Is it racist to advocate that all Americans learn and speak a common language?

America

To be fair, most racists probably are disturbed by immigrants and aliens living in America and speaking their native language. It is ironic that such racists also enjoy pizza and chow mien and countless other pleasures that immigrants and aliens have contributed to culture in these United States. However, does that mean that all who eat ethnic foods and espouse that they learn English are racist? Hardly. Many simply wish to avoid the curse described in the Old Testament when man built the Tower of Babel to elevate himself above God and was cast into a confusion of languages. Confusion is the enemy of discourse, reason, and understanding which is absolutely necessary if we are to govern ourselves successfully.

Tower of Babel

Before we go any further I should state that I am not in favor of making English the official language of the United States. I'm too old to learn a foreign language. I speak American. I write American. I think American. Anyone who fails to see the difference between English and American just isn't paying attention. My wife and I enjoy many broadcasts that we find on BBC America, especially British crime dramas. Sadly they aren't aired with subtitles and we are often lost in the weeds. Not only are some dialects unfathomable (as are some regional American dialects), but also there is an idiomatic abyss somewhere in the Atlantic midway between London and New York. The simple fact is that I fear that we will be denied the greatest gifts of those who adopt America if they fail to learn the common language and that they will likewise be denied the greatest gifts that it has to offer them. Freedom of Speech includes the right to speak in any language one chooses. However, they must also keep in mind that we also have the right to ignore them.

It is interesting to reflect on the examples of my father and his siblings. They were the children of immigrants, Slovaks, often characterized as the hillbillies of Europe. Coal miners. The poorest of the poor. Their people had no nation to call their own. They were serfs under the Austro-Hungarian Emperor Franz Joseph. My father's parents never learned the common language of America and remained poor coal miners, but they encouraged their children to learn to speak and act as Americans. That heritage was passed onto my brother and myself, and the family has multiplied and prospered. (Not bad for some who began life so poor that they had neither closets nor cabinets because they had nothing to put in them.) Contrast that with immigrants and aliens and their children who refuse to assimilate. These continue to live in poverty and, in some cases, as cultural outcasts. 

Others have tried to warn immigrants of these disadvantages.

Was Teddy Roosevelt a racist? Possibly. He was a progressive, one of the earliest in American history. Or was there some other motivation behind his assertion? Is it possible that he was merely stating the obvious, that to exercise the right of Free Speech and participate fully in the American experience, a person must be able to converse in the common language? Anyone without a voice is destined to be a victim. 

Although there is no requirement to learn the common language to live here, it is a requirement of citizenship, and with citizenship comes the right to vote. Few would argue that the right to vote is a an important right of citizenship. However, I must ask, which is more powerful, more important: A voice or a vote?

A vote is important, but it really isn't so powerful, is it? Every citizen has one. Indeed, in many elections most people don't even bother to cast it one way or another. What, many ask, can one vote do?

A voice is far more powerful, isn't it? A person's voice may persuade another to cast their ballot a certain way. Maybe even ten or a hundred or a thousand or more ballots. A person with a voice doesn't even have to vote to affect the outcome of an election. What can a person with just one vote really accomplish compared to a person with a voice? 

What can a voice do if it babels? It may influence a limited faction but never a majority.