I believe it is essential to have English as the official language of our National Government, for the English language is the tie that binds the millions of immigrants who come to America from divergent backgrounds. We should, and do, encourage immigrants to maintain and share their traditions, customs and religions, but the use of English is essential for immigrants and their children to participate fully in American society and achieve the American dream.
America is not a nation of separation. All our citizens are Americans. The common denominator is our language. Our language is English. The glue that binds generation after generation is both our Constitution and our English language.
I really believe amendment " to make English our common and unifying language" is racist. I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish.
I have a funny relationship to language. When I came to California when I was three I spoke Urdu fluently and I didn't speak a word of English. Within a few months I lost all my Urdu and spoke only English and then I learned Urdu all over again when I was nine. Urdu is my first language but it's not as good as my English and it's sort of become my third language. English is my best language but was the second language I learned.
James Joyce's English was based on the rhythm of the Irish language. He wrote things that shocked English language speakers but he was thinking in Gaelic. I've sung songs that if they were in English, would have been banned too. The psyche of the Irish language is completely different to the English-speaking world.
And my point was one I think that you'd agree with, which is there's no room in America for a black racist, a Latino racist, or a white racist, or an Asian racist, or a Native American racist. Now, we're either color blind or we're not color blind.
You'll hear people say it's racist to test. Folks, it's racist not to test. Because guess who gets shuffled through the system oftentimes? Children whose parents don't speak English as a first language, inner-city kids. It's so much easier to quit on somebody than to remediate.
Even though many Indians can read or speak English, for most, it is not their first language. At the office, we speak in English, but we consume our culture in our own language.
No one is calling any of these designers racist. The act itself is racist. There were more black models working in the Seventies than there are in 2013. This a time when silence is not acceptable at all. If the conversation cannot be had publicly in our industry, then there is something inherently wrong.
I'm not calling Mr. DeSantis a racist. I'm simply saying the racists believe he's a racist.
Bad English was the second language of Israel and bad Hebrew, of course, remained the national language.
Our common language is English. And our common task is to ensure that our non-English-speaking children learn this common language.
The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, or the marketplace and of the voting booth.
I believe it is our values and our ideals that ultimately bind us together as a nation. But it is the English language which serves as the means by which we can communicate these values to those around us. Our common language, English, is that which unites us.
The basis of any independent government is a national language, and we can no longer continue aping our former colonizers ... those who feel they cannot do without English can as well pack up and go.
Malcolm Bradbury made the point, and I don't know whether it's a valid one or not, that the real English at the moment is not the English spoken in England or in America or even in Canada or Australia or New Zealand. The real English is the English which is a second language, so that it's rather like Latin in the days of the Roman Empire when people had their own languages, but had Latin in order to communicate.