The Road to Hell ...

… is paved with good intentions. So the old adage goes. I’m not really big on adages like that. If taken as literal truth, they usually oversimplify whatever they are describing. Still, sometimes they are useful for raising some kind of concern. I think this one applies to the following:

Two weeks ago, while flipping around television stations, I caught a few moments of Lou Dobbs’ program on CNN. During the segment that I saw, his guest was William Donohue, the President of the Catholic League. The topic was, as CNN’s caption at the bottom of the screen put it, “English Only: Fight over Language in School.” More specifically, Dobbs and Donohue were discussing a legal case in which a Catholic school in Wichita, Kansas, was being sued by three sets of parents whose children were kicked out of the school for refusing to sign a document stating that they would abide with the school’s policy by which only English could be spoken in the school. Here is a local news story from Wichita that covers the lawsuit (along with numerous comments by readers that are of interest as well). Here is another story that explains the ruling that U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten made in the case, which I think is also interesting on various levels.

Video of the exchange between Dobbs and Donohue can be seen here (and a transcript is available here). In watching this segment of Dobbs’ program, it seems fairly obvious that Mr. Donohue is disturbed by the case against the school. He sounds quite upset about it, judging by his tone and body language. Particularly when Donohue discusses his own personal experience helping a Hispanic woman and how that was “facilitated” by the fact that the woman spoke English, I think he truly believes that his desire for everyone in the United States to learn and speak English is out of genuine concern for the well-being of individuals who might otherwise not speak English—in this case, specifically, Hispanics. He appears to think that this is the appropriate path to fostering democracy and providing these people with opportunities in the United States.

At one point, Donohue indignantly declares “People ought to get their head straight,” seemingly out of frustration. I would indignantly declare back at Donohue … and Dobbs as well, particularly given the ways that he frames this issue … that if there is anyone who needs to “get their heads straight,” it is them. Specifically, their heads could do with a dose of American history, cultural theory, and communication and linguistic theory.

First there is the historical inadequacy of the positions being taken by individuals like Dobbs and Donohue. These positions are framed by the retelling of a version of American history that leaves out significant aspects of that history. Leaving aside for now the issues involving immigration to which their positions are connected, these individuals’ framing of American history would have us believe that English has been the native language of all native-born United States citizens. This is most explicitly suggested when Dobbs states that the individuals bringing the suit against the school “want … us to change the language of this nation, change our laws, change our rule, and completely forget 200 years of history and ideals and values that have made this liberal society available to them.” This representation of the United States is historically inaccurate. Notably, many Hawaiians and Alaskans were speaking languages other than English when these territories became states. Additionally, many of the inhabitants of Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of California, Texas, and Colorado were Spanish-speaking citizens of Mexico before suddenly becoming U.S. citizens after the United States gained these lands through war with Mexico. And let us not, of course, forget the many Native Americans who spoke various languages before Europeans claimed this land as America. So, to suggest that English is so monolithically the basis for the development of United States communities is flat out inaccurate.

Additionally—and this where we learn from cultural studies—such a suggestion is flat out racist. It denies the legitimacy of non-European American experiences, contributions, and perspectives, which have been significant elements of U.S. history and remain significant elements of U.S. culture. Additionally, the suggestion that others should be forced to learn someone’s language so that the two individuals can communicate—the very thing that Donohue sees as so unilaterally beneficial—places the status of one group above another. It suggests that one group needs to accommodate the other group and that the second group should have to do none of the work to make democracy happen. It’s akin to the various ways in which white Americans have systematically claimed that their ways of doing things are better than everyone else’s or simply that their ways of doing things are just “standard” for everyone and not a matter of race or culture. (See, for instance, the case of Thomas Benya, for a good example of how white practices of acceptable attire were characterized as a standard not based in cultural heritage (even though, in reality, they are), while non-white practices—in this case Native American practices—were seen as “cultural heritage.”) This connection to things being characterized as “culture” and not “culture” is most apparent in the clip from Dobbs’ show when Donohue, with a sense of disgust in his voice, calls some critics of what he’s defending “the multicultural left.” I’d be quite willing to assume that Donohue does not really know the goals and projects of multiculturalism, given the way he is referencing it here. The really disgusting aspect of this case, then, is that Donohue dares reference multiculturalism like he knows what it’s about when it seems apparent that he does not.

In the end, Donohue provides what is a typical racist response. As a member of the racially empowered group, he sees it as the responsibility of disempowered groups to take up the culture of the empowered group and he does not appear to see the practice of the empowered group—in this case, the practice of speaking English—as a culturally or racially based practice. He cites his good intentions as if these seem to absolve him from racism or from the need to examine his own assumptions about race. He may think he has good intentions; however, good intentions do not absolve us from our responsibilities to democracy. The unwillingness to examine one’s own race-based assumptions makes one complicit with the continuation of racism and, thus, at odds with the ongoing project of democracy.

Additionally, communication and linguistic studies show us that languages offer not just alternative means of expression, but also means of expression that sometimes are not available in other languages. Some expressions in Spanish or Chinese or Arabic do not have direct translations in English, and vice versa. So, when the speaking of a language is banned or punished, ways of expressing things and, thus, the potential for insightful perspectives go unheard. That would seem to be, by definition, at odds with democracy. What makes this even more reprehensible in the case of this school in Wichita is that the school has literally equated use of a language other than English with bullying, as if it is English that is threatened here and, as a corollary of that, it is English speakers (i.e., those who are already privileged in this country) who would be victims if the policy was not adopted. When Donohue starts talking about this aspect of his argument, I even start to wonder if he has the “good intentions” he claims to have.

For now, I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and characterize him as uninformed instead of viewing him as just flat out mean. Still, being informed does not absolve him either. Donohue, Dobbs, and others of a similar mindset would do well to heed the words of Barack Obama when he said that “you need to make sure that your child can speak Spanish,” rather than characterize Obama’s statement as “an elitist mindset,” as is the case within a piece that appears on one website to which Dobbs’ own website offers a link. Indeed, if anyone is being elitist, it's English-speaking people who are demanding that others conform to their mindset.

This fall, I am taking Spanish 101 along with my wife because, for years (indeed, well before either of us knew who Barack Obama is), we have been saying that we think it would be good to know and we're finally getting a good chance to do it. Yet even as I’m doing this, I’m seeing a number of instances like this case in Wichita in which English-only is being adopted as policy … most recently in the LPGA. Rather than English-speaking folks getting disgusted by the use of other languages in the United States and subsequently banning the use of languages other than English, wouldn’t a much better approach—and a much more democratic approach—promote all of us learning multiple languages? I’d much rather see a curriculum that says all students will learn Spanish, English, and at least one other language (perhaps even some choice for a third) throughout their education than see the implementation of English-only policies.