If Newt Gingrich is indeed going to run for President, as many Republicans hope and predict, he is doing a hell of a job of marketing himself to the American electorate. First, he went public in March with the less-than-stunning revelation that he was cheating on his second wife with a 33-year old congressional staffer while publicly criticizing President Clinton for his own affair during the impeachment hearings of the late 90s.
Now, this week he gave a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women blasting bilingualism in American culture, arguing that we should teach only English in American schools so that people “learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto”. In the past he has voiced support for making English the official language of the United States and only printing ballots in the majority language, saying that bilingualism presents "long-term dangers to the fabric of our nation" and that "allowing bilingualism to continue to grow is very dangerous."
While this sort of rhetoric may appeal to the paranoid xenophobes among the Republican base who still feel that whites are becoming a disadvantaged minority in America, it insults a significant portion of the American electorate, particularly the millions of Hispanics were educated in bilingual schools and yet strangely do not live in a ghetto.
Newt also demonstrates a profound ignorance about the nature of bilingual education. It does not discourage immersion, as he seems to suggest (since there are still significant financial incentives to learn English), but rather allows children to learn basic skills such as math in their native language so that they do not fall behind other students while learning English. Gingrich’s claim that Spanish is a ghetto language would actually become more accurate if he got his way and Hispanics were denied equal educational opportunities and the right to vote.
Though the session is drawing to a close, and every senator, congressman, and congressional staffer is itching to get out the door for the upcoming holiday, there are still tons of issues left on Congress’ agenda before anybody can pack up and hightail it to the Hamptons for Memorial Day weekend. Immigration, tax reform, drilling in the Arctic Wildlife Refuge… lots of high-profile topics are still left on the table for this session. Yet as last week drew to a close, what was the Senate doing with their time and your money? Addressing these vital issues with full and careful debate, perhaps? Or maybe our senators were busy, carefully weighing both sides of these problems and coming to reasonable and effective solutions for America’s problems? Or perchance were they examining the roots of each issue carefully and attempting to come to a practical, bipartisan agreement that both parties could get behind?
If you answered yes to any of those questions, you’re either A) inspiringly optimistic or B) you haven’t been in Washington very much.
Despite the fact that lots of key issues were still unresolved at the end of last week, the Senate was busy spending its time protecting… English?
Yes. To many of our US Senators, it seems, the second-most spoken language in the world is under grave threat. This, of course, comes as a great shock to the more than half a billion people worldwide who speak it, including the vast majority of Americans. Yet for some reason Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla) saw it necessary to offer an amendment (which passed 63-34) to the Senate immigration bill that would require the government to “preserve and enhance the role of English.”
Now, this isn’t entirely unprecedented. Other nations do similar things with their native languages. The French government, in its goal to zealously preserve all things smelly, has gone so far as to ban the use of certain English expressions in official correspondence. But these are the French. I mean, come on. We should be embarrassed about this amendment, if for no other reason than it brings us dangerously close to agreeing with something the French do. (That reminds me. I heard a good French joke the other day—Q: Why don’t they have fireworks at Euro Disney? A: Because every time they shoot them off, the French try to surrender. But anyway…)
But this amendment is more than just disgustingly European and totally uncalled for. It’s racist. This is a political move, made by the Republicans in an election year debate about an extremely contentious issue about which many Americans feel very passionately. It’s designed to play to the basest fears of many Americans—that they will “lose” control over a country overrun with foreigners—and it’s despicable. This amendment does nothing to preserve any sort of genuine American heritage, but rather undermines it.
Since our country’s birth, and especially in the 20th century, Americans have always seen themselves as a melting pot of cultures. Citizens and nationals of every religion, race, and language have taken their individual cultures and histories and banded together as one nation indivisible. Sure, we all have our different traditions and practices, but that’s the beauty of America. Immigrants have always been able to preserve their personal identities while at the same time embracing the national one. That's what makes us America, and this law threatens the very foundations of our freedoms.
What’s more, this law is doomed to failure from the start. Let’s take a look at Miami-Dade County, which is more than a little familiar with the English-versus-Spanish debate. In 1980, amid a virtual torrent of Spanish-speaking Hispanic immigrants, county commissioners passed an English-only law virtually identical to the one the Senate passed last week, requiring almost all business in the county to be conducted in English. The mandate’s supporters used arguments similar to the ones we’re hearing today, arguing that the law would help preserve the American character of Miami. The law faced the same arguments last week’s amendment does: that it’s offensive and pointless. But Miami’s failure can serve as a harbinger to the nation as a whole if we let it. The law was a total botch. Instead of encouraging immigrants to learn English, it instead simply frustrated them, denying Hispanic and Cuban Miami residents government materials and information in a language that they could understand. By 1993, it had become clear that the law did little more than divide the community (rather than uniting it) and the city commissioners repealed it unanimously. Let Miami serve as a warning to us all regarding the dangers of declaring English the official national language.
Nobody is saying that English isn’t important. It’s the native language of the vast majority of Americans, and virtually all business and community activity takes place in English. That alone is incentive enough for new immigrants to learn English; we shouldn’t have to pass unnecessary laws that are little more than pretense.
It’s time to tell Congress: Stop wasting our time, and just stick to making the laws we actually need.
In the latest in a series of political blunders, the Republicans' push for immigration reform has backfired on the party. In December, when the GOP first called attention to illegal immigration, it was commonly viewed as a winning electoral strategy; it would fire up their increasingly apathetic conservative base in addition to giving congressional Republicans an accomplishment to tout in their re-election bids. By appealing to security fears and the xenophobia of groups like the Minutemen (for whom legitimate immigration ended the moment their anscestors arrived), they predicted that it would be the wedge issue of the midterm elections (think gay marriage in 2004). Furthermore, anything that would take media attention away from a disastrous war, unpoplar president, numerous criminal investigations, etc., was viewed as a blessing.
And so, House Republicans passed HR4437, a testament to the complexity and innovation of Republican thought: "I've got it...lets build a really big wall!" To be fair, the bill contains other equally horrible ideas. For example, it outlaws aid to those immigranting illegally (thus criminalizing numerous church groups and Amnesty which provide food and water to people crossing the harsh Southwestern desert) and most horrendously, makes illegal immigration a felony. Lets ponder that last one: so we're not going to let them stay here and work and pay taxes, nor are we going to send them back to Mexico; we're going to spend tax dollars to keep them in prison, then deport them. Fantastic.
However, the millions who have protested in recent weeks in 140 cities accross the country demonstrated the importance of this issue to the Latino community and their ability to unite and mobilize into a potent political force. By stressing their hard work, intense patriotism, and the central importance of immigration in the history of America, illegal immigrants and their supporters have elicted sympathy for their cause and gained support for a more lenient measure which includes a path to citizenship for those who pay their taxes and obey the law.
Not only are the Republicans now facing legislation that will likely be more lenient than if they never broached the topic of illegal immigration in the first place, but their strategy is likely to result in electoral gains for the Democrats as well. Hispanics are the fastest growing voting bloc in the country, and despite Bush's dream of making them a Republican constituency, vote blue two thirds of the time. An explosive issue like this has the potential to increase turnout among the Latino population (which is among the lowest in the country) and make it a solid Democratic constituency for a generation. Analysts predict that Hispanic voters will help swing the southwest to the Dems by the 2012 election.
Immigration has become a lose-lose issue for Republicans. On one hand, they face letting down their conservative base with too lenient a bill, while on the other they risk alienating an entire voting bloc, not to mention the fact that their financial base in the business isn't eager to see cheap labor get deported. Enjoy the show.
