POLL - Official Language & the Immigrant

Currently the US is embroiled in a huge immigration debate concerning illegal aliens. One facet of the immigration issue is the generally accepted belief that English is the official language used by the US.

With that in mind I'm asking the moderators to indulge us by permitting a one sentence response to the following question:

Should an immigrant be required to learn the official language of whatever country he/she is emigrating to?

Please keep your responses civil.

Before everyone starts going on a rant, I'd like to point out that English is NOT the official language of the United States of America.

I wrote that it is generally accepted to be the official language of the US. I did not state it is official.

Please confine your responses to the poll question.

Yes they should learn English. For many reasons, saftey included. Communication with emergency workers and healthcare providers is critical.

If a country has legislatively decided on an official language, then immigrants should learn that language.

In a society like America, whose greatness is largely created by a synthesis of new and old ideas, many coming from immigrants, setting an "official language" is a bad idea.


(Ignore the rest here if you only want the one sentence response: While I fully understand the difficulty of operating in a multiple language environment, making a living, as I do, providing computer support in English, French, and Portuguese, I oppose setting an Official Language for the US on a couple fronts: First, ideologically it is a step away from our ideals that all are equal here, regardless of belief or education. Second, with language as dynamic as it is, American English is hugely influenced by whatever the most recent influx of immigrants is -currently Spanish-, and to set an official language invites creation of an official version of the language, which always leads to frustraion. Keeping language set in one form is only slightly more difficult than nailing half-set jello to a tree)

I think we ought to be bi-lingual or even, as in Switzerland, tri-lingual. English, Spanish and Aramaic. Jeepers, I left out Chinese! Is there such a thing as quadri-lingual?

Donwhite, you took the words right out of my mouth. I believe we all should be required to learn a second language, too. Probably Spanish would be a good idea as a second language, as there are presently so many Mexicans just about everywhere in the U.S., many of whom are legal.
Only learning one language helps to keep American xenophobia alive.

This of course shouldn't be limited to the USA. I think that if an American wants to become a Canadian citizen, then they must learn French. If they want dual citizenship with any country, they must learn whatever language is official there.

While its easy to say we should all get together an understand one another learn about each other cultures and that everyone should take efforts to make everyone feel at home and all will be well. This simply just doesn't work. Look at the Netherlands and Denmark these peoples are argueably the most civilized and generous peoples on the face of the earth and look how these new arrivals are acting.

Now I'm not saying we should treat immigrants with contempt what I am saying is that when you go to a new country you should make an effort to adapt to the culture that exists in the land in which you now reside. I live in California and find it much easier to associate with Latinos who have taken the time to learn English and also study the history of this land. Call me a racist or a xenophobe or what ever you like I think it is quite understandable to expect newcomers to adapt to your culture rather than you having to adapt to theirs.

So much for a one-sentence reply. This was supposed to be a poll. I asked that the answers be confined to one sentence to make it easier for me to keep track of the data.

Since people can't read or follow simple directions, I'm now abandoning this thread. Have at it.