get very far without some English-speaking ability.

What a contrast: A Mexican-American living in Chicago, has less impetus to learn English that a Mexican living in his home town outside of Monterrey! Huh?!!

From a Mexican immigrant's point of view, I think that the idea of America "accommodating" his native language is actually a discriminatory practice. By not forcing English on these people, we are doing them a great disservice, especially with children. I don't think that the vast majority view it that way, but that is the case. If I was a Mexican immigrant's rights-activist, or an agency working on immigrant acclimation, I would certainly push English as an absolute necessity. Instead, it appears that all they work for is the opposite. They want Spanish signage and language allowances everywhere. This is another example of government and other aid organizations working to entrap and control people; make them dependant, not independant, in true liberal style!

Time for Mexican-Americans to wake up and realize that they are being marginalized through what is being done to "aid" them. Time for the rest of us to stop trying. It doesn't help anybody in the long run.