Trip of the Tongue (35 page)

What official-English legislation has going for it is political opportunity. This is particularly true in states with mostly English-speaking populations, where a legislator can, with very little risk of censure, rally support and goodwill based on the measures' superficial appearance of universal appeal and inarguable benefit. Indeed, in his study of American language legislation, political scientist Raymond Tatalovich concluded that “the movement for an official English language—in most states—was elite driven, not a result of grass-roots agitation.” This is not a trend driven by the people of the United States; it is driven by opportunistic legislators. Official English is, politically, a cheap but effective shot. And while it has a great deal of upside and very little downside for legislators, the opposite might be true for the country's speakers of languages other than English.

Though the costs of bilingualism are apparently debatable, its cognitive benefits are far from controversial—at least they are today. Very early research on bilingualism suggested that cognitive abilities were diminished by the attempt to speak more than one language. However, as Alejandro Portes and Lingxin Hao (and numerous others) have pointed out, these early analyses failed to account for socioeconomic differences or to distinguish fluency levels among their subjects. Researchers looked at the poor children of immigrants and the middle-class children of natives and concluded that discrepancies in educational achievement had nothing to do with economic privilege and were solely determined by linguistic confusion. Then came a 1962 study—properly designed—on bilingualism in French Canadian students. It found that bilingual students routinely outperformed monolingual students. Since then, dozens of studies have confirmed that bilingualism ultimately improves academic performance.

This does not mean, however, that bilingual communities such as Laredo are somehow exempt from the educational challenges faced by the country's immigrant population. Although the vast majority of Laredo's population speaks at least some English, the English literacy rate is shockingly low—only 47 percent in 2000, the lowest of any city surveyed. This is in no small part a function of socioeconomic disadvantage. Median household income in the Laredo metropolitan area is $36,784 (in 2009 dollars), $14,641 less than the national average, and a full quarter of the city's families live below the poverty level. As of the 2000 Census 45 percent of Laredoans lack a high school diploma; 28 percent have no education beyond eighth grade.

I don't believe English needs institutional support to maintain its place as the nation's primary prestige language, and I don't believe that immigrants are in any way reluctant to learn English. We don't have to do anything special in the long term to make sure that English remains the de facto national language of the United States. All those who are wary of waking up one day and not being able to order their Egg McMuffin in English can rest easy. Even so, we can't afford to ignore the issue of language instruction in public schools. Language shift may begin upon arrival in the United States, but it is not complete for generations. Third-generation immigrants typically become fluent English-speakers quite naturally. The first and second generations, however, are vulnerable, and without support they face all the challenges of a minority-language-speaker in an English-driven world.

The statistics may imply that Laredoan children are learning to speak English with ease, but speaking a language is a very different thing from reading and writing one. Academic achievement does not come so easily. Moreover, first- and second-generation immigrants are more likely to come from economically disadvantaged households, which means that their parents are less likely to be able to provide academic resources, to be involved with their school, or to help with homework. Furthermore, their parents are more likely to have limited English proficiency themselves, which makes getting help with schoolwork even more challenging.

The problem of illiteracy in Laredo serves as an important reminder that the first generations to arrive in the United States are in many ways facing an uphill battle, particularly with regard to academic achievement. Unfortunately, some policy makers would like to make things even more difficult.

So far, official-English legislation has had few pronounced effects on the country's immigrant population. There are protections already in place to ensure that those with limited English proficiency are not excluded from the workings of government. For instance Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allows the government to withdraw federal funding from any agency that shows evidence of discriminatory practices, and Executive Order 13166 requires that federal agencies comply with certain Department of Justice guidelines and make “reasonable steps to ensure meaningful access” for those with limited English proficiency. The Voting Rights Act of 1965, meanwhile, has a provision for multilingual ballots, and the Supreme Court decision in
Lau v. Nichols
requires public schools to provide support to ensure equal educational opportunity for students with limited English skills. As a result, even states with official-English laws provide services in other languages.

Nevertheless, it would be pure folly to ignore the very real downsides to official-English legislation. First and foremost, it risks alienating the immigrant community. There is, after all, a crucial difference between integration and assimilation, and America's comparatively low level of naturalization may be a sign that American language policy is negatively impacting immigrants' attitudes toward the government. Furthermore, I don't see how depriving limited-English-proficient residents of government services and assistance could possibly help them learn English.

It is for this reason that I am particularly troubled by the official-English movement's recent strategic shift away from official-English legislation and toward restrictions on bilingual education.

When the Elementary and Secondary Education Act was passed in 1968, bilingual education was thought by many to be an important tool in the effort to promote equality across cultural and ethnic lines. By 1994, however, attitudes toward bilingual schooling had changed, and Congress reduced funding for the Bilingual Education Act by 38 percent. Then, in 1998, California became the first state to ban bilingual education programs when Proposition 227, a measure backed by Ron Unz, the successful founder of a financial services company and a failed gubernatorial candidate, was supported by 61 percent of voters. After his victory in California, Unz spearheaded initiatives in Colorado, Arizona, and Massachusetts. The latter two states passed similar measures in 2000 and 2002, respectively. In these states, bilingual education—where students with limited English proficiency are taught at least partially in their native language before eventually being transitioned into the general population—was replaced with something called structured English immersion, which generally allows students one year of rigorous English study.

Many of the arguments in favor of immersion programs use language that is markedly similar to that used to support official English, suggesting that bilingual education slows or prevents integration or, more damningly, that it fosters disunity. But the most difficult argument to counter is the most seemingly well-intentioned one: that we're doing it for their own good. However, just as research provides little support for the contention that modern-day immigrants are not learning English, so too is it difficult to find empirical evidence that favors structured immersion over bilingual education. In what they call a “meta-meta-analysis” of existing bilingual education studies, Stephen Krashen and Grace McField conclude that “the strikingly similar results from different meta-analyses provide clear support for bilingual education as a means of helping succeed academically in English. They also cast strong doubt on claims that all-English approaches are superior and should be mandated by law.”

Despite this, many believe the evidence is inconclusive or even that it supports English-only education. This belief is not limited to fringe groups or vaguely risible organizations such as U.S. English or English First. It is shared—or at least espoused—by prominent politicians who are in a place to affect not only educational policy but also popular discourse and the public perception of multiculturalism.

Newt Gingrich, ever a presumptive presidential hopeful, caught flak in 2007 for declaring, “We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto.” What people objected to, however, was not his support for English-only education but his use of the word
ghetto
. Hispanic groups were particularly outraged.

In a post on
Language Log
, lexicographer Ben Zimmer came, somewhat reluctantly, to Gingrich's defense. He pointed out that in this case Gingrich was not using
ghetto
in a pejorative sense; rather, he was clearly referring to the idea of a “linguistic ghetto,” a phrase commonly used by English-only advocates. Nevertheless, Zimmer noted, “I still feel that the use of the term ‘(linguistic) ghetto' by English-only advocates is intended to evoke the ‘urban slum' sense, at least implicitly.… It's part of an arsenal of scare tactics with little or no empirical basis in the social realities of bilingualism.”

He makes an important point. Language legislation in the United States might not be explicitly driven by racism or xenophobia, but the arguments used in favor of official-English and English-only policies reinforce derogatory stereotypes that absolutely encourage prejudice and discrimination. Politicians present as incontrovertible truth the fiction that language is necessarily divisive and that, more and more, immigrants are not learning English. The most positive possible interpretation of this is that immigrants are loyal to their home country and mother tongue.

But let's be honest about the real implication here, which is that immigrants are choosing not to learn English because they are lazy, stupid, unpatriotic, or some combination of the three. Scoff all you want at the pearl-clutching that characterizes political correctness, but words matter. Public discourse is like a giant game of telephone, and a few seemingly harmless words on one end can become malignant supposition on the other. No one today—particularly in public office—can in good conscience pretend to be ignorant of this.

The supporters of official-English and English-only legislation claim they are fighting for national unity. And perhaps they truly believe that's what they're doing. But everything I've seen and heard over the course of my travels suggests to me that they are doing precisely the opposite. Losing a language is, I think, not unlike losing a limb, and the phantom pain is passed down from generation to generation. It can be as mild as nostalgia or as excruciating as shame. None of us have truly chosen this of our own accord, but deliberate and targeted cultural coercion of any form is nevertheless a most vile betrayal of what we were led to believe by those we chose to lead us. And whatever English First may say, I find it impossible to imagine that any true and lasting unity could ever spring from such legislation.

Epilogue

Los Angeles: English

This is not the book I thought I was going to write.

When I first decided to hop in my car and set out across the country in search of the languages of the United States, I'd expected it would be a bit of a romp, an opportunity to combine two of my favorite activities, road-tripping and language-learning. I'd anticipated putting together something of a field guide, a bit of whimsical reference for my fellow travelers and linguaphiles. I thought, in short, that it would be fun.

It wasn't.

Oh, sure, it had its moments. I mean, I spent two years periodically driving about the country, fishing through its libraries and engaging its residents in shy, awkward conversation. I discovered a passion for Athabaskan languages and a renewed interest in French. I discovered something about the first African American linguist, and I learned my first words in Norwegian. I picked up some Haitian Creole; I practiced my Spanish. I still entertain vague notions of moving to New Orleans, I send everyone I can to Hobuck Beach Resort in Neah Bay, and I fully intend to get myself back to those two-dollar blackjack tables in Elko one day. Unless you are a genuine curmudgeon or totally lacking in self-awareness, it's impossible to be miserable while being paid to flit about the country doing what you love. Road weariness and homesickness are trivial things in the grand scheme of reckless ambition.

But as much as this has been an exploration of the history of language in the United States, it has also turned out to be an examination of prejudice and privilege. I was not the most attentive of high school history students, and so when I set out I had what I now recognize as a shamefully juvenile sense of American history. I think I half expected to bounce from one grand patriotic story to the next. But history is, to quote the great Alan Bennett, just one fucking thing after another, and American history is certainly no different. It is genocide and slavery and discrimination. And in attempting to make sense of the hugely complex set of interactions that create and perpetuate these inequalities, I couldn't help but begin to acknowledge the ways in which I myself am complicit.

Privilege is such a sly creature, so often hiding in plain sight. I know I personally am typically hugely successful at convincing myself I don't have it. Going to private schools and Ivy League universities will give you an incredibly acute awareness of social and economic inequalities, but unless you are one of the extremely rich (as opposed to just regular old rich), it is easy to graduate from these institutions with a sense that you are actually part of the hardscrabble proletariat. It is a seductive notion, particularly appealing to those of us who would like to believe that our achievements are wholly the result of hard work and talent. If you ask someone where he or she went to college and that person is oddly reluctant to answer any more specifically than “in Boston,” chances are you have met one of these people. They are not necessarily being coy about their achievements; they are often attempting, however futilely, to downplay their privilege.

Over the years—and this may or may not be related to significant amounts of psychotherapy—I've tried to become more aware of the ways in which my own assumptions and opinions cloud my ability to interpret the world around me. And I've found that, for me, the most reliable way to shake loose the shackles of narrow, complacent thinking is to travel. Until I began to venture outside the United States, I don't think I ever really thought about what it means to be different. I don't mean
quirky
or
outlandish
or
idiosyncratic
or any of those other words used to describe questionable fashion choices or secondary characters in independent films. I mean different as in “not one of us.” As in the high school clique taken to its sociological extreme. As in different bathrooms and different fountains and different rules.

I first got an inkling of the true scope of cultural difference when I was working in China. With my Nordic height and Celtic pallor, I was the very definition of conspicuous. On occasion, local response to my presence was favorable. Countless older Chinese ladies approached me and asked if they could introduce me to their sons or grandsons. Then they would gesture at my hips, which until then I had only really taken notice of when shopping for jeans. “Wide hips,” they would say. “Very fertile. Good for breeding.”

Other times the reactions were less complimentary. Whispers and murmurs would follow me as I moved through cities and villages. More than once I overheard sibilant speculation that a foreign woman traveling alone had to be a prostitute.

Many languages have two forms of the first-person plural pronoun: one for “we-including-you” and one for “we-and-not-you.” It seemed strange to me that Mandarin wasn't one of these languages, because it was clear that the non-inclusive “we” was in full and incessant effect. Each and every interaction emphasized the fact that I was, in their eyes, very, very different. It didn't matter if we had interests, opinions, or experiences in common. I was always “them.” I was never “us.”

Even my most gracious and patient hosts—a group of Buddhist monks living on the slopes of Jiuhuashan, a sacred mountain in Anhui province—couldn't contain their curiosity for long. When I arrived, they offered me a snack of fruit and tea, which we consumed as we chatted about the brutal humidity of the Chinese summer and the cheeky manners of the local monkey population. As soon as I finished, a novice spoke up: “Just how tall
are
you?”

At this point I was forced to reveal my total ignorance with regard to the metric system. So the monks formed a line and had me stand at the front of it. The novice went from monk to monk to me, murmuring as he measured with his hands. After a moment he announced I was 1.8 meters tall. The assembled group gasped, and not precisely in appreciation. Once again I was reminded that while I was there, I was first and foremost a bit of a freak.

I withstood the pointing, the staring, and even the occasional request to pose for photographs with exceptional goodwill. I was, after all, a guest in their country. But after two months, my patience had worn thin. I had originally planned to tour the western half of the country when I finished my work. Instead, as soon as I filed my last batch of copy, I hightailed it back to the States. When I arrived in Chicago, my sigh of relief was so ostentatious the customs agent couldn't help but laugh, and said, “Glad to be home, are you?”

A few years later I moved to Italy, certain that my time in China had prepared me for the difficulties of cultural integration. In one respect my time there was much easier—which is to say that it wasn't immediately visually apparent that I wasn't Italian. But when I first arrived, I didn't speak a word of Italian that didn't involve pasta, wine, or profanity. And, tragically, there's more to daily life than those three things. Each time I went to the grocery store, the post office, the bus station, or a café, I faced the struggle of figuring out how to express myself with my limited vocabulary. Even something as simple as ordering a slab of cheese became a monumental struggle.

And so I applied myself to my language study, attacking dictionaries and grammars with a vigor that alarmed my Italian roommate. “You speak very well for a beginner,” she told me one day. “Why must you go so fast?”

I needed to “go fast,” as she put it, because I needed to fit in. Or, more precisely, I needed not to stick out.

Even these efforts were for naught, however. By the time I left I was nearly fluent, but my American accent was a dead giveaway. No matter how perfect my grammar, no matter how advanced my vocabulary, I would still see a look in the faces of those I spoke with—a look I was becoming accustomed to, a look that meant I was still on the outside.

The only time I've ever truly blended in while abroad was in Hungary, where my eastern European bone structure and full-coverage winter coat finally accorded me the anonymity to which I'd always aspired. I think I might have actually preened when a friend of my father-in-law's looked me in the eye and said, “With that face, you could be Hungarian.” I'd never been mistaken for a native on sight. To Italians, I was blatantly American; the Chinese usually assumed I was Australian. To be told by a Hungarian that I
looked
Hungarian—I couldn't have been more flattered had he informed me I was the most beautiful woman alive.

Of course, this turned out to be a mixed blessing. While walking the streets of Budapest I was stopped at regular intervals by the city's residents. Except this time it wasn't to comment on my stature or unfortunate footwear. No, this time they wanted obscure, neighborhood-specific directions. Apparently, I looked so Hungarian I even confused the locals.

I knew enough of the language to understand what they were asking, but I could no more give directions in Hungarian than I can land a triple axel. I had the looks, but I didn't have the language. So I would simply say, in my most penitent tone,
nem beszélek Magyarul
—“I don't speak Hungarian.” And invariably the man or woman in question would then switch effortlessly into English and apologize, wishing me the best during my stay in Budapest. No one was ever anything less than impeccably friendly and polite, but I could always sense that delicate but unmistakable retreat:
not one of us.

Again, here I am exaggerating my disadvantages to distract you from my advantages. The trials, tears, and tribulations I endured in China, Italy, and Hungary were just a drop in the cross-cultural bucket. I knew I was going to go home eventually. I didn't have roots to plant; I didn't have a family to provide for. From time to time my language skills would fail me, but I was almost always able to find an English-speaker nearby. And if I wasn't, I just pulled out my phrasebook—not, to be honest, that anyone really expects you to know the language anyway. I was exhausted day in and day out. I complained a lot. I drank more. But at no point was my ability to fit in ever anything that might have had an impact on my long-term future. I can only imagine the frustration of having to surmount linguistic and cultural difficulties indefinitely.

Traveling outside the United States made me think about the ways that we are divided by language. It was the trip I took for this book, however—a trip entirely within the United States—that made me think about the ways we are divided by the
perceptions
of language. Throughout my travels I found myself thinking back to my very first class in Ancient Greek. That day I learned that the English word
barbarian
ultimately owes its existence to the Greek
(
barbaros
), “uncouth foreigner.” The origin of the Greek word itself is particularly revealing: it's onomatopoetic. To the Greeks, foreign languages sounded like a succession of nonsense syllables:
barbarbarbarbarbarbar
. Our concept of “barbarian”—a term that has an unabashedly negative connotation and is almost always used to refer to those other than ourselves—evolved from a word that basically meant “people who talk funny.” Language, I was reminded, is as powerful a means of discrimination as any.

The United States has, from the very beginning, been a country of extraordinary linguistic diversity. Its economy and resources drew millions of immigrants from all over the world, and over the years it has been home to speakers of more immigrant languages than any other developed nation. These languages intermingled not just with each other but also with the wide variety of indigenous languages that were already here, and the vast territory of the United States allowed for the development of unique language communities—and, sometimes, for their preservation.

Far more remarkable than the historical diversity of language in the United States, however, is the fact that English has always maintained its position as the nation's dominant language. It hasn't managed to do so in a suspenseful, edge-of-your-seat kind of way; there were never years where things were looking kind of dicey. When I say English is dominant, I mean it has dominated. In fact, a 1975 paper by Stanley Lieberson, Guy Dalton, and Mary Ellen Johnston looked at longitudinal data from thirty-five countries and found that in no other country did language assimilation happen so quickly.

There are exceptions. There are pockets of New Mexican Spanish and Louisiana French. Gullah still survives, as do Navajo and Crow. But even these languages have experienced significant declines and are at constant risk of extinction. Sometimes assimilation has been precipitated by policy; sometimes it has been precipitated by opportunity. Sometimes simple prejudice is to blame. Sometimes it takes decades; sometimes it happens right away. Whatever the reason and whatever the process, the history of language in America is—in North Dakota, in South Carolina, and even in Queens—ultimately a history of language loss.

This is, I believe, a testament not only to the power of linguistic discrimination but also to the extent of social, economic, and political inequality in the minds and institutions of America.