Language is a difficult subject to discuss dispassionately because it's our essence. So when two languages come cheek to jowl, as English and Spanish have in the United States, it becomes a hot issue. As Chicano poet Gloria Anzaldua wrote in Borderlands: La Frontera: "So, if you really want to hurt me, talk badly about my language. I am my language."
Linguistic terrorism has plagued children of immigrants and Native Americans for generations. Alberto Alvaro R?os wrote in his book Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir: "If speaking Spanish is bad, and our parents speak Spanish, then they must be bad," he concluded, "and we became ashamed of them."
Fueling the language debate are clashes arising over illegal immigrants fleeing dire circumstances. But anti-foreign-language fervor has been around for a long time. We disrespected the languages of Native Americans and African-Americans because non-white minorities spoke them, and we shunned German during World War I. Now it's Spanish.
The irony is that almost all of us have ancestors who were immigrants. The co-mingling of languages is as much a part of that brew as the people who speak them. Yet we have become so smug about English that we ignore the prominence of foreign words in our vocabularies.
French: casserole, cassette and clientele. Latin: acumen, genius, moratorium. Greek: thesis, barometer, autistic. German: angst, kindergarten, sauerkraut. Turkish: macram?, bridge, caviar. Italian: pizza, ghetto, ballerina. Japanese: banzai, sushi. Afrikaner: trek. Hungarian: coach, paprika.
As for Spanish, it left its mark upon our culture long before the arrival of Crist?bal Col?n. Just close your eyes and press your finger onto any U.S. map, and chances are decent that you'll be pointing to a place with a Spanish name (such as Colorado, Montana or Florida).
Yet we view foreign languages with suspicion and derision - the billboards in Spanish, the mom-and-pop pi?ata shops, the Little Mexicos. We've got them in our sights. Our weapon? Legislation.
Thirty states, from Arkansas to Wyoming, have enacted laws making English their official language.
This is not a bad thing as long as the sole purpose is to enable the government to run smoothly, unencumbered by language barriers. But it's one thing to specify English as the official language and quite another to issue "English only" mandates that order all government employees to refrain from offering assistance in other languages. Heaven forbid a Navajo legislator should speak to his Navajo constituents in Navajo, or a bilingual welfare worker speak Spanish, or a state park ranger give visitors directions in French or German.
