Read the following quotes on diversity in America. What is your response? This is especially relevant for Nashville since there is currently a bill in the Metro Council that proposes to make English the only language for all Metro government publications.
"We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language, and we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, and not as dwellers of a polyglot boarding-house." Theodore Roosevelt
"We have become not a melting pot but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams." Jimmy Carter
3 comments:
Obviously Carter and Roosevelt had very different views on diversity in America. One can infer from their statements that Roosevelt was very against immigration. I believe he would vote for the bill to make it so that English would be the only language used be the government. Carter on the other hand finds cultural diversity very beautiful and goes so far as to compare diversity to art. He would most likely vote against this bill because he would see it only as a way to stop immigration and make it harder on people coming to America speaking no English, yet looking for a better life.
I personally do not agree with this bill. Yes it would force citizens to learn English and make it harder for illegals, but in the long run it will not benefit the good of the people. Especially if this means that the government wont provide translators for things such as emergency care. If someone who doesn't speak any English gets in an accident and calls 911 what are they supposed to do since the government wouldn't be required to have a translator. I don't know if this bill would only apply to government documents, but either way (written or unwritten) I believe it is a bad idea.
However, this isn't very much of an issue anymore because the bill was not passed to go on the ballet this year.
Although Roosevelt and Carter's responses were very different, if not complete opposites, I can understand both of their points of view.
Roosevelt wanted to unify us as a country and a people. He didn't want any language issues to prevent us from succeeding at this. He didn't want us to be divided into factions of people that could potentially cause trouble when interacting with people of a different "faction". On the other hand, you still have racial issues between peoples that speak the same language.
Carter felt that we have been able to come together as one country already and that language wasn't an issue. When he talks about the different people, different beliefs, etc., I feel that all of these points he makes wouldn't have to neccessarily apply to people who speak different languages. All of these points about people being different apply to everyone, no matter what language they speak. I think that that was basically what he was trying to convey: that everyone is different regardless of language spoken.
I don't know how I feel about the proposed bill for the Metro government because I can see both sides of the argument. I need to weigh the consequences of each.
Goooo Jimmy!!! Roosevelt lived in a time before america was america.I would agree on what Mr.Carter stated considering the fact that america has too many foreginers to just ignore all the different languages and without them well... america just wouldnt fell right.
Unity in america comes from the collection of all the diversity from all around the world, so if anything we should be thankful for all the different types of languages and actually put more languages on applications and give people more oppertunities to show how much they appriciate the country.
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