Linguistic Imperialism

Chicago, Ill.—With the debate over English-only education and illegal immigration sweeping the nation, some Hispanics believe that vocally supporting strong borders and strict immigration laws amounts to anti-Latino bigotry. “We have seen rapid highs in rate in hate speech on talk radio programs attacking the Latino community as a result of the debate over undocumented workers. … The megaphone offered to the odious brand of hate speech comes compliments of radio conglomerates that own hundreds of stations across the country,” National Hispanic Media Coalition President Alex Nogales told the U. S. Senate Committee on Science, Commerce, and Transportation this November. “[The radio stations] are not accountable to their local communities and care little for the political and cultural impact of their programming,” he added. Similarly, this December Rutgers Professor Laura Anne Lomas described supporters of a single (English) national language as belonging to “nativist, conservative, anti-Latino, English-only political ideology.”

At the 2007 Modern Language Association Convention, Lomas told the audience that the thrust of her paper, “Nation and Empire: José Martí’s Strategic Multilingualism” is “really a critique about the extent to which the United States is not a nation, but an empire—and so that’s where I’m going.” Lomas’ presentation spanned the theories of Marc Shell and José Martí, among others.

Shell, a proponent of “New Economic Criticism (NEC)—which explores the relationship between literature and economy”— proposed a North American economic union in the 1990’s as a means through which to strengthen “local cultures and languages,” noted Lomas. Harvard Magazine writer Nell Lake records Shell as saying in 1992 that such an institution would undermine the dominance of English. “‘If or when we have to negotiate a treaty with Canada or Mexico; if Puerto Rico joins us as a state; if we form a North American union like the one in Europe,’ [Shell] muses, such events could pose particular challenges to English,” writes Lake. He later describes Shell as “wryly” saying “If only there weren’t diversity in the world everything would be so much easier.”

Professor Lomas criticizes Shell’s predictions as unrealistic because of a “new militarization of the U.S. border, and the current dramatic new politics, the policing of Mexicans…including raids and roundups, in workplaces and public spaces, balance seems to be only diminishing between the two countries…as a result of NAFTA.”

Lomas later hinted that American multilingual studies were adopting a farcically moderate position, saying “By pretending to inject a position located in between the right and the left, multilingual American literature studies attempted to ally themselves with an ostensibly neutral position, which is the current [trend] in economic and social progress.” “[One theorist] I think correctly argues that Latin Americans’ Spanish language class at the current conjuncture have a practically unique potential to challenge the de facto and official English monolinguist attitudes in the United States, partially because the issues arise stem [sic] from the convergence,” she said. Lomas added, chuckling, “So you can tell I’m being totally partisan. I’m arguing in English about the need for us to being think about the future of language… Spanish might function… as a language for America.”

Some of this “unique opportunity” might be seen in the NHMC’s legislative proposal, which Nogales elucidated at a July Senate committee hearing. “English-written materials should not be translated to Spanish as they are seldom culturally effective. Materials to the Spanish-speaking should be original and the appropriate place to advertise to Latinos should be carefully considered,” Nogales testified. When referring to the analog-digital television transition, Nogales demanded that “The call-in centers handling the voucher questions must include live-operators that include Spanish-speakers, wait time should not go over ten minutes and must accommodate telecom relay services that make it easier for the deaf to communicate by phone.” He added “And it is not sufficient to translate the English materials to Spanish.”

Professor Lomas sees Spanish as a special language deserving, “exceptional attention beyond that of other [minority] languages of the United States….such as German.” She insinuates that the United States owes a “debt” to the peoples from whom they stole land. Ironically, Spanish is not an aboriginal language, but—at least in Latin America—a historically imperial one.

Bethany Stotts is a Staff Writer at Accuracy in Academia.