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Utopia 'Mother Tongue:' Why America Essay

(Although Hispanic voters, demographically, may seem to be aligned with the Democratic Party on class issues, on social issues they tend to be conservative and have been eagerly courted by the Republican Party in many states). Passing a mandatory English law would be a validation of racism against Hispanics, and even encourage discrimination in the name of anti-immigration sentiment. "Romanticism exalted language, made it mystical, sublime -- a bond of national identity. At the same time, Romanticism created a monster: it made of language a means for destroying a country" (King 1997). If we have English-only laws, the natural implication are that those who speak English more proficiently (clearly not recent immigrants or at least not immigrants from non-European nations) are better citizens. If we have English-only laws, the implication is that speaking English is somehow superior to not speaking English, despite the need for Americans to function in the global economy.

Strive to freeze a language, as some nations have tried to do, and it becomes impoverished and it dies. English is a 'bastard' language, encompassing Romantic, Indo-European, Germanic,...

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To make it into an artifact of citizenship closes its open nature. English is now able to absorb the rhetoric of new technology, Spanish, and international slang. Words spanning from 'to Google' to 'bravo' reflects the polyglot aspects of English. English must be given free reign to change, and to keep it dynamic and living requires the allowance of other languages to be spoken. A child who watches telenovelas with his abuela at home will still learn English, if properly taught by a caring instructor, at school. Through absorbing regional languages and slang, the nation and American English as a whole will become stronger, from the Spanish-speaking bilingual enclaves of Texas to individuals who speak English and French in Canadian-bordering Maine, to Indian languages on the posters for Bollywood movies in Newark. One of America's dearest mottos, after all is Latin: e pluribus unum (out of many, one).
Works Cited

King, Robert D. "Should English be the law?" The Atlantic. 1997. December 13, 2009.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97apr/english.htm

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Works Cited

King, Robert D. "Should English be the law?" The Atlantic. 1997. December 13, 2009.

http://www.theatlantic.com/issues/97apr/english.htm
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