by Editors

Democratswrite.com extends an admiring welcome to its youngest contributor to the present date:  Mr. Ryan Kampert, soon to be 16 years of age is the grandson of Dr. Lenard Carrier, who has contributed generously to our website, and in fact several commentaries in this same Border Wars series. 

 

It was in response to Dr. Carrier’s sharing this series with his grandson that young Ryan’s composed his passionate and informed responses, which will, because of their frank and self-explanatory content and context, shall be printed verbatim hereinafter.  

 

Featured first will be Ryan’s comments to Len in counterpoint with views earlier expressed by our foreign policy editor, Dusty Schoch (in Border Wars I through VI). Next will be Schoch’s letter of response transmitted via grandfather Carrier, and finally will come Ryan’s final eloquent words on the topic, all of which we sincerely hope our readers will find (as we did) both informative and enjoyable.

 

I deny altogether any intent or mood of patronization when I say to you that the term “precocious” falls short of capturing this young thinker’s levels of thought , verbal expression and passionate concern with issues affecting our country’s welfare.  Welcome, Mr. Kampert, to our humble forum here  at Democratswrite.com, and we hope you will continue to visit and contribute to us as time permits in the future.

 

Dusty Schoch 5/25/06

 

 

RYAN’S LETTER TO LEN:

 

—– Original Message —–

From: Ryan K

To: Leonard Carrier

Sent: Saturday, May 20, 2006 3:08 PM

Subject: Re: Border wars

 

Hey Grandpa.

    I thought I’d add my two cents about one of the most aggravating arguments used in our current immigration “crisis” .  Very good argument, by the way.

    I do a lot of research on languages, and this current idea that everyone (including your Mr. Schoch there) has that bilingualism divides a country and gives rise to cultural animosity doesn’t hold water.  The rhetoric-spewing advocates of that theory, that offer Canada (e.g. Quebec), Sri Lanka (e.g. the Tamils and Sinhala), and others as examples, conveniently forget that, in these instances, multiple aspects of culture are opposed; and with Quebec as the rare exception, one of those cultures has been repressing or antagonizing the other.  This causes the repressed culture to lash back at the oppressors.  Bilingualism is very rarely the cause of internal dissent in a country.  For instance, the Chinese were never closer to having massive revolts than during their “cultural revolution” of the ’60′s.  Since the government of that nation has recently (mid-’90′s) opened up and allowed the use of minority languages (the Tibetans speaking Tibetan, the Yi speaking Yi, the Manchu’s speaking Manchu,  Inner Mongolians speaking Mongolian – complete with the classical Uyghur-esque script, etc.) the Chinese have experienced worlds-better complacency and cooperation in minority peoples.  I heard a reporter just yesterday on MSNBC point out an example of “mono-lingualism-in-a-nation-breeds-unity” thinking by referencing England and their abolishment of the Irish language upon taking them over in the Middle Ages.  Where did that get them?  Ireland is now independent, and reinstating the Gaelic language along with English.  Or look at the Isle of Man.  England still firmly holds that island, and the people are happy, like British dominion, do not cause conflict with the rest of the UK, and are currently trying to bring back the Manx language in everyday affairs.  Declaring Inuktitut (with the syllabary) an official language of Nunavut in Canada has gained the Canadians increased peace with the Inuit peoples of their northern regions.  Even in the US, bilingualism is helpful in areas.  Look at Hawaii.  In Hawaii, Hawaiian is an official language, and is a mandatory course in public schools.  Last time I checked, we’re not currently battling the Hawaiians within our borders.  There are also plenty of regions in this world where a lack of official bilingualism is causing a conflict.  France has seen this with their homogenizing of France under one language, where they now can’t deal with minorities (i.e. the Muslims) who don’t speak that language.  Spain and the Basque country are cases-in-point.  Language is the greatest tool in cultural identity.  Spain’s attempted eradications of the Basque language in the past is then also a stamping out the Basque culture, which is where we again find the repressed and antagonized scenario mentioned earlier, and minorities become hostile.   The same fate awaits the US if we try to make English the official language. We will see minorities across our nation — the various Native American tribes, the legal and illegal Mexicans, the aforementioned Hawaiians, the Inuit of Alaska — take offense and rise against it.  In conclusion, having English as a lingua franca is great, requiring it as a language of most businesses if fine.  But to try to stamp out all languages but English is a Pandora’s Box waiting to be opened.

 

Ryan

 

P.S. Can you tell this issue really irritates me?? ;-)

 

 

DUSTY’S RESPONSE TO RYAN (VIA LEN)

 

 

Dear Ryan,

 

Your grandfather (and my friend), Len Carrier shared your reaction to our “Border Wars” exchange, and I struggle to find words sufficient to express how much I admired your thinking, your analysis, and your extremely prodigious (I don’t want to patronize you by calling it “precocious”) writing skills.  It seems our educational institutions aren’t failing us in America altogether. 

 

With your permission, I would like to post your thoughtful criticism of my previously-expressed views advocating a monolingual America, in regard to immigrating Mexicans, alien and otherwise.  In responding to you I may conclude, when I finish, that I’ve composed something worth sharing with our web readership; I’ve already concluded that your thoughts warrant publication.  We have created Democratswrite.com to serve us as a clearinghouse and on-line “think tank” for the exchanging of ideas on matters of domestic and foreign policy.

 

So here’s my reaction to your offering:  You are obviously a serious student of history and social order. I am not motivated even to  question your statements regarding the things you say about efforts in other countries and times to bi-lingualize peoples. History is a great teacher, and that’s one reason learned folks admonish us to either study it or risk its repetition.

 

But some cultural phenomena become skewed when you consider them as “transplantable” templates.   For axiomatic example:  We Americans love our dogs and include them in our families as beloved, if  inarticulate, members.  In Hong Kong, dogs are “cao” and frequently serve as coveted entrees at the family dinner table. (I made the mistake of accepting  a cruel quantity of precious canine flesh a few years back and will never forget the aftertaste and memory when the joke on me was disclosed.)

 

Ryan, America is not Canada; it is not the Balkans. We (unlike they) were once a united and very prosperous and powerful mono-lingual country.

 

We have dysfunction wherever we have language dividing us. Our colleges teach in English; we enjoy our movies in English; we read our news in English; we write one another…as now…in English.

 

 Honorable native Americans never in fact “sold” Manhattan to our early European settlers.  Those noble savages came to the bargaining table and accepted gifts of valuable specie in return for the “purchase” of that now invaluable real estate when, in their language at the time, there was no known word for “ownership” in reference to land.  The noble savages who inhabited and hunted Manhattan and neighboring islands felt themselves to be a part of the land.  If there had been a shared language among American aborigine and European immigrants, a mass slaughter and myriad tragic “Indian wars” and inhumane forced genocidal migrations might have been avoided.  But our forefathers “didn’t have time” to master the language of America’s original inhabitants and hence dealt with them accordingly (savagely).  

 

Now we’re the natives. By hook and historic crook, times have changed.  There are now 300 million of us. We are not Canada. We are not the Balkans. We are not a nation (e.g. Iraq) composed of disparate (and naturally antithetic or warring) peoples politically composited by the fiat of foreign and remote  power politics. 

 

Until recently, the U.S. was the strongest nation on earth.  One of its strengths was its “E Pluribus Unum” popular modus operandum .  French, Irish, English, German…peoples from all over the globe swarmed in at our new-world beckoning and dived into the melting pot; parboiled themselves voluntarily in hell’s kitchens until the mongrel American emerged.  You and I. English-speaking Americans.

 

When the smoke of that cultural conflagration cleared, the masses selected English as their common language.  America evolved into what the Balkans…make that the rest of the world was not…a federation of united states where everyone could speak to everyone else. This perhaps more than any other single factor accounts for our strength and our success throughout our brief history.

 

Did this shared language end all ethnic stressors among America’s diverse population?  Of course not. But it made it possible for everyone to communicate their commonalities, their differences and their essential business matters mano a mano…and without the need (and disability) of a paid translator or  plodding resort to foreign language lexicons.

 

Ryan, you and I are having this wonderful exchange for one reason and one reason only: We are both masters of the same language. Try an imagine your task if you were trying to debate me in Spanish.

 

When I VISITED France one summer long ago, I studied the language before I went. Had I planned to reside there, my mastery would have been much greater.

 

In the Bible’s Old Testament, there’s a story of Babel’s tower.  Old stories passed through centuries carry the strongest messages. When people speak divergent  tongues, there is social/cultural/political chaos…and occasional mayhem.  

 

In your contending that the Balkans, and diverse cultures of Canada and other “Balkanized” countries survive in their respective states of lingual diversities, you are talking about the Balkans and Canada, etc. In every case you are hoisted on your own petard. If Canada was forced to go to war as a people, its linguistic diversity would be hugely counter-productive.  The fact is, most people in Canada speak English (along with their ethnically-“native” languages).

 

Your pointing to England’s separation from Ireland on the basis of language is, I’d say, less than determinative of our issue. England and Ireland’s problems are, as I’d say Canada and the Balkans,  Apples, tangerines, and grapefruits to America’s orange. America’s strength, as I see it, derives from far more than its prior, consistent mono-linguality.  But its mono-linguality I think is part of the foundation of  her success as a nation.

 

And I think you may have overlooked a part of the thesis with which you took issue. I don’t personally know of anyone (including myself) who has championed the idea of forced mono-linguality.  I think it would be just fine if Mexicans spoke fluent Spanish and English.  I simply insist that, before they become citizens, they should learn English.

 

My reasons for so insisting stem from experiences you have perhaps not yet encountered as a student.  I am a lawyer. In American courts (which I daily attend and observe) when an illegal Mexican immigrant commits a crime, it costs the State of N.C. ten times as much to arrest, try and convict him because he must be supplied a bi-lingual interpreter every step of his criminal adjudication.   Add to this the additional fact that they are committing, per capita, crime at 2 to 10 times the frequency English-speaking residents are, and you see the problem is compounded.

 

Let me offer you a few more capsules of analogical (to Balkans, Canada and other multi-lingual countries) distinction.  Illegal Mexican aliens are not “Balkanized”. They are not geographically concentrated in our country so as to constitute and manage an independent sub-cultural “micro populace”.  They live among us.  Our irresponsible dollar-driven corporations hire them in spite of their language disabilities, and as a result, their disabled language status adversely cripples their abilities to do their jobs and, as a result, competence at all levels of American society is dwindling.

 

Example: I just got back from enjoying an evening of music and dining with the Justices of the U.S. Supreme Court in our capitol.  Ruth Ginsburg got me a room at the Plaza State hotel. I arrived late (just past 12PM) but was up until 3 AM because there was, literally, no-one in the entire facility who spoke English. They made serial errors in denying my credit card account;  charging me for a parking space they could not provide; searching for a fax they could not locate because it was located in a safe in a package labeled with a transition instruction in English (to the hotel desk clerk, a foreign language). The letter was my engraved invitation (and admission) to the Supreme Court function. 

 

When an illegal alien is run over in the street, he will often die, not  from the impact, but from his inability to say “I am allergic to sulfa”, or “I have type O blood”, or “I have diabetes”.

 

Corporations now charge us increased prices for everything we purchase because everything we purchase has bi-lingual packaging and instructions.  

 

Saying that bilingualism causes little dissent in China carries no merit in the argument that bilingualism in America causes waste, confusion, and in some cases death.  Across the board it causes the antithesis of cultural assimilation and creates dysfunction on every level of social function from inability to read menus and road signs, to inability to relate vital data to healthcare and police authorities.

 

If I concede that bilingualism is not often—anywhere—“the” cause for dissent, I will never concede the reciprocal:  that shared language is not the best preventative for dissention  (all forms of social dysfunction among foreign—only–language speaking immigrants and their indigenous hosts).

 

This could go on forever, because, as most “social issues”, the layers of complexity are onion-like.  You can peel downward to new layers seemingly forever.  Intelligent reference and allusion to similar (but not exact) problems in other countries and times can skew our thinking. 

 

When there are many complex angles and possible solutions presenting themselves in regard to a given problem, I like to bring out Occam’s razor…. “The simplest  solution is probably the best.”   Here I believe Occam’s razor cuts our ignorance down to the core admonition:  “When in Rome, do as the Romans.”

 

When you come to America to live, learn the language…before you come. Up until a very few years ago, most immigrants felt so fortunate to be allowed through our gates they considered learning English a privilege.  We still offer free lessons to willing illegal aliens in most state-run trade schools.  They don’t want to bother. They want to protest being threatened with deportation when they have entered in violation of our laws. They want to march in our streets under the protection of our Constitutional rights to due process of law and free speech, and they want to sing our national anthem on such riotous occasions in Spanish while waving the flag of Mexico, a foreign country.

 

Please. Give me a frigging break.  “Spanglish” is a fairly enjoyable movie, but in reality, we are an English-speaking country.  If you want to become part of our great country and culture, learn the language and knock politely on the front door.  We’re the natives and you (Mexican aliens) are the new-coming would-be settlers.  We’re not going to sell you Manhattan—or even Texas- for a few pesos…not even a dozen Taccos Bellagrandes.

 

A parting thought, Ryan. Picture yourself three years from now. You’ve decided to take a sabbatical from college and see what the working world is like. You get a job hanging steel on the Freedom Building…replacing the old Twin Towers.  You like it up top where the view and inherent risks are  thrilling and the pay is double because of the risk.  Your job is riveting the major I-beams on the top floor as it rises to the sky (like Babel’s tower).  Behind you, as you work is a guy running a crane which swings the new beams over your head as you sit, facing the other way with torch and hammer in hand.

 

One sunny day the guy in the crane hasn’t hoisted his 12-ton load of swinging bars over the level of your head, and pendulous death is on its way towards making final contact with your plastic-hated cranium.  The guy watching your back says to you, “Esquivar, Ryan!”  Instead of ducking, you turn to ask your friend Pedro what the hell “Esquivar” means. 

 

Now you know why God gave us that potent little parable about Babel’s multilingual tower.  I personally think there may be something far scarier and more dangerous even than the terrorists who took down our Twin Towers in Manhattan in 2001 screaming “Allah Achbar!”   That would be the man running a steel-loading derrick on the construction site where they’re replacing the felled towers screaming “ Esquivar, Ryan!”

 

Thanks Ryan for the careful thoughts and passionate communications. Words are the only tools of our amazing human intellect. A language which is foreign to us is simply…not our tool.  Every day I am grateful if and when someone gives me cause and occasion to think and to write.  Today I’m thankful for you.

 

Best regards,

 

Dusty

 

PS: Please send me your full name, address and where you attend school, so I can post it in the by-line to your fine policy essay.

 

 

 

 

RYAN’S CONDLUDING REMARKS:

(and by-line)

 

 

Mr. Schoch,

    Thank you for reading my argument, and taking the time to respond to it as well.  You may indeed post it on Democrats Write, or wherever else you’d wish to use it. For the By-Line, use:

 

Also, I would like to express my gratitude for your answering my comments in earnest, and not being condescending or half-hearted as people (adults) often are when addressing someone of my age.   And, I would like to thank you for your kind comments in the opening paragraph of your response.

    On the issue we were discussing, may I send along a response-to-your-response, if you will, which I give you full permission to publish as well (It follows the line break after this paragraph).  This was taken from a letter I sent my Grandpa, so you may wish to omit the parts that refer to him, or the parts that refer to you in the third person.

 

    I like Mr. Schoch.  He forgot one part of my argument, however, which was that English should DEFINITELY be a lingua franca for our country.  Peoples that can’t communicate at all can’t be hoped to coexist perfectly.  I just think making English “official” and thereby making the minority languages “unofficial” and therefore “not as good,” “unworthy,” and even to a certain degree “unclean” is not a good idea.  I’ve known (through school) several people who speak English as well as anyone, but whose parents do not (often because they are working on it, but it is hard to learn. Notice they made sure their kids learned, though).  I’ve also known people who speak English just fine, their parents speak it just fine, and yet they choose to speak Spanish (or, as is the case with some I know down here, Vietnamese) in their home-like and around their community.  These are both legal and illegal people I’ve known.  So to force English as official, and thereby strip these other languages of any sort of status, is unfair to people who try to learn English to become Americans but still want to hold to their ethnic roots in private life, or around their community.  It violates the “equality” our country is supposedly built on.  Going back to my China example, most of those minorities speak Mandarin along with their language. They have to to get by.  But with Chinese promoting of “official” status to their respective languages, those people no longer feeloppressed by Mandarin.  So in the end, we have similar ideas, but different approaches. I think stamping out Spanish (or Vietnamese, or whatever) is wrong.  I think giving them a lesser status is wrong.  I think, personally, it wouldn’t hurt the average American to quit thinking, egotistically, that English is THE language, and learn one or two others.  But in the end, Mr. Schoch is right.  Immigrants who come and exclusively speak Spanish are a problem.  His, and others, method of fixing it, however, leaves something to be desired.  I think the problem need not be solved in laws against the language, but in perhaps persuading business to be less willing to hire Spanish-only speaking workers.  How that can be done I only have ideas, but not being an economist, I’ll not be so pretentious as to voice them.  I just know it is possible.  In the end, I say don’t try to solve the problem (Spanish-only speaking immigrants run amok) by creating more (angering both legal and illegal Spanish speakers, as well as any other minority language in America, by denouncing their language).  Besides, there is the utmost of likelihood that, like the Basque, to use one of my other previous examples, trying to lessen the status of the language will only make those who speak it speak it more vehemently, and with less willingness to compromise.  Anyone can see that this is a bad course of action.

 

Once again, thank you for taking the time to listen to me, and for responding as well,

Ryan

 

P.S. If you find any typos, or see any place where you feel sentence structure could be improved, feel free to change them.  I would ask if you could send me any revisions you make before you publish them, though. (As much for my own enlightenment as for screening purposes)

 

 

Ryan Kampert will soon be sixteen (!).  He resides in Panama City, Florida and there  attends Rutherford High School (where he is an International Baccalaureate scholar) as a sophomore.   

 

His grandfather, Len Carrier, is understandably–and understatedly–quite proud.

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