Phase 2

As the rate of immigrants, legal or not, continues to increase in America, we as nation do our part to help coddle the new wave of pseudo-citizens. We do so by including foreign languages on billboards, signs, and just about anything to ease the immigrants into our lifestyle. Then again, shouldn’t they attempt to learn our language? Or is this assistance a reminder to others that we are a nurturing nation? In this sense, would making English the official language of America push foreign cultures further away, or bring them closer to our own?
The removal of foreign languages from such places as road signs or other public areas seems unnecessary. William F. Buckley feels that “These signs don’t seriously inconvenience anybody,” since “there is always an English version within sight.” In doing this, America hopes to have English as its official language. But such attempts at language unification have not only occurred in the States, nor can it be merely considered a recent issue. In 1887, an attempt at a universal language was made. The language, Esperanto, was intended to be a simple to learn language, based mostly off of European languages. The language took heavy criticism, from political figures such as Adolf Hitler; who considered the language a manner of world domination, to Senator Joseph McCarthy; who considered the language sympathetic towards communism. As you can see, the language unification was by no means accepted, so it would seem that such unification would meet with heavy resistance.
However, can we really allow foreign cultures take over our own? In Dennis Baron’s English in a Multicultural America, He makes note of the increased interest in immigrants wanting to become part of our country through assimilation. They no longer want to be considered "hyphenated Americans," such as Italian-Americans or Irish-Americans. The early immigrants to America were considered to be a problem, but they proved themselves as important members of American society, taking low paying jobs due to their lack of formal American education. Over the years, their children grew more into the American “way.” In the early 20th century, “young Germans were adopting English and abandoning German at a rate that should have impressed the rest of the English-speaking population.” By the time World War 1 occurred, German was banned from school curriculums, and in some cases, all foreign languages were removed, and as ignorant a move this may have been, the immigrants pushed on and managed.