Language in the U.S.

Quote of the day:
“Invoking simple solutions to complex problems is an easy and effective rhetorical device. No need to do research, check facts, consider complexities--just assert the solution and, as long as it is close enough to what people are ready to believe, the argument is won.”
--John Moore, chair of the linguistics department at the University of California San Diego, and Ana Celia Zentella, professor in the department of ethnic studies, UCSD.

Moore and Celia Zentella are quoted from an excellent column they wrote in the June 28th San Diego Union-Tribune about the issue of Spanish and English usage in the U.S.

They continue:
“From media discussions, one would think that Latino communities are Spanish-only language ghettos where no one is willing to learn English. However, the facts say otherwise. More than 70 percent of Spanish speakers in the United States are also fluent in English, and a very large number of U.S. Latinos can only speak English.

“Those who do not attain fluency in English are almost exclusively first-generation immigrants who came to the United States as adults....

“[T]hese first-generation Spanish speakers are learning English in greater numbers than has ever been the case in our history as an immigrant nation, and many of their children are learning little or no Spanish.

“The perception that Spanish speakers won’t speak English is simply false--they do and they do so faster than earlier immigrants did.”