Senate Votes To Make English The National Language

Posted on May 19, 2006

The U.S. Senate voted today to make English the national language of the United States. But the bill contains softeners so that it does not affect any existing laws which mandate bilingual education.

The Washington Post reports that the measure was approved 63 to 34. The Post also says the vote was "considered a defeat for immigration-rights advocates."

Senator Harry Reid called the bill "racist" which is just absurd. Apparently he has failed to read his history books. It is crucial that immigrants become Americans, not stay in little enclaves of people who speak another language and become more and more isolated from the rest of the country. If you talk to any teacher who teaches immigrant students you'll get an earful about how important it is for these children's futures for them to be able to speak English and what a disaster the bilingual teaching programs have been.

To go to college, to land a job interview, to be upwardly-mobile: all these require a command of spoken and written English. Bilingual laws hurt the very people they are supposed to be helping. If the parents don't learn English, the children don't learn English. A proper command of the native language is the requirement for citizenship in most Western countries already. This has nothing to do with race: it has to do with a unified America.