Newt Gingrich: "Abolish Bilingual Education"
 

I hate politicians.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/....ap/index.html

This is absolutely disgusting. The pedestal we lift ourselves onto has us looking down upon all others. We see the tops of their heads, not the pride in their eyes. We think there should be only ONE way. We dismiss any other way as unworthy, ghetto, and unsavory.

Shame on all who think this way. Shame on all who support those who spread this filth.

The point, that we should be spending money on teaching English so that assimilation into American society and culture is made easier, is something that should happen.

However, putting it this way is embarrassing.

The problem is, there is a large section of society that sees teaching Spanish as an equal and substitute to English as another way of embracing illegal immigration. Whether that is a correct or incorrect view, as we know from arguing on here, an opinion like that is very hard to get past, and also can be easy to exploit for political gain.

I don't buy any of it. It's another language. There is nothing fucking wrong with another language. Go to Europe and meet some people... they all have to know 6 different languages and nobody is looking down on anyone because of it. Languages are gateways to other cultures and new knowledge. I can't fucking believe this tunnel vision.

Okay, implications of the word 'ghetto' aside, I don't think this is all filth. Bilingual education would probably be a lot more successful if it had some kind of up-or-out component, where there was an incentive to learn English within a specified amount of time. I just think there are appropriate situations for bilingual material... in my view, the ballot is not one of them, but the hospital is. Newt doesn't win any popularty points with me from his delivery, but I don't think his views make him a monster either.

Incidentally, you can keep your shame - it's a far more filthy thing to spread.

I think what the former house speaker is railling against is a thinly veiled assault against spanish speakers.

In my opinion, a nice dose of shame should bring those who think they are higher than the rest back to the same level. I believe in structure, heirarchy, and capitalism, but I believe that it is complete bullshit to determine personal dignity based on the position in the system.

I came to this country as a young boy (3-4 years old) and I learned English very quickly (around a year or so). That's to be expected. In older children, however, I know it's much harder to learn English. I know of three personally who came when they weer 14-16 and had a very hard time learning (and are still trying to, even 3 years after) to speak English. I believe this is because of a faulty ESOL curriculum (ESOL is composed of the classes which are supposed to teach English to immigrants). In ESOL, the Spanish language is emphasized more than English (according to the people I know who went through it) and so learning the language is much more difficult than it should be. A total revamp of the ESOL curriculum would solve this problem.

That being said, if Gingrich meant that foreign language classes should be abolished because they aren't English, then he is truly a stupid man, and is no better than those stupid rednecks who also spout their shit ("This is America, and everyone needs to know English. If you don't, leave, you're making things harder.", etc,etc...). However, if he meant that the current bilingual education system should be changed to facilitate the immersion into English society, then he's got a valid point.

In any case, he didn't do a good job of making clear what he meant, which puts him in the same pile as Bush...That's a no-no for a presidential candidate.

The article doesn't mention to whom Gingrich was speaking, but I am willing to bet that he was pandering to the anti-immigrant crowd. There is nothing new about this thinking from times past other than the people currently being targeted as "less than American."

My husband and I are both third generation Americans whose grandparents immigrated from Europe. They, too, were treated as "less than" because they were not able to speak English well. They responded to their "shame" by never speaking nor teaching their language to their children, and the language and culture have been lost to the grandchildren.

I agree with Hal that this continued racism toward immigrants is shameful, and not worthy of what this country was meant to be.

Hmmm my father was never ashamed to speak. In fact he inisisted that we children speak English only. It is my experience that among the kids in generation in my family born and raised in the US, those that speak good english with little to no accent have higher salaries than those who speak with accents. Heck I don't even have a college diploma, so I should be even regarded as having a lesser salary.

As far as bilingual ballots, IMO part of naturalization for citizenship is reading and writing enough english to understand ballots. Because of that requirement, I think that ballots should not be written in any other language than english.

Now if you are talking about DMV and the DMV handbook well that's totally different. I'm annoyed that when I went to CA DMV they handed me a tagalog handbook automatically because the person thought I wanted that one.

Sorry, I really don't think saying we should only teach one primary language in schools or one language for government documents is radical.

He's not saying you can't learn another language, or use another language.

I'm actually doing a paper on language spoken by immigrants and the hinderance it causes to integration.

In the Netherlands they are pretty well as tolerant of things as you can get. However, they are looking at enacting a "must speak Dutch" policy for immigration. The reason is simply that immigrants from Morocco and Turkey come to the country, and have their own schools (subsidized by the government). The first, second, and often third generation people there don't speak dutch.

This leads to a horde of problems that compound each other. Not speaking the language keeps young Arabs at an almost 50% unemployment rate. This causes the young, and now angry, Arabs to turn elsewhere which is why the crime rate among Arabs is exponentially higher. This in turn leads to racism, taxi drivers are now refusing to pick up Arabs because of a long string of robberies.

Any of this sounding familiar?

In turn because they do not speak the national language, these communities can only turn inward. Unfortunately these cause micro-nations within cities, and the killing of Theo Van Gogh shows exactly what becomes of it.

Should every citizen speak English in America? Yes
Should every citizen be able to speak at least a second language? Absolutely

Language is the means of conveyance for everything. If we can not communicate we can not discuss, we can not debate, we can not do commerce, we effectively become foreigners within our own country.

first off, gingrich is just a washed up old reactionary and anything he says has to be considered in light of that.
second, the meme that he generated has the primary effect of generating the illusion of continued relevance for gingrich himself. it is only secondarily something to be taken as a serious commentary on anything.
third, like most neofascists, gingrich's politics are geared around a kind of obsession with national identity, a category that operates more efficient when posited alongside a real or imagined threat to it. so what i think you mostly have here is an empty statement aimed at sounding out the continued viability of right-wing republican ways of framing their pet issues, most of which also--surprise--turn on an obsession with national identity which is a category that operates most efficiently when posited alongside a real or imagined threat.

the rhetoric is vaguely interesting--this business of the "language of the ghetto"--mostly because it positions gingrich as articulating a particular type of class paranoia, a petit bourgeois class paranoia that construes the poor as some internal "other"....this is of course nothing new, being a stock characteristic of neofascism. gingrich in this case sounds like poujade. it is indicative of the strange ideological world of the rapidly imploding contemporary right, however, which dreams of homogenous self-enclosed and self-enclosing spaces the boundaries of which are outlined across stupid "us vs. them" statements.
typically, gingrich simply references class anxiety, looking to reinforce it and thereby to use it for his own political gain. another classical rightwing tactic. he offers and can offer nothing coherent in the way of account for the sources or meanings of this anxiety--and in fairness even if he did, it would not fit into a neat little cnn soundbyte package and probably would have been left out for "editorial" reasons.

however gringrich being gingrich, i do not think there is anything even remotely like a coherent sociological analysis behind such remarks. were you inclined to be politically sympathetic, you could impute one, as seaver does above.

speaking of the paper you are doing, seaver: i do not think the premise of is without problems because i do not see any way to reduce the complexity of questions of either immigrant or migrant labor communities and their integration or nonintegration into the social formations of which they are parts (regardless of status) to one of language. but this is a response to the barest of outlines: i'd be interested to hear more about it at some point, seaver.

There is certainly a danger of having all government documents in one language if you have a large population that has a less-than-adequate understanding of English. Multi-language services, documents, and websites are created for this reason. It makes sense to give language-based access on all levels. In Toronto, for example, you'll see many examples of this.

The reason why I say it's dangerous is because having English as the only available language would mean it is the language of the privileged. The benefit of having government documents in several languages is that is ensures that newcomers or otherwise non-English speakers can participate in society at a reasonable level. If you take this away, you run into the problem of marginalizing entire subcultures within the nation. This barrier to access would be profound, especially if you don't set up the means for people to learn the single official language. Not everyone can afford ESL classes or tutors, nor can everyone easily pick up a second language.

This goes beyond insulting. I daresay it would infringe on human rights in certain circumstances.

Oh, and this "language of the ghetto" thing is quite ridiculous. What, they don't speak English in ghettos?

$5 says that Newt can't say 'racist' in Spanish. Washed up has-been. Move along, people, nothing to see here.

Edit: Racista

Gingrich may be fighting a losing battle. My friend from Mexico jokingly says "you gringos would do well to teach your children and grandchildren how to speak Spanish in order to get by in the new world".:)

It would seem to be a good idea to require Spanish language classes in our schools since there are already sections of the country where it is the primary language spoken. I don't know how far we can go with the other languages since there are so many of them.

I agree. In my paper I cite dozens of causes and reactionary causes which reinforce isolation within a greater community. However, my thesis states that the language barrier is the larger barrier and spawns the most problems. I fully agree that the issue is extremely complex, but if simple speech can not be held, the flow of ideas and information is impossible.

It already is. In order to do anything more than the most basic of manual labor jobs English is a requirement.

Please don't get me wrong, I do not support Newt. I do, however, feel that language barriers create isolation. I do not buy the theory that multiculturalism alone makes things better, I believe that a free flow of ideas and information are required for a multicultural society to prosper. This includes uniting forces such as a common language.

I would like anyone to point out a country in which there were people who spoke a language other than those ruling the government who were not marginalized. The only time this occurs is when they manage to speak both their own language, as well as the one of the ruling government.

Does anyone else have a hard time understanding that if YOU CHOOSE to move to another country. That the burden is on YOU, to learn the language and culture of the country that YOU moved to?

I wonder if anyone's pointed out to Gingrich that he sounds like a Soviet politician of the 1920's? They basically forced everyone to learn Russian as their primary language of business and politics (not that it was a new concept - the Imperials basically did the same thing). To this day, you can still go to Kazakhstan, Georgia or Armenia, speak only Russian and never have a problem being understood by most people.

This is history repeating itself, as people much closer to the issue than I am have already pointed out. There's nothing to see here. Move along.

And yes, Gingrich is a much better author than politician. He's virtually unelectable as President once his opponents start talking about his marriages and how they ended. He's a scumbag, at least in his personal life.

I have a very hard time understanding it. I don't know of any other countries of the top of my head that are bending over backwards like this.

It isn't that simple at all. I assume you're referring to Spanish people. I may be biased here, but I'm living the life and I see these people try to live throughout the day. It isn't as simple as "just learn the language." These people "choose" to come here to make money for their family, since they can't do so back in their own country. Essentially, they have no other choice but to let their family starve, and facing such circumstances, any decent person would do exactly the same, regardless of nationality. When I came to this country with my family, my father worked *two* full-time jobs, and he also *tried* to go to adult education classes at night. Needless to say, it's more than any man can handle, so he abandoned school. 15 years later he says he regrets it, but really had no other choice. It isn't so simple as "just learn the language," since most of the people who immigrate here from Spanish nations already have established families, and they come here to support them first and foremost. Never lose sight that these are people we're talking about, with loved ones who depend on them, not just viruses that come here to exploit your (our) wealth of economy (that's the way some people see us).

If our original countries actually gave their citizens the support and opportunity we need, the you can bet we wouldn't be coming here, creating needless burden and difficulty. We're a people in crisis, as all our nations are under revolutionary, dictatorial, communist, or socialist governments, and I think I speak for us when I say I'm sorry, but we really have no other choice.

He very well may have. But, I didn't read it that way. Were I to chose to emigrate to El Salvadore, Germany, Japan, France, India...what have you...then it would be up to me to learn the language of that country.
Perhaps not.
My "family" emigrated to the U.S. in the early 18th century. They spoke German. They settled with other German speakers. It was well into the third generation before any of the family papers began to be written in English. So, by self imposed isolation, there was little incentive to learn English. But, there was also no effort made by the government to accomodate the German language. Sooner or later, they had to assimilate.
Some people do. That's the way of immigration. Not excusing it, nor condoning it, but that's the way that it is. The German immigrants went through it, the Itallian immigrants went through it, the Irish immigrants certainly went through it, as did every other ethnic group that you can think of. It's human nature. That said...personally, I find that most of the Hispanic immigrants, that I've met, are the hardest working sons-of-bitches that ever seen in my life. They're working on the dream that most of us forgot about.
Don't apologize. 99.9% of us here are descended from people that were kicked out of every decent country in the world. Damn few of us are "native". Work hard and contribute, and I welcome you with open arms. In fact, I see many a parasitic "American" that I'd like to open up an exchange program with.

I thank you wholly for those wise words. :) It's rare to hear such rationality on the interwebs, but the TFP continues to surprise me. :)

That's the difference between an immigrant who can speak English and one who cannot. If you can't speak English you are a Mexican living in a Mexican community in America. If you can speak English you are no longer bound to your cultural community to function in America. By learning English you gain so much more freedom and opportunity in this country than only knowing your native language.

All of my great grandparents could barely speak English, grandparents are bilingual, and my parents can only speak English. Every other immigrant class eventually learned English, why should Hispanic people be different?

Samcol, this is in my Top 5 Most Ignorant Post Ever. I can't even be nice about it; this is absolute garbage.

Other than the lanugage skill, what other difference is there? By my count, millions.

Unless they're Indian. Or Chinese. Or Guatamalan. Or Honduran. Or Brazilian. Or French. Or Bulgarian. Or Russian. Or Lebanese. You get the idea.

Let me assume for the second that you're not as ignorant as you sound here and point out that every single immigrant group that's ever moved to North America sets up it's own neighborhood. Ever heard of the Ukrainian Village in Chicago? Not that many Ukrainians there any more since the Peurto Ricans moved in a few years ago, but it used to be a place where there was more signs in Cyrillic than English. My own neighborhood in Chicago was predominantly Swedish until about 20 years, but it's now more heterogenous. I'm not even going to mention, Greektown, Little Italy, Chinatown, Little Saigon or other neighborhoods that have counterparts in lots of other cities around the country.

True, but it takes time to learn a new language. Personally, I've always had trouble learning new languages, as seen by the solid C's I posted in high school and college in several languages. It wasn't for lack of trying - I'm just not very good at it. Expecting people to show up being fluent in English is completely unreasonable and goes against the basic reason that all of our ancestors moved here.

And how long have most of them been here? By your own admission, your ancestors had difficulty with the language.

So is this double standard applied only to Mexicans or do you hold it against everyone that looks different than you?

I'm not saying that they should be different. Quite the contrary, actualy. The asimilation into an English speaking America has historically taken a few generations. It will happen, I have no doubt. But, it will not happen overnight...despite redneck epithets that "those mexicuns lurn to talk good 'mericun".

While I don't feel that special consideration should be made, especially where it relates to taxpayer expense, to accomodate non-english speaking immigrants...neither should unrealistic expectations be made of them, to learn.
Now, granted, it was easier for my anscestors, some 300 years ago. They really didn't need to assimilate. They remained, quite comfortably, in their own little community. Todays immigrant has quite a bit to overcome.

Is this an April Fools joke, or were you serious when you posted this? If you were serious, then you should delete your post. "Top 5 Most Ignorant Post[s] Ever" is absolutely inappropriate.

First, we're talking about Hispanics, so I don't think your first comment there is called for.

As for the second part, what I would suggest is to go to that Ukranian area, and see how many of the actual Ukranians still speak their old language as the primary language.

People tend to gravitate towards similar people, whether it is race, ethnicity, religion, etc. (Which I'm sure is not a revelation, but it needs to be stated). You'll probably find that the original ethnic residents of those neighborhoods started to move out as they learned the language and started to assimilate their culture and beliefs into the general "American" culture.

Education and communication breed cultural mixing.

This is a good point. We should be doing all that we can to provide education for these people.

I am serious. I've taken some time and still think that the first post was assinine. My comment stands untouched. :thumbsup: The fact that he's applying one standard to his family and a completely different one to Hispanics offends me to my core. I think that I responded inappropriately. If you really want to start this conversation, why don't you recall that you once called every Christian throughout history an "idiot". Let me know if you need a link to that post. Glass houses, will, glass houses.

Fine, the edit out the portions of my comments that pertain to non-Latins and insert: Puerto Ricans, Columbians, Venezualans and Dominicans. I know first generation immigrants from all of these nations/territories. Their English skills range from non-existant to heavily accented but fluent.

The demise of the Ukranian Village as a enclave of Ukranians is more a representation of the fact that the original "settlers" of the area have died off, and their children moved elsewhere. That's the historical trend with almost all ethnic enclaves, especially in Chicago. One group moves in, the children become more successful than the parents and move the entire family elsewhere. It is a trend that's repeated over and over in neighborhood after neighborhood across the country. The exceptions tend to be areas where there's been a constant flow of immigrants coming from the home country (i.e. Chinatown in San Francisco), but those are few and far between.

I just used Mexican as an example because it's currently the most common.

I was also commenting on what BOR said and was basically re-iterating it. Then I went on to say how my ancestors faced similar circumstances. If you learn the language you aren't confined to just your culture you join the melting pot instead of being an outsider.

Why is there a double standard for the Hispanic immigrants is all I am saying. Why the bi-lingual education, why the free healthcare, housing breaks, social security, tax evasion etc.

What is so ignorant about making that observation.

Why is it so hard to understand that we are simply seeing a greater influx of newly immigrated Hispanic citizens and it only seems, in the vacuum of present time, that they are never going to learn English? They will learn English the way most immigrants learned English, with time and interaction with people who speak English.

Isn't it obvious what is happening? Before 9/11 we didn't have this kind of hysteria. Conservatives are trying to turn us into a country of xenophobes. Everybody needs to calm the hell down.

I don't think you should have to learn geometry either. Or calculus. History is a useless subject too, along with geography.

Look, when many of our grandparents (or whoever), things were different. Citizenship generally came about because the local party machine wanted your vote, so they signed you up. There weren't strict tests or background checks or any of that. Under today's rules, many of our ancestors wouldn't have made it in. Hell, a lot of the Americans I know wouldn't make it in based on some of the requirements unless they were from somewhere like Cuba.

I don't think there's a double standard. I think there's a new standard. Part of it consists of helping people to clearly understand what's going on, and the easiest and most obvious way to do that is to do it in their native language. It's most likely Spanish because, let's face it, most immigrants (legal or otherwise) are from Spanish-speaking countries. However, my local DMV has information in Polish, Russian, Korean and Hindi as well the last time I checked. And I'm ok with that, because I'd rather have people that actually understand the driving laws behind the wheel than those that had to guess at the meaning of many of the words.

As far as bi-lingual education, don't you think that the easiest way to teach most people a new language is to start in their native one? All school districts aren't created equally, and certainly some of those immigrant children are being underserved, but the idea is solid. And there have always been private schools that serve specific minority groups.

As far as the other things in your list, I don't see any of those things being applied exclusively to Hispanic immigrants. It very well may be that Hispanics enjoy those benefits more than others, but they also outnumber any other group of that type, so the numbers should be skewed.

As far as tax evasion, that's a crime. It's a crime that an acquaintance's father went to jail for, and he was a member of the Klan. If someone is working in this country illegally, of course they're going to be guilty of tax evasion. However, that's a completely separate issue than the one we're discussing.

It's ignorant because you're applying one standard to your grandparents and a completely different one to the new immigrants who just got here. Either everyone gets the same break or no one does.

Bilingual education is teaching every subject in two or more languages. Aboloshing it doesn't mean you can't take French or Spanish or German language classes. :shakehead:

If I were to go to ANY other country and immigrate legally even, I would be expected to assimilate into that nation's culture, learn that nation's language and that would be that. Case closed.

So why should we bend over backwards and become a bilingual nation? Especially when the vast majority are illegally here?

I don't care if it is today or 100 years ago, people who come to this country need to assimilate into our society, NOT our society needs to assimilate to accomodate.... that is irrational and bullshit.

When my great great grandparents stepped of the boat with my great grandmother and her brothers and sisters, they had learned English while on the boat. When they settled in Ohio, they worked hard to be Americans and proud. They didn't cry and demand that America become more German.

Same with my Italian ancestors.

Is it not already bad enough that by allowing illegal immigration (and yes we have been allowing it), we have bankrupted hospitals, overloaded states budgets to take care of these illegals and treat them better than US citizens.

Is it not bad enough we have already allowed companies to throw out labor laws and hire illegals?

Is it not bad enough we have people ready to hand our country over to Felons? Illegal Aliens commit a felony when they cross the border illegally...they need to be tried as such and sent back for good, instead of getting thrown across the border and being back in this country as soon as the police leave the area.

For the love of God, I hate what this country has become since PC...... we are not African-American, Jewish-American, German-American, Italian-American...etc.

WE ARE FUCKING AMERICANS.... WE ARE CITIZENS OF THE GREATEST COUNTRY THE EARTH HAS EVER SEEN.

WE DO NOT NEED TO ASSIMILATE TO ANYONE ESPECIALLY ILLEGALS, IT IS A SLAP IN THE FACE TO THOSE THAT CAME HERE, LEARNED ENGLISH AND ASSIMILATED BECAUSE THEY WANTED A BETTER LIFE.

I'm sorry Central America is fucked. I'm sorry you're poor, hunger, tired and your governments are corrupt..... BUT STOP COMING INTO MY COUNTRY ILLEGALLY AND DEMANDING I CHANGE FOR YOU!!!!!!!!!!! FUCK YOU!!!!!!!!!!

Change your own damned governments.... wait that would require hard work, getting organized and actually having to do something.

Our country is sick, we are in need of healing ourselves. If you want to come over LEGALLY and help us rebuild, great. BUT don't you dare come over and demand we assimilate to you.

I have never believed in a death penalty, but as I have stated before, I am willing to vote for politicians that will put up fences, a deadman zone and give orders to shoot to kill any and all illegals trying to cross the border.

I am tired of this shit. Change your own damned country and leave ours alone.

i wanted to say what mm said above.
the name of the political position that generates this kind of hysteria and which tries to benefit from it politically is neofascism.
newt gringrich is attempting to capitalize on a few years of exactly this kind of hysteria and would like to benefit from it politically.
therefore...

seaver: doesn't your argument assume a kind of monolingual education, really: you seem assume that the communities that you are looking at in holland do not learn dutch at all. that seems kinda strange. i dont think it is true. what you might have is the reproduction of heavily accented dutch across generations--in which case the issue really would be accent as one of a series of social markers, and the problem would really be less the possibility of communication than it would be the interconnectedness of accent as social marker with other dimensions of racism directed against these communities.

much of the "debate" above seems to operate on really reductive assumptions that have little to do with reality: the assumption that bilingual education means that folk from immigrant or migrant labor communities do not learn english at all is goofy--people adapt to their environments and being able to function in english is an adaptation to the us context. what might well be true is what i noted with reference to seaver's paper: that it is POSSIBLE BUT NOT INEVITABLE that a bilingual education would result in maintaining accented english--and the problem there is much more about american racism and xenophobia than it is about any of the banalities concerning english as linked somehow to a fixed, immutable americanness that is somehow being threatened by a Contaminant (and again welcome to the world of neofascist "logic"--you folks repeat it without really questioning it, so what does that make you insofar as this non-issue is concerned?)

I'm not a moderator, and I didn't call anyone on TFP an idiot. You can disagree with someone without disrespecting them. It's right there in the rules.

Not really, I have felt this way since I was in Cali. in 1989 and saw firsthand the illegal problem in this country. I just feel it has kept getting worse and we need to put an end to it.

And no, they are not learning English, because we are making it so they do not need to. We are assimilating for them, they are NOT assimilating for us and our country.

Us and them.

If they are here legally, pan, it is their country, too.

QED

Whether you like it or not, I think it is by the year 2060, white Americans will no longer comprise more than 50% of the population.

Maybe it would behoove us to learn Spanish?