SPEAKING IN TONGUES

I was disappointed in Frank del Olmo’s review of James Crawford’s “Hold Your Tongue,” Aug. 23. He is dead wrong on several points.

Take a look around the world today and see how divisive different languages are in the same country. Language is the one common glue that holds this nation of people from different ethnic backgrounds together more than any other. The only group really resisting it are the Spanish-speaking. Del Olmo, like other Spanish-speaking people who have “made it,” is now afraid to speak the truth.

No one cares that another person on a job speaks in a different language to a colleague in a social context. It may be impolite but that is their problem. Business, however, should be conducted in English. We do provide interpreters for those who don’t speak English and are accused of a crime. We do provide interpreters in hospitals. But to overdo this is to encourage people not to learn the language of the country they are living in.

The attempts to keep kids in their native language, read Spanish while they learn English, have not proved successful. Anyone associated with learning languages knows that the fastest way is to immerse oneself in it day and night.

Del Olmo’s comment about U.S. English being a racist organization cannot go unchallenged. I am not an officer of U.S. English but I am a member. I have never seen anything that can be even slightly interpreted as racist in any of the literature that has been sent to me.

I marched with Martin Luther King at Montgomery and I believe that we should all be equal no matter what our race, creed or color. I also believe that those who would attempt to change the U.S. from a melting pot to a salad bowl bring a divisiveness to our country that could have far-reaching effects.

HENRY FISHER, WHITTIER