Make America Speak English Again?
Article subtitle:
GOP can’t recognize a winning issue when they see one.
Article publisher:
American Renaissance
Article date:
27 July 2018
Article category:
Our American Future
Medium
Article Body:
The Washington Examiner, citing data from the Migration Policy Institute, reports that there are 44 million immigrants living in the United States, accounting for 13.5 percent of the total population. That is the highest percentage of foreign-born since 1910, and at that time almost all were European.
Today, 22 percent of the U.S. population does not speak English at home, including almost a third of the populations of Nevada and Florida. The most common foreign language by far is Spanish, though in Florida, Haitian Creole comes in second....
Yet there has been no attempt from the Republican Congress to promote English. This is surprising, because the issue is very popular and the GOP had better campaign on something if it is to avoid a rout in the midterms.
According to a Rasmussen poll conducted in April, no fewer than 81 percent of Americans believe English should be the official language. Incredibly, this is still the lowest figure since 2006, as support for Official English has varied from 87 percent to 83 percent....
There’s nothing “anti-immigrant” about Official English. ...Official English, by contrast, is an assimilationist, anti-racist idea; people from all over the world can learn a common language and become Americans. ...
ohn Jay famously wrote in Federalist No. 2 that “Providence has been pleased to give this one connected country to one united people—a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, [and] very similar in their manners and customs.” ...
Without an official designation as an English-speaking nation, a linguistically divided future is inevitable. America has a chance to decide whether it wants to be a self-respecting nation or something more like a shopping mall in a declining neighborhood.