Yet another poorly considered CNN commentary. Imagine. This time, Ruben Navarrette is whining about the debate over declaring English to be the official language of the United States. Navarette seems to believe that anyone who supports declaring any one language the official language is a political opportunist, at best, and an idiot and a bigot, at worst.

The reality, which is often lost on people like Navarette, is that there is great value to assimilation. One reason this country, despite all its troubles, has never had full-blown religious, ethnic, or racial wars (the Civil War, while largely about race, was still mostly fought by white men), with the debatable exception of the Indian wars (which were really more about land and greed than race, though racism certainly played a role), is that it is the “melting pot.” After all, we do still require people to learn English to be naturalized as citizens. I don’t think anybody really wants to have a truly multilingual and multicultural society, if it comes at the price that is usually paid. If you don’t know what that price is, read a bit about Indonesia, or the Czech Republic, or Bosnia, or just about any country in Africa (including the often forgotten northern nations, where Arab-Berber tension is severe, but ignored in the West).

I am absolutely in favor of steady (and relatively heavy) immigration, by people of all ethnolinguistic backgrounds. The caveat that Navarrette missed, however, is that America is not the world’s country – it belongs to Americans. Part of being an American is becoming an American: learning to survive in American society, not expecting it to conform to your particular groups once they reach critical, unassimilated mass. Anyone may become a citizen of this country; our citizenship requirements are actually pretty light. It is unreasonable, however, for anyone to expect to be given all the rights, privileges, and benefits of the United States government and economy without contributing and participating, to some extent. Granted, part of being free means that an American can stay home on election days and watch SOAP operas. The right to show up at the polls and peacably demand that you, an American citizen, be given a ballot in a language of your preference is also part of being free. . . but that doesn’t mean you’re going to get one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 10:42 pm and is filed under Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.