Public Opinion Differs from Obama's 'Learn Spanish' Attitude

[BloodEclipse]

Posted by Bobby Eberle
July 11, 2008 at 6:18 am
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Barack Obama's recent speech where he said Americans "need to make sure your child can speak Spanish" set off a flood of comments. Most people who read my column yesterday agreed, but there were a few who took Obama's viewpoint.
Interestingly, reliable pollster Scott Rasmussen conducted a survey focusing on English and bilingual education and found that "U.S. voters overwhelmingly disagree with the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee." As noted by Rasmussen, "Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages."

Rasmussen notes:

In his comments, Obama emphasized the economic benefits of learning a second language: "If you have a foreign language, that is a powerful tool to get a job." Data suggests that most voters see the issue in a broader context.
A separate survey found that one factor fueling the anger over immigration is the belief that most government officials encourage immigrants to retain the culture of their home country. This helps explain why voters who are angry about immigration are primarily angry at the government, not immigrants. Among those angry about immigration, 59% believe most government officials encourage immigrants to retain their home country culture.

In a survey conducted last fall, Rasmussen found that "77% of Americans believed that employers should be allowed to require employees to speak English while on the job." Other findings show that "65% of voters now believe election ballots should only be printed in English. Thirty-two percent (32%) say they should be printed in both English and Spanish."
Directly to the heart of Obama's comments, which I wrote about yesterday, Rasmussen notes:

Only 26% believe that every American should be able to speak at least two languages. In his recent comments, Obama said parents should be thinking, "How can your child become bilingual? We should have every child speaking more than one language."
Broken down along party lines, 79% of Republicans and 59% of Democrats reject the idea that all Americans should know multiple languages. Among unaffiliated voters, 68% say their fellow citizens do not need to know a language other than English.

No one is saying learning a second language is a bad thing. Some readers yesterday suggested that's what I was implying. I'm not. But this is America, and we should be expecting our children (and anyone in America) to learn English. Rather than focusing on "liberal experiments" in the class room. Let's make sure our kids are learning the basics. If they want to study a foreign language, that's fine.
The simple fact remains... thanks to the left's overwhelming numbers in government bureaucracy, a culture is being pushed that says, "Come here, but don't embrace America." That is wrong. When I go into a Subway restaurant, I expect to be able to order my sandwich in English and have the attendant be able to understand me.

So what do you think? Do the citizens of the USA need to learn foreign languages or should the immigrants learn English?
I wonder if I went to China if I could expect them to learn English for my benefit?