Young Vinny Nguyen’s winning the Sebastian County spelling bee last week reminded me of Linn Trann. That 13-year-old Cambodian refugee had been in the U.S.
only four years when she won the 1983 Tennessee state spelling bee. Her achievement inspired the 1986 movie, “The Girl Who Spelled Freedom.”
Despite the myth of pervasive anti-immigrant bigotry, stories like those thrill many Americans because they portray - on cute, unmistakably ethnic faces - the American dream.
But for Spanish-speaking immigrant children, access to the American Dream is too often encumbered by a misguided bilingual educational program.
Its advocates, choosing theory over reality, often relegate such children to an entangling linguistic ghetto.
Because they are blessed with still-developing brains, little selfconsciousness and the habitof learning by imitation, young children acquire language more easily than do adults. Acquiring language is gaining, almost unconsciously, the ability to speak and understand a language and to sense what is correct. It happens naturally with immersion in a language.
In contrast, learning language is a conscious cognitive process that includes reading, writing, grammatical rules, and so on. Learning language is often diftcult at any age.
Because bilingual education in California had produced children with poor English skills and low academic achievement, California voters passedProposition 227 in 1998 to require English as the language of instruction.
Hispanic students’ test scores on a range of subjects have risen since.
Arkansas legislated a similar mandate. Oft cial English reinforces the reality that to succeed children must master the language of their new country.
Preserving home languages, a legitimate goal for families and associations, becomes harmful when pursued by schools.
These laws, such as House and Senate versions of the “English Unity Act of 2011,” have common sense exceptions. That is why many Hispanics, such as Chilean-born and tri-lingual U.S. English chairman Mauro E. Mujica, support “Oft cial English” to promote Hispanic opportunity, not to penalize Spanish speakers.
Educationally, these laws lead to immersion programs, forcing learners out of the comfort zone of their native language. Immersion works.
Fairfax County (Va.) schoolsuse immersion for several foreign language programs in elementary school.
Quebec began using it in 1965 when its native English speakers were failing to acquire French, a social necessity in that Frenchspeaking majority province.
Do immersion programs devalue Spanish relative to English, as bilingual proponents charge? Of course. In the U.S., Spanish is less valuable than is English. In most countries of the Americas, English is less valuable than Spanish.
But fluency in both is better than either alone.
However attractive the theory of bilingual education might be, experience tells us that to have full opportunities an immigrant must use the host country language fl uently.
A common language is equally valuable to a nation.
Historian of languages Nicholas Ostler has written that “languages ... divide humanity into groups: only through a common language can a group of people act in concert and thereforehave a common history.” A common language helps us maintain our shared American heritage.
People who have chosen to live in another country have a duty to that country to equip themselves to understand and preserve the common history they have adopted. Even for those intending only temporary residence in a country, as was I as a soldier in Germany, being able to use the host language helps one to learn, enjoy and demonstrate respect for the new culture. The phrase “ugly American” refers to an American who expects his foreign hosts to speak English. The epithet fits anyone with similar expectations.
But it’s tough for adults;
I empathize. I had learned to read German in graduate school, practiced with tapes for hours before going to Germany, and relished my opportunity with German.
But after three years there, I had only begun to acquire the language. My workday world was fi lledwith English. I was like a Mexican roofer with a Spanish-speaking foreman: language was wedged in at day’s end with family, recreation, sleep. Because my situation did not immerse me in German, I never mastered it. Had I stayed permanently, my non-fluency would have put me at the margins of society. Meanwhile, our American neighbors sent their 5-yearold to German kindergarten. She acquired the language in a year.
Becoming fluent in a second language is dift cult enough for adults. If we make it easy for children to avoid fluency, it will hurt both them and the country.
Acquiring and learning English allows immigrants to contribute their own talents and passion to the country and to be more successful in pursuit of their own American dreams.
BUDDY ROGERS IS A RETIRED U.S. ARMY OFFICER WHO SERVED IN GERMANY IN THE 1980S. HE LIVES IN ROGERS.
Opinion, Pages 11 on 01/27/2013