ENGLISH FIRST!!!AND WHAT IS SECOND? THIRD?
ENGLISH FIRST!!!AND WHAT IS SECOND? THIRD?
By Kevin A. Stoda
I was listening to BBC reporting on the election in New Hampshire this past week. On one of BBC’s talk radio programs, one American stated that the biggest problem America faces is “Illegal Immigration”.
At a time, when liaise faire- and crony capitalism have tanked the American economy for the umpteenth time in 3 decades, I am astounded at the fixation in the USA on illegal immigration.
On the other hand, I do recognize that in autumn 1981, I had already found myself taking part in one particular debate practice with the debate team at Bethel College (my alma mater).
That particular 1981-1982 school year the National CETA Debate topic was—--you guessed it !!!!:
“RESOLVED, illegal immigration to the United States of America is detrimental to the United States of America.”
In preparing for such a debate, university students have to, of course, normally learn to argue both the pros and cons of both sides of the resolution.
However, I quickly noted in preparing for the practice debate that I could handily argue both sides of this particular CETA Debate resolution from two almost identical perspectives.
This dual approach with a singular argument was initially considered by many of the famous Bethel College forensics & debate teams that 1982 to be a LOSER
Simply put—in 1982 I had determined to argue the Contra- (or Negativ) side of the resolution: “It is indeed fact that illegal immigration is a problem”, but I had continued, “It is the fact that some or most of the concerned immigrations are illegal that caused problems--and lack of transparency--in the American economy.”
Conversely, I had explained from the Contra perspective, “If these immigrants had been legal, most of the negative effects such immigration had on the U.S. economy (and its image) as well as the political or social landscape would have been found to be largely positive.”
Meanwhile, on Pro- (or the Positive) position in debate, I would argue the same case, i.e. “Illegal immigration itself is not the problem, it is the simple fact that someone, namely the U.S. government, has defined or made certain immigrants illegal by law which is the core cause of the negative effects of most all forms of immigration to the United States.
Only the Bethel College debate coach on campus that 1981 had thought that it had been valid for me to use this dual approach on Contra- as well as Pro- debater in that National CETA debate season.
BY DEFINITION ILLEGAL
Interestingly, the very following week (after I had practiced with the Bethel College Debate team), that same BC team went out and participated at a major debate meet in Wichita, Kansas.
This Bethel College Debate team that autumn weekend did fairly well—however, one of the BC teams lost out to another arch rival. The rival who used a nearly identical set of arguments which I had used in the practice debate, namely, “It is the very illegality of immigration which causes the most detriment in USA society and in the self-image of Americans or the USA.”
AMERICANS NEED TO RETHINK IMMIGRATION
In 2008, i.e. over 26 years later, I am still arguing in response to the old CETA debate resolution above: “It is the very fact that someone has defined a certain person or groups of persons as illegal that the U.S.A finds illegal immigration to be detrimental. Otherwise, virtually almost every form of immigration to the United States—other than illegal immigration—has proven to be beneficial to the United States of America.”
As a history teacher, I have found time-and-again during my research that primarily only through the continued application and establishment of the legal definition of “illegal immigration” in California against the Chinese and Japanese at the end of the 19th century (and since the virtual national prohibition against immigration around 1920) have xenophobia, anti-communism, and other national phobias been regularly been so broadly been promoted in America (and so-active abroad in America’s foreign relations).
Wherever, such phobias against race—i.e. including against foreign born peoples based race, religion or ideology--, underdevelopment has been reigning quite regularly in America.
Over the past 25 years, I have traveled to over 100 countries all over the planet and have worked in nearly a dozen lands. Almost no other developed land—excepting Australia, Russia or Canada—has there been so much underdeveloped per-capita and per-square mile in terms of sheer God-Given natural and human resources as I have witnessed in the United States of America has.
UNDERDEVELOPED AMERICAN POLITICAL-ECONOMY
I firmly posit that had America kept its borders much more open, the following portions of the U.S. political economy would not be so underdeveloped:
(1) mass transit
(2) fast train technology
(3) integration of train and road transportation involving cars and small trucks
(4) fuel efficiency
(5) wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources
(6) social welfare
(7) universal health care
(8) communication technologies
(9) electric- and environmentally sound suburban, and rural planning
(10) child and natal care
(11) efficiency in higher education costs
(12) urban development
(13) international trade
(14) international investment
(15) regional investment
(16) housing
(17) public housing
(18) anti-pollution technologies
(19) environmentally sound farming and land-use practices
(20) manufacturing and manufacturing technologies
(21) water management
(22) alternative school models and mediums, e.g. technical training programs
(23) peace and conflict resolution training
(24) management of social security
(25) mutual funds
(26) retirement services of all types, including transport and access
(27) community programs for young people
(28) programs for working- and single mothers
(29) national policies being aligned with international foreign policies
(30) and visa versa
(31) foreign language training
(32) cross-cultural training and education
(33) international marketing
(34) other conservation technologies
Despite the fact that America has controlled immigration for most of the past 100 year or so, no one in America is talking seriously of returning to the days of a more-open door policy.
Only with such an approach, can the USA begin to demand fairly and adequately that the many savvy and hopeful American companies and American guest-workers around the globe (from Kuwait & Iraq to Mexico and China) will be given better access to all local markets on a reciprocal basis.
Currently, populations around the developing world—from Saudi Arabia to Peru--are growing.
It is time to take the bull by the horns and grab the best and brightest workers, educators, and investors from around the world (by and) for building and rebuilding the American Dream (of being a beacon on the hill etc.).
As long as Americans try to continue its Quixote-like century-long struggle to keep the “barbarians at the gate” out—whether they are Arabs, Hispanics, or Tutus--, both American government’s foreign relations and its own peoples growing image as a parochial tribe will continue to dominate in the 21st Century world.
HOW TO COMPETE WITH CHINA INC.
Just look at China! Or Japan! And Europe! And consider the future in the 21st Century!
If we take the Japanese development model, we see a country forced to build robots like crazy simply to fill the empty chairs of an aging and zero-growth population. In short, there is consistently a lack of demand at home for most Japanese products. (Some European states, like Italy are in every bit as bad a situation, but many of these same European countries don’t have the robots.) Are robots and the arbitrary recruiting of certain peoples to the USA, the only possibility for America to improve in the 34 areas list above?
Alternatively, by opening the U.S.A. borders up to population growth, America will likely eventually be able to keep up with China and grow its own internal market—while growing an external one.
There is pent-up demand in the American development now (and there will be in the future) that only an increased population from abroad could create in America without adversely damaging the rest of the entire planet environmentally, socially, and politically
The third model or option to follow would be to create a real federal North and South America whereby labor, politicians, developmentalists, businessmen, and socio-political entrepreneurs could cross borders and return with reciprocity. (This is the model the European union is following currently , but Europe is still not keeping up well in terms of manpower in many regions—due to the aforementioned definitions of “illegal immigration”. Such definitions and statutes promote or foster both directly and indirectly xenophobia and anti-development regionally.)
All-in-all, Americans need to really consider what kind of America they wish to see for the rest of this millennium.
Do we want to have a parochial future which continues to find America be unable to make peace with others around the globe—i.e. without getting stuck in endless wars on terrorism, endless wars in Iraq, or endless wars in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan?
In short, let’s make friends and grow America while promoting a better quality of life for everyone—in and out of the USA—by changing how we approach immigration.
Many peoples around the world already identify and appreciate many facets of Americana in film and media. Most of these peoples would like to be our friends and/or join our family. Just look at how many good quality immigrants and citizens Canada and Ireland have recruited over the past two decades by easing immigration restrictions and promoting both internal and external market growth in a more modern manner
Think about it America!
Currently, due to its population-size, its large internal market and humongous external market, China (with 1.2 billion people) is on American radar as probably the number one threat militarily and economically for the rest of this century.
Could a dynamo American economy (with an emphasis on efficiency of integration and immigration &) with a growing population keep up much better? I believe it would.
In summary, I argue that especially if every region in America was allowed to participate in the planning as to how to handle such a boom in population and if each region was given the national resources to plan and manage such growth properly, American and modern-know how would step up to the plate.
ENGLISH FIRST OR MULTILINGUAL=GOOD?
Sometime ago, my mother passed on one of those e-mail jokes which went like this:
“And for those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.
(1) The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(2) The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(3) The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than American.
(4) The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(5) The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausage & also suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.”
Such a joke leads me to recall that only about 100 years ago my own Grandmother Gertrud in southwest Wisconsin grew up in a German speaking home.
However, the German language was not passed along to her well by her parents in those years. Those were the WWI war years which were immediately leading up to the implementation of the xenophobically-charged U.S.A. laws prohibiting immigration in 1920.
Over the next 20 to 30 years almost every single one of the hundreds or thousands of multilingual schools in the United States of America (from New York to Cincinnati to Texas and California) was closed down.
Such multilingual schools had previously allowed (i.e. prior to the 1930s & 1940s) for better integration of immigrant children and their families into the USA than did the mono-lingual-only-schools found in most of America for the rest of the 20th Century.
This monolingual America of the second half of the 20th Century did not serve America well starting in the 1960s. By that time, other nations, trading blocks, and regions began to produce their own goods for the American market.
In short, initially it was easy to sell things and make trades monolingually when America had cornered the market on the world’s gold and production, and production-know-how.
(The USA had also with the help of other English speaking countries, like Britain, set up the rules of international trade and banking at Dumbarton Oaks.)
However, by the 1970s, America’s monolingual trading policies and developmental practices lost out to other-language speaking nations and regions who not only spoke English but who were able to keep the single-language American firms and guest workers or consultants out of the local markets. (The multilingual-and multicultural weak American traders and firms have been left out of local markets around the globe ever since.)
This particular antagonistic attitude by Americans and American leadership (from 1920 onwards) towards peoples speaking other languages and against multilingual Americans in general must end in this 21st Century world.
If America is to respond to this century’s greatest challenges, leaders need to make this need for a bigger and multilingual competent America clear to the U.S. public, and Americans should become more multiculturally (and multilingually) competent. These are both important starting point for common American self-identity developing more positively over the years to come.
Note: Despite growing up in Kansas—one of the few U.S. states which still does not require that foreign language be taught in schools--, the author of this article has successfully struggled as an adult to become fluent in German and Spanish while reaching the intermediate levels of ability in Japanese and intermediate French—as well as lower level Arabic speaking and reading skills. He encourages Kansans, despite their isolation from international borders, to strive to promote foreign language and better multicultural skills and understanding.
By Kevin A. Stoda
I was listening to BBC reporting on the election in New Hampshire this past week. On one of BBC’s talk radio programs, one American stated that the biggest problem America faces is “Illegal Immigration”.
At a time, when liaise faire- and crony capitalism have tanked the American economy for the umpteenth time in 3 decades, I am astounded at the fixation in the USA on illegal immigration.
On the other hand, I do recognize that in autumn 1981, I had already found myself taking part in one particular debate practice with the debate team at Bethel College (my alma mater).
That particular 1981-1982 school year the National CETA Debate topic was—--you guessed it !!!!:
“RESOLVED, illegal immigration to the United States of America is detrimental to the United States of America.”
In preparing for such a debate, university students have to, of course, normally learn to argue both the pros and cons of both sides of the resolution.
However, I quickly noted in preparing for the practice debate that I could handily argue both sides of this particular CETA Debate resolution from two almost identical perspectives.
This dual approach with a singular argument was initially considered by many of the famous Bethel College forensics & debate teams that 1982 to be a LOSER
Simply put—in 1982 I had determined to argue the Contra- (or Negativ) side of the resolution: “It is indeed fact that illegal immigration is a problem”, but I had continued, “It is the fact that some or most of the concerned immigrations are illegal that caused problems--and lack of transparency--in the American economy.”
Conversely, I had explained from the Contra perspective, “If these immigrants had been legal, most of the negative effects such immigration had on the U.S. economy (and its image) as well as the political or social landscape would have been found to be largely positive.”
Meanwhile, on Pro- (or the Positive) position in debate, I would argue the same case, i.e. “Illegal immigration itself is not the problem, it is the simple fact that someone, namely the U.S. government, has defined or made certain immigrants illegal by law which is the core cause of the negative effects of most all forms of immigration to the United States.
Only the Bethel College debate coach on campus that 1981 had thought that it had been valid for me to use this dual approach on Contra- as well as Pro- debater in that National CETA debate season.
BY DEFINITION ILLEGAL
Interestingly, the very following week (after I had practiced with the Bethel College Debate team), that same BC team went out and participated at a major debate meet in Wichita, Kansas.
This Bethel College Debate team that autumn weekend did fairly well—however, one of the BC teams lost out to another arch rival. The rival who used a nearly identical set of arguments which I had used in the practice debate, namely, “It is the very illegality of immigration which causes the most detriment in USA society and in the self-image of Americans or the USA.”
AMERICANS NEED TO RETHINK IMMIGRATION
In 2008, i.e. over 26 years later, I am still arguing in response to the old CETA debate resolution above: “It is the very fact that someone has defined a certain person or groups of persons as illegal that the U.S.A finds illegal immigration to be detrimental. Otherwise, virtually almost every form of immigration to the United States—other than illegal immigration—has proven to be beneficial to the United States of America.”
As a history teacher, I have found time-and-again during my research that primarily only through the continued application and establishment of the legal definition of “illegal immigration” in California against the Chinese and Japanese at the end of the 19th century (and since the virtual national prohibition against immigration around 1920) have xenophobia, anti-communism, and other national phobias been regularly been so broadly been promoted in America (and so-active abroad in America’s foreign relations).
Wherever, such phobias against race—i.e. including against foreign born peoples based race, religion or ideology--, underdevelopment has been reigning quite regularly in America.
Over the past 25 years, I have traveled to over 100 countries all over the planet and have worked in nearly a dozen lands. Almost no other developed land—excepting Australia, Russia or Canada—has there been so much underdeveloped per-capita and per-square mile in terms of sheer God-Given natural and human resources as I have witnessed in the United States of America has.
UNDERDEVELOPED AMERICAN POLITICAL-ECONOMY
I firmly posit that had America kept its borders much more open, the following portions of the U.S. political economy would not be so underdeveloped:
(1) mass transit
(2) fast train technology
(3) integration of train and road transportation involving cars and small trucks
(4) fuel efficiency
(5) wind, solar, and other alternative energy sources
(6) social welfare
(7) universal health care
(8) communication technologies
(9) electric- and environmentally sound suburban, and rural planning
(10) child and natal care
(11) efficiency in higher education costs
(12) urban development
(13) international trade
(14) international investment
(15) regional investment
(16) housing
(17) public housing
(18) anti-pollution technologies
(19) environmentally sound farming and land-use practices
(20) manufacturing and manufacturing technologies
(21) water management
(22) alternative school models and mediums, e.g. technical training programs
(23) peace and conflict resolution training
(24) management of social security
(25) mutual funds
(26) retirement services of all types, including transport and access
(27) community programs for young people
(28) programs for working- and single mothers
(29) national policies being aligned with international foreign policies
(30) and visa versa
(31) foreign language training
(32) cross-cultural training and education
(33) international marketing
(34) other conservation technologies
Despite the fact that America has controlled immigration for most of the past 100 year or so, no one in America is talking seriously of returning to the days of a more-open door policy.
Only with such an approach, can the USA begin to demand fairly and adequately that the many savvy and hopeful American companies and American guest-workers around the globe (from Kuwait & Iraq to Mexico and China) will be given better access to all local markets on a reciprocal basis.
Currently, populations around the developing world—from Saudi Arabia to Peru--are growing.
It is time to take the bull by the horns and grab the best and brightest workers, educators, and investors from around the world (by and) for building and rebuilding the American Dream (of being a beacon on the hill etc.).
As long as Americans try to continue its Quixote-like century-long struggle to keep the “barbarians at the gate” out—whether they are Arabs, Hispanics, or Tutus--, both American government’s foreign relations and its own peoples growing image as a parochial tribe will continue to dominate in the 21st Century world.
HOW TO COMPETE WITH CHINA INC.
Just look at China! Or Japan! And Europe! And consider the future in the 21st Century!
If we take the Japanese development model, we see a country forced to build robots like crazy simply to fill the empty chairs of an aging and zero-growth population. In short, there is consistently a lack of demand at home for most Japanese products. (Some European states, like Italy are in every bit as bad a situation, but many of these same European countries don’t have the robots.) Are robots and the arbitrary recruiting of certain peoples to the USA, the only possibility for America to improve in the 34 areas list above?
Alternatively, by opening the U.S.A. borders up to population growth, America will likely eventually be able to keep up with China and grow its own internal market—while growing an external one.
There is pent-up demand in the American development now (and there will be in the future) that only an increased population from abroad could create in America without adversely damaging the rest of the entire planet environmentally, socially, and politically
The third model or option to follow would be to create a real federal North and South America whereby labor, politicians, developmentalists, businessmen, and socio-political entrepreneurs could cross borders and return with reciprocity. (This is the model the European union is following currently , but Europe is still not keeping up well in terms of manpower in many regions—due to the aforementioned definitions of “illegal immigration”. Such definitions and statutes promote or foster both directly and indirectly xenophobia and anti-development regionally.)
All-in-all, Americans need to really consider what kind of America they wish to see for the rest of this millennium.
Do we want to have a parochial future which continues to find America be unable to make peace with others around the globe—i.e. without getting stuck in endless wars on terrorism, endless wars in Iraq, or endless wars in the mountains of Pakistan and Afghanistan?
In short, let’s make friends and grow America while promoting a better quality of life for everyone—in and out of the USA—by changing how we approach immigration.
Many peoples around the world already identify and appreciate many facets of Americana in film and media. Most of these peoples would like to be our friends and/or join our family. Just look at how many good quality immigrants and citizens Canada and Ireland have recruited over the past two decades by easing immigration restrictions and promoting both internal and external market growth in a more modern manner
Think about it America!
Currently, due to its population-size, its large internal market and humongous external market, China (with 1.2 billion people) is on American radar as probably the number one threat militarily and economically for the rest of this century.
Could a dynamo American economy (with an emphasis on efficiency of integration and immigration &) with a growing population keep up much better? I believe it would.
In summary, I argue that especially if every region in America was allowed to participate in the planning as to how to handle such a boom in population and if each region was given the national resources to plan and manage such growth properly, American and modern-know how would step up to the plate.
ENGLISH FIRST OR MULTILINGUAL=GOOD?
Sometime ago, my mother passed on one of those e-mail jokes which went like this:
“And for those of you who watch what you eat, here’s the final word on nutrition and health.
(1) The Japanese eat very little fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(2) The Mexicans eat a lot of fat and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(3) The Chinese drink very little red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than American.
(4) The Italians drink excessive amounts of red wine and suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
(5) The Germans drink a lot of beer and eat lots of sausage & also suffer fewer heart attacks than Americans.
CONCLUSION: Eat and drink what you like. Speaking English is apparently what kills you.”
Such a joke leads me to recall that only about 100 years ago my own Grandmother Gertrud in southwest Wisconsin grew up in a German speaking home.
However, the German language was not passed along to her well by her parents in those years. Those were the WWI war years which were immediately leading up to the implementation of the xenophobically-charged U.S.A. laws prohibiting immigration in 1920.
Over the next 20 to 30 years almost every single one of the hundreds or thousands of multilingual schools in the United States of America (from New York to Cincinnati to Texas and California) was closed down.
Such multilingual schools had previously allowed (i.e. prior to the 1930s & 1940s) for better integration of immigrant children and their families into the USA than did the mono-lingual-only-schools found in most of America for the rest of the 20th Century.
This monolingual America of the second half of the 20th Century did not serve America well starting in the 1960s. By that time, other nations, trading blocks, and regions began to produce their own goods for the American market.
In short, initially it was easy to sell things and make trades monolingually when America had cornered the market on the world’s gold and production, and production-know-how.
(The USA had also with the help of other English speaking countries, like Britain, set up the rules of international trade and banking at Dumbarton Oaks.)
However, by the 1970s, America’s monolingual trading policies and developmental practices lost out to other-language speaking nations and regions who not only spoke English but who were able to keep the single-language American firms and guest workers or consultants out of the local markets. (The multilingual-and multicultural weak American traders and firms have been left out of local markets around the globe ever since.)
This particular antagonistic attitude by Americans and American leadership (from 1920 onwards) towards peoples speaking other languages and against multilingual Americans in general must end in this 21st Century world.
If America is to respond to this century’s greatest challenges, leaders need to make this need for a bigger and multilingual competent America clear to the U.S. public, and Americans should become more multiculturally (and multilingually) competent. These are both important starting point for common American self-identity developing more positively over the years to come.
Note: Despite growing up in Kansas—one of the few U.S. states which still does not require that foreign language be taught in schools--, the author of this article has successfully struggled as an adult to become fluent in German and Spanish while reaching the intermediate levels of ability in Japanese and intermediate French—as well as lower level Arabic speaking and reading skills. He encourages Kansans, despite their isolation from international borders, to strive to promote foreign language and better multicultural skills and understanding.
posted by Kevin Anthony Stoda at 11:55 PM
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