I'm sure that I have blogged about this before. I feel that English should be the official language of the United States. We're living at a time when this attitude is being challenged. In the past, immigrants have come to our shores and those who successfully integrated, learned to speak English.
Choosing not to learn English forces you to depend on others for information about social services, medical assistance, shopping choices, directions on the road, or for every aspect of your life. If you don't speak the language, you'll need an interpreter to seek health and welfare help, to apply for citizenship, to read a bus schedule or to pay bills. You might be at the hands of people who stand to gain through your ignorance.
Not speaking English forces you to live among people who speak your native language. It isolates you and prevents you from enjoying all that the United States has to offer. While there is comfort living among family and friends, do you want them to have to handle every aspect of your life?
I feel so strongly about the issue of English as our legal language that I am willing to devote my spare time to teaching English as a second language, and teaching reading. I have a teaching certificate. It wouldn't take me that long to re-train formally, but I can assist now through the literacy groups that are available in my area. I have several acquaintances who have done this, and I know others who are willing to teach. All it takes is a willingness on the part of our newcomers to want to learn.
I've been reminded of this issue by an e-mail which crossed my desk this weekend. Theodore Roosevelt had this to say on the subject, in 1907:
"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be NO divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but ONE flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."
We have SO much to offer. Why limit yourself to a small portion, when you can have the whole pie? Teddy Roosevelt was right. If you choose to come to the United States, be prepared to become and American, and only an American.