If you speak any language but English you must be from the ghetto, right?
@helloyou10125 (35)
United States
April 1, 2007 1:31am CST
Possible 2008 Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich was quoted as saying, "The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto."
What do you think of this statement? Do you feel that he is being rascist? Do you agree with him? Why is it that any language other than English is a "ghetto language"? In European countries it is common for children to learn mutliple languages. Is there something wrong with valueing another language or culture? Why is English better and other languages ghetto languages? Can't we base the way we educate our children not on emotion or rascism but true scientific studies of the best way to learn a language?
2 people like this
3 responses
@EvanHunter (4026)
• United States
2 Apr 07
Let me start by saying I cant stand this fat bloated jerk and I dont think there is anyway he will really get any support as a presidential candidate. On the other hand I do think he has a point even if he cant say two words without showing what a idiot he is. If you grow up in america and limit yourself to any other language other than english than yes you are limiting your abilities to get a job of a higher pay scale. Your not gona get a job on wallstreet if you cant speak and write coherent english(not that anyones chances are ever that good to start). All the big industries require testing to be part of the labor or workforce and those test mainly consist of english and math. As far as getting our teachers to teach two languages that happens in alot of private schools but in public schools its pretty hard for the teachers to be able to teach the students english let alone another language are public schools are over burdened with huge class rooms with little support.
@Smith2028 (797)
• United States
1 Apr 07
I don't agree with the words he used, but I agree with his premise. Any education in America should be in English. If you don't know english, you will have to learn it.
This is a simple issue. You want to be a citizen of the US, and take part in our services? Learn our language.
@efreddy (250)
• Belgium
1 Apr 07
In my country they are 3 regio's ,in the regio where I am from, they speak dutch (we called it Flemish),in the other regio it's french and in the smallest regio, it's german.
Long ago the regio who spoke french felt that they were superior and the people from my regio who was real wealthy spoke french too,the dutch language felt like a ghetto language,during the years my regio gets more wealthy and now the other regio must learn dutch (Flemish) too,dutch (Flemish) is no longer a ghetto language anymore.
I once read a column from a person in the UK who wrote,we think we are superior because everyone has to speak our language but we aren't,when we are speaking, everyone can understand us but when they are speaking we can't.
Every story has two sides.
