Why don’t immigrants speak English?

The funny thing is that the Americans I know who ask me this question only speak…. (ehemm…) one language.

But why should they speak another language? They are in America after all where English is the official language, right? So… why does the waiter in a small town in the Dominican Republic have a working knowledge of English? Why does the 15-year old German from Bavaria speak fluent English along with two other languages? Why do they offer English classes in Venezuela starting from the first grade and all throughout the school years? Perhaps because English is important and everybody should know it? I would say so. It has become the language for business around the world, because not taking into account the diverse ways in which you can pronounce many words, English is a fairly easy language to learn.

Let’s get back to the issue though… why don’t immigrants learn the language? Well, perhaps because many of the ones who don’t speak the language 1) lack any formal school/college education that can give them a good starting point, 2) work 16-hour shifts to support their family, 3) many are illegal immigrants, so they live in the dark and don’t have the luxury to be out and about and enjoying many of the things we all enjoy, 4) don’t have the money to enroll on an English course.

The same people that ask this question have perhaps not turned the Spanish channels on; otherwise, they would see the Inglés sin Barreras ad every commercial break. This course costs several hundreds of dollars though and you need a DVD player, so again, it’s not very easy to get started when such high investment is required. They perhaps don’t turn the Spanish radio stations on; otherwise, they would hear the ads for English courses as well. Same with Spanish newspapers and periodicals…

Duh! But how can these same critics read or hear these ads? If they don’t know any Spanish to begin with! Now… there is a problem. In a globalized society such as the one we are part of today, it is absolutely unacceptable for the residents in the first nation of the world to speak only one language. But that’s for another post…

What about American immigrants?

Interestingly enough, I lived in Venezuela with American immigrants. Yes, there was a large group of American families who lived in my hometown and worked in the refinery complex (the largest in the world). They had their little compound though where they all lived. Some of them lived in our neighborhood, because they did not want to be in the compound: they really enjoyed being an active part of our community. When we were little, we were so intrigued by the American children, so we would always go to their houses to play, but it was weird, because these children did not know any Spanish whatsoever, so needless to say, playing was a bit hard and confusing. We still played with them and we probably took advantage of them, because they didn’t understand what was going on, so we always won… ok perhaps we allowed them to win a couple of times… They went to the same school than us, but they had separate classrooms, because their classes had to be taught in English so we really didn’t mingle with them, although we really wanted to. I, especially, had a crush on a boy named Brian when I was in the fourth grade, but I didn’t get to see him much or any of our American friends, because they had different classes, different teachers, different hours, different everything… oh well… the point is that, sadly, these kids would live with us for years and when their parents’ work term was over, they returned to America knowing no Spanish whatsoever.

They were immigrants. They were in our country. They were not speaking our language.

Did we get offended? No. Did we ask them why they lived off in their own compound and not with us? No. Did we demand them to speak the language? No. We embraced them and helped them. Our parents helped them if one of the American women had to go to the hospital and didn’t know the language or if they had a problem at the bank or the grocery store.

Why the double standard then? Hmmm… A socratic question.

Integration is a good thing

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not encouraging any immigrant of any nationality not to integrate to the new country they reside in. Not at all. As the Magisterium of the Church has noted many times, it is a good thing for immigrant families to assimilate and integrate to their new society and a part of that is to learn the official language of their new country of residence. However, we need to understand the situation in which many of the immigrants encounter themselves in which makes it harder to learn a new language. As I have mentioned, long strenous hours of work, many children to care for, lack of finances that would allow access to English courses, and so on.

Thankfully, the city of Houston has recently opened a center that provides free English classes along with free access to the Internet and free counseling on how to become a permanent resident and/or a U.S. citizen. The same approach has been taken by many Catholic churches in the area.

So next time you are bothered about why the immigrants of this country don’t speak English…

Why don’t YOU learn THEIR language and teach them YOUR language?