My Thoughts, Exactly:

We’ve all seen those bumper stickers that say, “If you can read this, you’re too close.” Well, there’s a 14-foot by 48-foot billboard on the south side of Foothill Boulevard one block east of La Crescenta that I can’t read, even standing directly in front of it.

This huge advertisement shows a car perched on top of a massage table as if it were a person. So far, so good. The logo of the sponsoring company, State Farm, is nice and big. Putting two and two together, I can assume the billboard is selling auto insurance.

Unfortunately, I can’t read the actual headline, because it’s in Korean. At least I think it is, because the billboard is located directly above a Korean bank, next to a Korean video store, next to a Korean drycleaner, next to a Korean florist. I plead ignorance to literacy in the Korean language. And Japanese. And Chinese. I don’t live in any of these countries. I live in the United States of America.

Growing up in Glendale schools 30 some odd years ago, the most logical choice for learning a second language was Spanish, especially since even then, Southern California had a large population of immigrants from south of the border. However, being a non-conformist by nature, my two years of mandatory foreign language at CV was German. Sadly, I’ve never used it since. Schande über mich.

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama gave a speech recently during which he chastised Americans in general and conservative politicians specifically for daring to suggest that immigrants who want to thrive in America should learn English. He scoffed at this idea, saying, “Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish!” He then went on to say how embarrassed he is whenever traveling to France that most Americans are only able to say, “Merci beacoup.”

Well, excusez-moi! Which language should we insist that our children speak, Mr. Obama, Spanish or French? I guess to keep from being ridiculously bourgeois in my neighborhood alone, I would need to speak Armenian, Korean, Farsi, Japanese, Spanish (and whatever language they speak in New Jersey!) so as not to offend any non-native neighbor, business owner or campaigning politician. And when I travel to Hawaii to visit my son and his family, should I speak pidgin English or proper Hawaiian?

The point is about being a functioning, productive American citizen.

When my glaringly Caucasian son attended Clark Magnet School two years ago, you didn’t automatically “fit in” just because you were of Armenian descent (approximately 90% of enrolled students at that time). Even among that overwhelmingly mono-ethnic population, there were distinctdivisions depending on what “type” of Armenian you were and what dialect you spoke. Absurd.

The official motto of the United States is “E Pluribus Unum,” or translated (how ironic) from Latin, “From many, one.” Unfortunately, our politically correct culture’s celebration of ethnicity and heritage over unity and Americanism has reversed this concept to be, “From one, many.” None other than the great and powerful Al Gore often confuses our national motto during speaking engagements, telling rapt crowds that we are a country whose people are “ from one, many.”

I fear we are hurtling toward becoming a society not joined together by a common language, spirit and values but rather, one increasingly divided by these things.

Frankly, when I see a business whose sign is exclusively in a language other than English, I can’t help but translate that to mean, “If you’re not one of us, stay away.”

Whether you say, peligro, gefahr, îïàñíîñòü, pericolo, Ø, opasnost, gevaar, êéíäýíïõ or niebezpiecze{nacutel}stwo, the growing use of languages other than English throughout our society means “danger!” It makes me fear for the very soul of our country.

JIM CHASE is a freelance writer and a life long Crescenta Valley resident. He can be reached at jim@wordchaser.com.