NOT LONG AGO I CAME ACROSS THESE WORDS in the guidebook for a popular 12-step program: “We help best by inspiring people to think through and solve their own problems. Otherwise we deprive them of the opportunity to develop experience and strength from working things out for themselves.”

This is such a simple and basic rule of thumb! It applies to just about everything we humans do — whether it’s raising kids, managing a business or helping somebody (including ourselves) break a bad habit. Yet, when it comes to solving big national problems like immigration or entitlement reform, we don’t get it.

Some might say such problems are too complex, involving millions of people from vastly different backgrounds with many different needs. They say things like, “The devil’s in the details.” The details of a problem are important, of course, but the devil isn’t in the details. It’s in the people who refuse to think through the details.
Consider one of the most important details of immigration reform — the so-called “English language requirement.”

The immigration reform proposal now being considered by Congress stipulates that immigrants who want to earn a green card must pass a “naturalization test.” This test requires them to speak and read a list of six question words (such as “why,” “where,” “when”), 12 verbs (such as “can,” “have,” “come”), 12 “other function” words (“to,” “on,” “we”), and 19 “other content” words (“first,” “most,” “south”). Also on the list are 10 “civics” words (such as Congress); 10 place names (such as United States); and seven national holidays (such as Presidents Day).

To those of us raised in English-speaking families, this 77-word list seems pretty basic. Learning any new language “from scratch” involves much more than simply memorizing a list of basic words, though. Experts claim it takes about 600 hours of instruction for someone who speaks no English to achieve “conversational competence.” The problem is, nobody really knows how long it would take — or how much it would cost — to teach 12 million undocumented immigrants to speak and read English.

When Congress passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 and promised to reimburse state and local governments up to $4 billion to set up English as a Second Language (ESL) programs, those programs didn’t work. Even today, most ESL programs are provided by a patchwork of community colleges, public libraries and volunteer groups. There is no consistent or coherent curriculum and no incentive for regular attendance.
Regular attendance, by the way, is the most important factor in the success of any ESL program. The problem is, how do adult learners who are probably working long hours and raising families find the time to attend ESL classes?

In recent years, a number of pilot online ESL programs have been funded by such private agencies as the Gates Foundation. These digitally mediated programs have the advantage of making instruction much more efficient and effective, especially for younger learners who are comfortable with interactive video, social networking and messaging. The “digital divide” is still a problem for most adult immigrants, though, because they are less likely than non-immigrants to have access to a computer or the Internet at home.

Apart from the digital divide, time-management and cost factors, there are many other barriers to the success of any nation-wide ESL program. The lack of an English language requirement under current law, for example, has encouraged new immigrants to live and work only in “ethnic enclaves.” As a result, they are less likely to see any need to learn English. Sadly, this perception is further encouraged by political advocacy groups such as La Raza.

Angelica Salas, executive director of the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, has been a strong advocate of such ethnic enclaves. When the California Citizens Redistricting Commission was redrawing voting districts in early 2011, Ms. Salas wrote in the April 10 Sacramento Bee that “Immigrant neighborhoods, whether newly created or long-standing, should be sustained, not split up, as the commission sets district boundaries.”

Most American citizens, whether liberal or conservative, believe assimilation involves bringing different groups of people together to help all families contribute to and benefit from open communication and economic growth in our free enterprise system. Who could possibly benefit from the rigid balkanization of our population into ethnic enclaves? Ms. Salas’ answer is unequivocal: “The danger in any district drawing is that new lines chop up a place that functions as hub for immigrant families, diluting and weakening our voting strength.”

Here’s what newcomers to America probably understand better than most of us who were born here: English is not just our de facto national language; it is the universal language of liberty. It is the language of the Magna Carta, of the United States Constitution, of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and of Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech. It is the language of the song we sing before every Major League Baseball game — “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Bruce Robinson is an author and former Benicia resident.

Sharing is caring!