The US Senate voted to turn back the pages of time yesterday. They voted to make English our official language. This has nothing to do with closing our borders or balancing the budget or the Iraq War – pressing issues. This was simiply a waste of time and paper.
There is always at least 2 sides to every story. There is a group of Americans that see Spanish at the ATM, Spanish spoken on the downtown street corner and Spanish (or any other language) spoken in the back room of a restaurant. they see this as evidence that English is being challenged. What they do not see is the thousands of English classes being taught throughout the country that are all full. What they do not see are the waiting lists for all of those English classes. What they do not see is the highest English literacy rate among second-generation immigrants that we’ve ever seen in this country.
Those that want to succeed will learn English. Economic refugees come here, not to fail, but to succeed. We do not need a special law to give these hard-working people more incentive to do what they already want to do — provide a better life for their family.
