
 |
|
June 17, 2013
June 12, 2013
Stephanie Hanes: Little girls or little women? The Disney princess effect
Fred Weir: In tweak to US, Russia would 'consider' asylum for Snowden
June 10, 2013
The Kosher Gourmet by Anjali Prasertong: A tart filling so good it might not make it to the crust
June 5, 2013
John Rosemond: Mom, Dad: Talk More and listen less
Kristen Chick: Egypt court sentences 43 pro-democracy workers to prison
June 3, 2013
Molly Hennessy-Fiske: Military judge to consider letting Fort Hood shooting defendant represent himself
May 29, 2013
Andrew Connelly and Helene Bienvenu: The Little Synagogue that Refused to Die
May 24, 2013
Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: When I didn't so 'humbly disagree'
May 22, 2013
John Thorne:
They launched the 'Arab Spring' but now yearn for the good old days of a strongman
May 20, 2013
Richard A. Serrano: Is Meir Kahane's assassin now a changed man?
Melissa Healy: Genetic copies of living people from embryos no longer science fiction
Jewz in the Newz by Nate Bloom : Jews Inducted into Rock Hall of Fame; Anton Yelchin co-stars in New "Trek" film; Kutcher (but not Kunis) visits Israel; Jewish TV Star Praises Jewish Rap Star
The Kosher Gourmet by Cathy Pollak: WARNING: This WALNUT CAKE WITH PRALINE FROSTING, perfect for afternoon coffee, is addicting
|
| |
Jewish World Review
June 22, 2007
/ 6 Tamuz, 5767
Arnold, speak English, please
By
Linda Chavez
| 
|
|
|
|
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger deserves two cheers for his comments to Hispanic journalists last week that Hispanics should "turn off the Spanish television set. It's that simple. You've got to learn English." But I'm holding back on the third cheer, in part because the governor hasn't always followed his own advice.
Like most politicians, Schwarzenegger is quick to embrace English as the national language and hint that Hispanics aren't learning it fast enough, but he is also eager to habla Espaņol when election-time rolls around. In his re-election bid last year, the governor not only ran ads in Spanish but was interviewed frequently on Spanish-language television and radio. He was also happy to take more than $4 million since 2003 in contributions to his political causes from former Univision chairman A. Jerrold Perenchio, who made his fortune airing soap operas and game shows in Spanish. And, if you want to practice your Spanish skills, a good place to start might be listening to the governor's weekly radio address in Spanish or signing on to his website "Arnold Schwarzenegger: El Gobernador del Pueblo" (gov.ca.gov/espanol).
Schwarzenegger is not alone in this practice. Presidential aspirant Mitt Romney may be talking tough on immigration these days (though not when he was governor of Massachusetts), but he's also airing Spanish-language ads in states with large Hispanic populations. As I've argued for decades, such ads don't reach most Hispanic voters who are predominantly U.S.-born and prefer to get their news in English.
But the hypocrisy doesn't end here. In 2006, when Republicans were still in control of both houses of Congress, they couldn't muster enough votes in their own ranks to drop a requirement for bilingual ballots from the Voting Rights Act, which was up for extension. Rep. James "No Amnesty" Sensenbrenner, then chairman of the Judiciary Committee, argued that bilingual ballots facilitate "the participation of language minority citizens in the political process." Nonsense.
When I testified against the bilingual ballots measure as I have each time it has come up for extension I was treated by my fellow Republicans as the skunk at the tea party. They didn't want to hear evidence that the overwhelming majority of Hispanics who are eligible to vote speak, read and write English. Indeed, for those who are third-generation Americans, three out of four can't speak Spanish at all. The relatively few voters who need language assistance could be accommodated by allowing them to take translations into the polling booth, to have family members help them or to cast absentee ballots so that they could get translation assistance at home. Bilingual ballots are a waste of money, send a mixed signal to new citizens that it isn't necessary to learn English, and cause resentment and ill-will among other Americans.
But my reservation of a third cheer for Arnold isn't solely based on the hypocrisy factor. The governor also seems not to recognize that what Spanish-speaking newcomers are going through today in their transition to English is nearly identical to what every group has encountered at periods of high immigration over the last 200 years. Arnold may not have met many German speakers when he came to California in 1968, but if he'd arrived 100 years earlier, he'd have been awash in German-language newspapers, German-language theater, German civic associations, and his children likely would have attended German bilingual schools.
As Richard Alba and Victor Nee point out in their authoritative work "Remaking the American Mainstream: Assimilation and Contemporary Immigration": "German immigrants sometimes thought of themselves as recreating a separate German cultural sphere in the United States, and numerous towns where they settled were given German names (such as King of Prussia, Pennsylvania, and Frankfort, Kentucky.). At a relatively late point in American history, the great majority of the foreign-language press was published in German. . . . [T]he German language was unusually tenacious across the generations, supported by bilingual public education in many states."
Even today, nearly 1.4 million Americans still speak German at home; it is the fourth most popular foreign language spoken in the U.S. after Spanish, Chinese and French. The real question for Hispanic immigrants is, will they learn English over time, as the Germans, Italians, Poles and others did before them? The evidence, based on studies of Hispanic immigrants' children and grandchildren, suggests they will. But it might help if policymakers like Schwarzenegger didn't speak out of both sides of their mouth on this issue.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)
Linda Chavez Archives
© 2006, Creators Syndicate
|
|

Arnold Ahlert
Mitch Albom
Jay Ambrose
Michael Barone
Barrywood
Lori Borgman
Stratfor Briefing
Mona Charen
Linda Chavez
Richard Z. Chesnoff
Ann Coulter
Greg Crosby
Larry Elder
Suzanne Fields
Christine Flowers
Peter Funt
Frank J. Gaffney
Bernie Goldberg
Jonah Goldberg
Julia Gorin
Jonathan Gurwitz
Paul Greenberg
Argus Hamilton
Victor Davis Hanson
Betsy Hart
Ron Hart
Nat Hentoff
A. Barton Hinkle
Jeff Jacoby
Paul Johnson
John Kass
Jack Kelly
Ch. Krauthammer
David Limbaugh
Kathryn Lopez
Rich Lowry
Michelle Malkin
Jackie Mason
Ann McFeatters
Dale McFeatters
Dana Milbank
Jeanne Moos
Dick Morris
Jim Mullen
Deroy Murdock
Judge A. Napolitano
Bill O'Reilly
Clarence Page
Kathleen Parker
Star Parker
Dennis Prager
Wesley Pruden
Tom Purcell
Sharon Randall
Michael Reagan
Robert Robb
Cokie & Steve Roberts
Heather Robinson
Debra J. Saunders
Martin Schram
Greg Schwem
Culture Shlock
David Shribman
Roger Simon
Lenore Skenazy
Michael Smerconish
Thomas Sowell
Mark Steyn
John Stossel
Cal Thomas
Dan Thomasson
Bob Tyrrell
Diana West
Dave Weinbaum
George Will
Walter Williams
Byron York
Cathy Young
Mort Zuckerman

Eric Allie
Robert Arial
Chuck Asay
Baloo
Nate Beeler
Lisa Benson
Chip Bok
Dry Bones
John Branch
Daryl Cagle
Patrick Chappatte
John Cole
Paul Combs
J. D. Crowe
John Darkow
Bill Day
John Deering
Sean Delonas
Brian Duffy
Everything's Relative
Randall Enos
Mallard Fillmore
David Fitzsimmons
Glenn Foden
Jake Fuller
Bob Gorrel
Walt Handelsman
Joe Heller
David Hitch
Jerry Holbert
David Horsey
Lee Judge
Steve Kelley
Mike Keefe
Jeff Koterba
Dick Locher
Chan Lowe
Jimmy Margulies
Gary McCoy
Rick McKee
Jack Ohman
Jeff Parker
Milt Priggee
Michael Ramirez
Rob Rogers
Steve Sack
Bill Schorr
Drew Sheneman
Kevin Siers
David Ray Skinner
Jeff Stahler
Scott Stantis
Danna Summers
Gary Varvel
Kirk Walters
Christopher Weyant
Larry Wright
Dan Wasserman
Adam Zyglis

Tech Q&A
Mr. Know-It-All
Ask Doctor K
Richard Lederer
Frugal Living
On Nutrition
Bookmark These
Bruce Williams
|