A Spanish-speaking pope, and America’s complicated relationship with bilingualism
*According to the U.S. Census, in 2014 fewer than 79 percent of Americans spoke only English. And in the recent GOP presidential debates, some candidates have had to defend their use of Spanish on the campaign trail. The U.S. has had a long history of disdain toward multi-lingualism. VL
By Janell Ross, The Washington Post
It [was] Pope Francis’s first full day in Washington, and one thing you [would have] undoubtedly notice[d] during coverage of it [was] that he [wasn’t] conversing extensively in English, but rather in his native Argentine Spanish.
[pullquote][tweet_dis]Americans have been known to see language and the ubiquity of English as an expressive form of dominance, the will to assimilate and, somewhat more mysteriously, the power to shape the world.[/tweet_dis][/pullquote]America has a long and highly politicized history with bilingualism and multilingualism.
In the 1800s, when the U.S. government set about ridding itself of the so-called “Indian problem,” thousands of Native American children were forcibly sent to boarding schools where the primary goal of “killing the Indian” and “saving the man” appears to have been met with brutal beatings, forced English use and outright bans on Native American languages and religious practices.
In the years after the United States entered World War I, states across the country banned German-language instruction or even all foreign languages in public schools. The practice continued until the Supreme Court declared it illegal in 1923, five years after the war’s end.
In Texas, New Mexico and Arizona, many Latinos over the age of 50 can tell personal stories about the school punishments they experienced after they were “caught” speaking Spanish as recently as the 1970s. Just last year, a Texas school principal lost her job after attempting to do something similar.
Click HERE to read the full story.
[Photo by Catholic Church England and Wales/Flickr]
