Slurring The King's English

Before beginning, The Common Man would like to issue a public service announcement. If you have had too much to drink, it is unsafe to operate an automobile. The Common Man recommends that you take a zamboni instead. Zambonis, if would seem, are not motor vehicles because "they aren't usable on highways and can't carry passengers" according to New Jersey Judge Joseph Falcone (which, incidentally, is a terrific name). This decision denotes a certain lack of imagination on the judge's part, as The Common Man is certain that, were he so inclined and had sufficient access to one, he could get that zamboni out on the highway with The Uncommon Wife and The Boy riding on the hood. Anyway, while the point is that driving drunk on a zamboni will not get you busted in New Jersey, it also seems that the life of a zamboni driver is not as glamorous as it sounds, as the driver in question testified "he did drink beer and vodka, but not until after he had groomed the ice. However, he told police he had a shot of Sambuca with his breakfast coffee and two Valium-pills before work." Seriously? Sambuca with breakfast? That's sad. And funny. Sorry.

Anyway, it seems that former Speaker Newt Gingrich should have completely given up speaking once he lost his job. The former head of the Republican Party recently argued to National Federation of Republican Women that immersing Spanish-speaking students into English-only classrooms was important, "so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto." Let's take Gingrich's statement apart here.

First, let's dispense with the obvious. Gingrich intimates that Spanish is a language of poverty, of a "ghetto," a statement so oblivious to the success of bi-lingual Americans who have leveraged their knowledge of both Spanish and English into incredible success (people like President Bush, for instance, who used his knowledge of Spanish to appeal to Latinos in Texas when he was running for governor) and so ignorant that The Common Man doesn't feel the need to call any more attention to it, save to say that if Gingrich thinks he's going to run for President and win a general election without any support from Spanish-speaking voters, he's an idiot.

Second, Gingrich suggests that there is a common language for this country. Gingrich seems to think that English is a stable, uniform thing. In reality, there are multiple Englishes at work right now, differentiated by accent and dialect. Indeed, The Common Man's grandmother likes to tell the story that she used to call her cousin in Florida, and that she could not understand the operator, who was apparently from the Deep South. Is this inconvenient? Of course it is. Would it be nice if everyone spoke using a common vocabulary so as to discourage misunderstanding? Sure. But it's never been that way before, and, The Common Man would argue, that difference is part of what makes different communities unique and makes our country all the more interesting. Besides, in a country as large and as populous as this is, there is virtually no chance of establishing a uniform language.

And it's not as though English is a pure language in and of itself. Indeed, English is the bastard offspring of Anglo-Saxon, French, Latin, and German, among others. It has been in near-constant flux since William of Normandy invaded Britain in 1056. So if a little Spanish influences Gingrich's precious English, if through the tension between these languages, English grows and expands, that's not a bad thing. It's just a thing.

Of course, this isn't simply a question about language. It is also a question about education. Gingrich and his ilk would like students to be "immersed" in an English-only classroom, rather than have the option of bilingual education, arguing that only through immersion will students be able to get the education that will allow them to "succeed". Gingrich, in his non-apology apology, argues, "But my point was simply this -- in the United States, it is important to speak the English language well in order to advance and have success." Certainly, The Common Man agrees with that sentiment. However, Gingrich's education proposal is more related to an English-only ideology than by concern over what will allow bilingual students to learn best. After all, bilingual students will not succeed simply by knowing English. There are a multitude of other skills they will need to know in order to become successful outside of the classroom. The Common Man would argue that a bilingual education, for at least the first part of the child's education, would have allow them to learn those skills faster, so as to be able to compete with their native English-speaking classmates.

The Common Man becomes angry when politicians try to score political points by throwing out ideological notions about education that have little to nothing to do with what is best for the children and the communities in which those children live. Gingrich is appealing to his conservative base at the expense of Latino (and Asian, and African) school children. It's wrong.