“Immigrant” becomes dirtiest word as Americans are told to speak English

A recent article from the Independent Newspaper's correspondent in New York brings to our attention â€Å"the current mood of xenophobia† in the USA. After approximately two centuries of welcoming immigrants from around the world, it would seem that the Americans have begun to mistrust and to some extent, even fear the very people that have historically given them such a dynamic and diverse country, namely, foreign immigrants. There are several reasons for this recent shift in perspective, two of which are, recent terrorist attacks on American servicemen in Saudi Arabia and an explosion on an American airline flight, that foreign terrorists caused some people suspect. Historian, Arthur Schlesinger has spoken on â€Å"the tribalization of American life† and appears to be suggesting that the different ethnic groups in America are arranging themselves into their own groups and not crossing ethnic boundaries. One symptom of this seems to be the gang culture that exists, where each gang is alleged to be made up from members of the same ethnic group. A key factor in this is language, generally people who only speak one language find it difficult to mix with other ethnic groups or cultures, or indeed find it difficult to understand other cultures viewpoint. As a result of all of these difficulties, the government has introduced a bill called â€Å"The English Language Empowerment Act† the main purpose of which is to make English the official language of America. It is perceived by Republicans, that this Act will encourage immigrants to learn English, as it will be difficult, if not impossible for them to understand federal documents that are written in English. The Act has already been criticised for infringing on American's right to free speech and making it difficult for non-English speaking Americans to receive or even understand information or ideas. It is a safe assumption to make, that if people can't speak English, then they will be unable to understand written English. This argument would seem to carry a significant amount of weight. People have put forward the argument that this Act is connected with attitudes towards Immigrants. This argument seems to be borne out by the fact that there is nothing in the Act that will help to actually teach people how to speak or read English, rather it seems to punish those who can't by denying them access to written information. It has also been pointed out by opponents to the Act, that ninety seven percent of Americans speak English already and a very small proportion of government documents (around one percent,) are actually written in a foreign language. Some people looking at these statistics, would argue that there is no need for this Act, unless it were to force people into becoming â€Å"more American† and punishing those who preferred to stick to their own language and culture. This argument seems to be borne out further by another piece of Republican proposed legislation, the welfare reform Bill. One provision of this Bill would be that, immigrants who are in America quite legally, but are not yet citizens, would not be eligible for state welfare benefits, yet another form of â€Å"immigrant bashing† some might say. Hot button as mentioned in the article; a controversial thing of the moment, it is a happening now situation. Enduring canard, a lasting ongoing issue, to accept with a certain amount of tolerance regarding political correctness, in this case a probability that it has come about in the course of sensationalism and cock-and-bull story of this report in America's newspapers. Polyglot America Speaking, reading and writing many different languages, in this case America.