Talk English; you're in America

There's a scene in one of my favorite books ("Ball Four," if you're wondering) in which a person says to a group of people speaking Spanish: "Talk English, you're in America now."\nI'm sure that the irony of that sentence was lost on him.\nRecently, because of the dispute over illegal immigration -- especially Spanish-speaking immigrants -- language has become a point of debate in the United States. Last year the Senate actually passed a measure that established English as the national language as a part of an immigration reform bill.\nIt was likened by Republican backers, according to the New York Times, to establishing a national anthem or motto -- no laws concerning bilingualism would have been affected. The House of Representatives did not include the measure. \nMany people seem to hold a belief that English should have some kind of official backing. According to a poll done last summer by Rasmussen Reports, 85 percent of Americans think English should be the official language of the United States. Not only that, but it is a bipartisan opinion -- 92 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of Democrats supported it in the poll, as did 86 percent of independents.\nThe leader of the crusade is an organization called U.S. English Inc. It is the oldest and largest organization of its kind in the nation, having been founded in 1983.\nThe organization's Web site claims that "the passage of English as the official language will help to expand opportunities for immigrants to learn and speak English, the single greatest empowering tool that immigrants must have to succeed."\nThat sounds pretty good, right?\nForget about the latent racism inherent in telling entire groups of people that their language isn't good enough for the United States.\nAlso don't worry about the fact that it is a complete waste of time to debate whether English should be a "national language" when there would be little to no real effect on policy (based on the proposal that was offered and rejected in Congress last year).\nThe biggest problem with trying to make everyone speak English is that most American citizens who grew up speaking English can't speak it correctly. The hypocrisy is just too much. The plague on our country isn't the people who speak Spanish or Japanese; it's the people who butcher their native tongue. \nIt can't be denied. There are countless examples of people saying things like "me and him are going to the store," and countless examples of stores advertising "all computer's on sale." Fairly simple rules of the English language are constantly flaunted, and it's sickening. It might be laziness, or it might just be stupidity or ignorance, but it needs to be addressed.\nThe "English-first" crusade needs to wait to train immigrants in English until the people who supposedly already know how can assemble a sentence without sounding like Stephen Hawking's computer after a rainstorm.\nAnd seriously, the whole thing is a little racist.