I’m offering a long term solution to the illegal immigration problem—stop teaching Spanish in schools. In the sixties, during my teen student phase, administrators pushed bilingualism. They swore I’d never get into college without a second language. Note: prior to this educational policy, we didn’t have caravans attempting to cross the Rio Grande.
High school provided us three alternatives: Spanish, French, or Latin, a dead language.
In retrospect, we all should’ve been forced to take Latin. Period. End of future problems–only zombies would’ve immigrated here.
French? I considered learning how to parlez vous francais, mostly because Bridgette Bardot was hot back then and my hormones were making decisions for me. But I also enjoyed eating. Still do. French cuisine had limited portions. Tacos beat out ooh la la. Enamored with the taste of spicy food, I became fluent in espanol in order to properly order chipotle enchiladas con pollo.
Hispanics soon discovered many gringos, like me, had learned how to habla their language. They could communicate with us. They concluded IF gringolandia didn’t want them here, THEN why did we force children to learn their language?
We threw up Spanish road signs. We Spanish-named our states and cities. We had operators instruct callers to press two if they spoke Spanish. We had voting instructions in Spanish. We made them feel bien venidos , thus encouraging their illegal entries.
We never force-fed German, Italian, or Greek in our schools. We didn’t instruct any of them to press two if they didn’t speak English. Didn’t overtly welcome them here. In fact, when many first came, we either sent them off to war or they worked in coal mines or factories. No health benefits either. We never had an Asian or European illegal immigration problem.
We have sent mixed smoke signals to all Hispanics. We first taught Spanish in middle schools, ironically right around the time we were severing relations with Cuba. Miami has more than a million former Cubans. You can’t ask directions there without knowing basic Spanish.
Latin Americans have been and continue to be very opportunistic. We educated ourselves in their language, welcoming them in their language, and offering them minimum wage jobs in their language. Eleven million undocumented immigrants didn’t arrive anoche. Was it their fault? I don’t think so.
What’s my solution? Short term, we can cease being so “language friendly.” We need to anglicize Spanish, so Hispanics will take the hint. For example, instead of asking for a burrito (an English dictionary word now!) we could say, “I want a Mexican rolled thing with all the fixings.” Call tortillas “corn or flour pancakes”; never say “vamanos”; and albondigas would be the more easily pronounceable “meatballs”.
I can’t recommend “going strictly English” because liberals would attack me as being an ethnocentric racist. Besides, college entrance requirements haven’t changed (ref: a second language). But if schools did focus on “English”, we may decrease our country’s own functional illiteracy rate as a by-product, estimated at 15 million persons.
Longer term– stop offering Spanish and teach every language but. We could hire refugees from any and all war-torn lands and employ them as native tongue instructors. We will become a polyglot nation, not favoring or encouraging one ethnic group over another to immigrate here. Additionally, refugees would have meaningful employment, as well as be forced to learn English! This solution works on so many levels, I don’t know why no one has thought of it before.
Many of you might think my evaluation of one of the root causes of illegal immigration is loco. Whatever! My solution is certainly less expensive than building a wall, housing thousands of individuals, and destroying families.
In Colorado, in kindergarten for goodness sakes, my twin grand boys were not given a choice. They were being taught Chinese. I saw this with my own ears.
Years from now, when hordes of Chinese trek up the Kamchatka Peninsula, cross the Bering Strait into Alaska and then head towards our northern border—where there is no wall— please remember my analysis and recommendation. By then, I’ll be seis pies abajo de la tierra. That’s six feet under the earth for those who took Latin or French in high school.
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