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Rick Lewis's avatar

Then there is the issue of those of us who only speak english at yet find ourselves not communicating well at all with other english speakers. There's the functional aspect of language you are addressing here and then the relational aspect of using it that seems to be something we ought to care about just as much as the mechanics.

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Frank's avatar

As someone born here who didn’t learn English until age four with the help of Sesame Street, I believe cultural cohesion is important and necessary. However, let’s not mistake what this executive order is truly about. It’s not a unifying measure—it’s designed to create hardships for the very people we should have empathy for. This sets a precedent for making multilingual notices illegal, which would affect many essential services, most importantly voting ballots.

Learning another language is difficult, and as many Americans demonstrate, so is mastering the only one they know. A better approach would have been developing a plan to teach English to those here legally through voucher systems to prevent fraud, or as a prerequisite for naturalization. With AI’s prevalence, the cost would be minimal if we genuinely wanted to eliminate language barriers without creating new ones.

I appreciate the sentiment and tone of your article, but you discount the turmoil this creates for people who—whether they know English well or not—may communicate in a different language. Picture some “American” approaching them and demanding they speak English because “this is America.” This was already happening before the executive order; now these individuals will be doubly emboldened to act this way.

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