Speaking of Which Language. . .
Filling out a credit application should be quick and painless. Yet, when I recently attempted this at a local business, the form’s questions were impossible to read.
So what was the problem? Was the print out of focus? Did I lack experience? No. My problem was being an English-speaking, American-born citizen who does not speak Spanish.
The 1990 census put California’s Hispanic population at nearly 8 million, many speaking little or no English. In 1996, the number is certainly higher. It’s obvious, then, why businesses frequently make Spanish an information option on the back pages of their literature and bills, etc. It makes sense to offer each person equal opportunity to use the language most comfortable for them.
However, that particular credit application was anything but fair and equal to me. For each question, the Spanish print was above, beside, and pretty much all over the English, with each Spanish word at least six times larger than the English word hiding beneath it.
Some may call my complaint frivolous, but my frustration is not unique. When a friend of mine tried to shop at a neighborhood food market, she had no idea what she was buying because the American-made products had Spanish-only labels. As an English-speaking American, she was the one expected to bridge the language barrier, not the immigrant, all in the name of cultural respect.
Political correctness now demands more than simply providing equal space for other languages. English, spoken and written by most U.S. citizens since Revolutionary War days, is now expected, whenever deemed necessary, to take a back seat wherever it lives in print.
More than just government documents or ballots are affected. It’s becoming a problem in the everyday paperwork we all deal with constantly. In January, when my discount-chain pharmacist offered me a free store calendar containing coupons, I was pleased until I noticed that everything, including the coupons, was in Spanish. I can’t redeem what I can’t understand. When he explained there were no English calendars, I felt clearly discriminated against as a shopper.
If this trend continues, then English may soon find itself all but swallowed up. What’s next? Will my daily newspaper begin printing its stories with other languages squeezed between each sentence?
Searching for a way around all this reminds me of the sound control on my television that allows me to hear both English and Spanish simultaneously. With the push of a button, you have the option to eliminate the audio on one of the languages.
English is presently the official language in 22 states, including California. In spite of this, California has gone to great lengths to extend linguistic equality, trying to make everyday communication of important information easier to access for everyone.
The store where I applied for credit failed to do that for me. That experience, along with others, helps me understand how frustrated immigrants must feel, trying to function in a land whose language is foreign to them. But creating a system where English is reduced to the status of a foreign language in its own homeland is not the answer.
If corporate America wants to access all potential customers in our richly diverse culture, it must remember that a great number of us are still English-speaking only. No one wants or expects immigrants to abandon their native language or cultural heritage. But it’s unfair to force primary language users to sift through a confusing maze of foreign text in order to pick out the intertwined English text.
Too many English-speaking Americans are being forced to learn Spanish, or at least do some serious wading through it. Within the United States, English deserves top billing.
