[I'm not terribly big on posting these here on the blog, I'd rather you get a chance to go pick them in the physical Sliderule. But this one has some breadth to it, and is rather relevant]
Letter From an Underqualified Son Of a Bitch/Editor
First of all, I’d love to thank Diana to picking up a lot of the slack on this issue. Honestly, without her, this would not be happening. I’ve been getting my ass handed to me by school [why don't you go prove your face is an equivalence relation, asu] and I’m staring into the eyes of my third final of the day. There is no way I could have had everything else that she’s been doing on my own and for that, I’m extremely grateful to have her as a really close friend of mine.
So, hot topic carrying over from April is our legislature passing the immigration bill. Now, to rant on that would just seem like a cop out, so maybe it’s better to take a glance of the history of our shared languages, which I can do based on an Educational stand-point, which is what my vocation has been training me in. Or at least I clean and condensed version of it.
At first, there were of course the native Americans who lived here who were to be fucked over by the incoming Spanish immigrants, who took it upon themselves to do whatever the hell they needed to do to expand their empire, such that by the point that the United States starting making their way towards the west, you could say the people who were here were mostly Spanish speaking. But, as settlements grew and expanded, people who were bilingual were actually sought after, to some extent, as they were highly needed to translate and help keep the communities functioning. Schools were built and classes were taught and there actually was some level of prosperity in this sense.
The Federal Goverment started spreading out westward too, in some due time after. There were pushes for it, and eventually, English become the adopted, predominant language of the area. Spanish wasn’t necessarily gone, but not necessarily encouraged. If you were now a native to this country, as being included in this area as it became territories and a state of the United States, you were probably not going to be going anywhere, and become a citizen. But the thing is, with this pro-English laws around, there wasn’t too much you could do if you actually needed any of the services of the federal government. Or say, help when you wanted to vote for someone who actually represented your views. All bills, legislature, etc were written in English and there was actually law in California that they were not to be translated. It’s a sink-or-swim method. Granted they don’t have the research regarding it now that we have, but it’s a tried and failed method. It’s not worthwhile stating a statistic, cause I’d be pulling it from my ass, but I’ve read enough studies to say for every single person who survives, there are more than that who do not.
So, as we kind of started to enter the Space Age Race/Flight whatever have you, the United States began to note that perhaps one of the reasons why we weren’t getting ahead of other countries in those specific fields was because we weren’t actually invest time or money into the education in those fields. So, along with math and sciences, bilingualism was pushed for the first time and there was say, a good decade and a half where that lasted. During said time, illegal immigration was a bit on the lower end, but as it began to increase, with these better advances in education and the greater need for work, more people were deciding to cross over illegally and of course, this didn’t fly with everyone. So, as border disputes opened up and the such, a look was taken at bilingual education and it began to fade away.
Now, let’s take a look at some bills passed around the time that No Child Left Behind was passed. The Arizona legislature actually passed a bill where they made it illegal for teachers to assist students who spoke predominantly Spanish. As an example, let’s say I ever finish school and I finally become a high school calculus teacher. I have 50% of my class who are predominantly Spanish speakers. And since the class I’m teaching is pretty advanced for it’s own sake, let’s say that the students ask me if I can explain it other words… use Spanish. It is actually illegal for me to do so in a class. There’s a few loopholes, but it’s a giant law against promoting their learning. Is it really that hard to find a bill like the one we’re facing right now would prop up about a decade later?
I always recommend doing your own research, see where the roots in this lay and why it is so important to take up a voice, whichever one it is you hold. Because this is important enough to fight for and I know I wouldn’t be surprised it something happened. I’m just happy to see Vigils and violent-less protests occurring. MLK would be proud.