I write this after having read an editorial in the DK this morning about Puerto Rico. I was struck by how on one hand Puerto Rico has been a possession of the United States for 120 years, whose people are American citizens (without the right vote for a president, no less!) and how little understanding of Puerto Rico there appears to be among non-hispanic Americans.
In 1978 I married a beautiful Mexican girl who had come to San Francisco to be a ballet dancer. After chasing her down for two years (!), we were married in a church in Mexico City which was built around 40 years after Cortez conquered Mexico in 1519. (My best man, also a gringo, used to say that wedding was more like a coronation than a wedding.)
She had never been to California, although she had a couple of aunts who lived in Huntington Beach. Yet, she spoke surprisingly good English, which always amazed me, frankly.
When our first child, Patrick, was born in 1980, we decided that for the first five years of his life we would speak only Spanish in our house (He’d get plenty of English from Sesame Street!), the idea being that we wanted Pat to easily learn the language of one half of his family, nearly all of whom lived in Mexico City. (For me it wasn’t easy. My high school Spanish was rudimentary at best but over time it improved to the point where I could carry on a decent conversation and read a newspaper without much trouble.)
So in those first years of his life, our son got a great grounding in Spanish and certainly later, when we visited relatives, our son was fully conversant in Spanish. He even became fast friends with his cousins, I felt so proud of him! And his grandparents were, too, as they were so afraid that our boy would never identify with his “Mexicanismo.” (Roughly: “Mexican-ness”)
There was a short period in his life, when he sort of rejected Spanish but by high school graduation he discovered the uniquenesss of being fully bilingual. By college he simply took his bilingualism for granted. After college, when he began his career as a mid-level manager with a major airline, his Spanish was an incredible asset to his career. So much so that as he advanced into higher levels of responsibility he became the “official” Spanish speaker in his department and on several occasions participated in discussions with a Mexican airline in which his company had purchased an interest.
One of the great shortcomings in our educational system, in my opinion, is the absolute dearth of serious foreign language programs in schools and many colleges. Most of us “gringos” get a year or two of perhaps required foreign language classes but after finishing them we ditch it as fast as we can.
Why?
Sure, English is about as close to an international idiom as there is, especially in the business world. Yet, most of our highest level diplomats (the ones appointed by presidents) are scarcely knowledgeable of the language of the countries they reside in and to which they are charged with representing the United States. Most ordinary Americans simply assume that anyone living in the United States is—or should be or must be—an English speaker before being considered fully American. But important as English is in international business, our foreign friends and even our enemies know much more about us than we know of them, simply because they study us—our language, our culture, what we like and don’t like.
Our history is one of immigration. From our beginnings people flocked here from almost everywhere. In Pennsylvania, Ben Franklin himself was scared to death that his colony would be taken over by German speaking immigrants (Hence, today, the “Pennsylvania Dutch” and the Amish). Then came Irish, Italians, Slavs, Chinese, Japanese, Yiddish speaking Jews, Hispanic...all contributing to the American quilt. They came from everywhere. And inside one or two generations, their children had not only acquired English as their first language, it became their only language. When your country is separated from the rest of the world by two gigantic oceans, and is more or less self-sufficient in whatever it needs, well, learning more than English isn’t such a pressing need.
Yet here were are, beginning the 2nd quarter of the 21st century and we find ourselves not so much independent as we are interdependent on the people of the entire planet. The percentage of Spanish speakers in the United States grows yearly. At present, there are more people speaking Spanish in the U.S. than Spain (47 million speakers) and Colombia (48 million speakers). By 2050, the United States is expected to have 138 million Spanish speakers, making it the largest Spanish-speaking country in the world. Yet, among non-hispanic Americans less than 3 million speak Spanish fluently. In the U.S. generally, 108 different languages are spoken in America.
English will always be the first language of Americans, ultimately, no matter their origin. But knowing a foreign language enriches a life. It promotes the understanding and appreciation of cultures other than our own, especially as our national complexion darkens, as it did with my own children.
I am convinced that the most ardent hispanophobe, for example, in some out of the way part of America would change his/her opinion of hispanics if they spoke Spanish. (and I think it’s a fair bet that Donald Trump doesn’t speak a word of Spanish, let alone Russian!) We no longer can be successful as a country if we continue looking inward. I believe that a foreign language should be mandatory in every school district in the country, from kindergarten through high school graduation, starting with Spanish. (By the way, Google Translate is NOT learning Spanish.)
It’s time for us to open up to others not “us.” We should celebrate, not segregate.
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