Controversy over Language

Controversy Over Language

The United States is multicultural, made up of people from all over the world. Not one race or ethnicity is better than another one. However, language can be a barrier between these cultures. As stated in chapter two of the Cultural Diversity Box in Sociology, "controversy over immigrants and language isn't new" (page 48), this is true of the United States even in present time. For example, in Miami only one-fourth of the population speak English at home because of this many call Miami, the capital of Latin America (page 48). Many believe that due to the fact that there are a lot of Hispanics in the United States, that things such as voting instructions, menus or street signs should be translated into Spanish.

First, the English language is the primary language in the United States. As we all know, Florida is part of the United States, therefore English should be the dominant language. Immigrants are not completely forced to come to a nation where English dominates over Spanish. It is only logical for people that immigrate to the United States learn English in order to fully benefit from all the things that the U.S. has to offer, such as free education. If English was used more often than Spanish or other foreign languages, perhaps it would be easier for people to learn English since they would have no other choice.

Additionally, the cost to print information in two languages for restaurants, street signs, ballots or voting registration facilities would be too expensive. For example, everybody eats and if we changed all the labels for products for everything we ate the label s could be endless. Take the word "orange", many things are made from oranges so on every label we would have to include at least both the words "Orange" and "Naranja". The cost for printing labels would sky rocket, and that only one product among thousands. At the end of the day, the taxpayers and consumers would have to pay for the cost of making these changes. Instead we could save billions in national and federal spending but just making English the official language. Taxpayers, consumers and businesses would all profit by keeping things in one language.

Finally, if Hispanics are asking for such changes, why would the government deny the right to those of different foreign nation? America is made up of many different cultures and languages; it would be extremely difficult to meet all the needs of all the different communities that live within the U.S. Speaking English does not mean that you have to do stop being Latin American, African American, Asian America or any other ethic American, it just simple mean all citizens of United States will have a common language. Just like they have being American in common, they would have the language in common as well. This would create fewer racial problems.

Although it is true that language