Abolish bilingual education, Gingrich urges
POSTED: 10:50 p.m. EDT, March 31, 2007
Story Highlights
• Newt Gingrich equates bilingual education with "language of living in a ghetto"
• Former House speaker says election ballots should be in English only
• Bilingual teaching advocate calls speech "hateful"
• Peter Zamora says immigrants don't resist learning English
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.
"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women...
via Anti-Essentialist Conundrum, who continues:
This man is considering running for president of the United States — a country that insists in meddling in international affairs, a country willing to mince words when caught in lies, and a country with a political climate that lays claim moral fiber so it can skewer others maliciously in this so-called free marketplace of ideas. We revere this country as a melting pot — we celebrate its mixtures as we simultaneously promote lockstep conformity to amorphous and contradictory “American” values whose only blatant connection is raw opportunism. We sit and we applaud blatant bigotry for our own personal security rather than any serious concern for the security of this country. Around what are we uniting? Do we care about the significance of that union anymore beyond materialist safeguarding and the polarization of classes?
I was going to launch into a long rant about the value of bilingual education and the importance of cultural awareness. I was going to denounce the reprehensible coding of Gingrich equating these important goals for advancing understanding on a growing interdependent international landscape with “trying to understand the ghetto,” and the classist and racist implications of the word “ghetto” in American social society. Hell, I was even going to discuss the ignorant imperialist and colonialist tropes of associating the English language with “prosperity” — a language traditionally spoken by thieves of native cultures; by oppressors on a large, reprehensible scale. This emergence of a learn the language of your conquerors/superiors mentality. How his comments seem to erect a wall of ignorance to the fact that people who do not speak English in America are learning English to accommodate our systems. How those comments run counter to a land of opportunity where every person is given the tools to succeed.
I was going to write all of those things, and then I grew disgusted with the fact that I wanted to spell them out in a post. It’s a disheartening feeling, one of those can’t people just see that for themselves? feelings. Those feelings that you can’t write everything down; you can’t properly capture in English how much perception of these narratives tighten an everpresent knot in your stomach. How onerous it is to read this tripe and its association with power, and then to look into the faces of others who work to survive day-to-day amidst this faux-intelligence that leads to an ideological hysteria that could cost them their livelihoods or even their lives. Their children. Their liberty....
Me, I'm just channeling my own peoples' "ghetto" language. With regard to Herr Newt, then, and oh, so many more:
Eyn imglik iz far im veynik.
(One misfortune is too few for him).
Shteyner af zayne beyner.
(Stones on his bones).
Ale tseyn zoln bay im aroysfaln, not eyner zol im blaybn oyf tsonveytung.
(All his teeth should fall out except one to make him suffer).
Er zol hobn paroys makes bashotn mit oybes krets.
(He should have Pharaoh�s plagues sprinkled with Job's scabies).
A kramp (a kram, a kortsh) im in layb (in boyakh, in di kishkes, in di gederem, in di finger).
A cramp in his body (in his stomach, in his guts, in his bowels, in his fingers and toes).
Fransn zol esn zayn layb.
(Venereal disease should consume his body).
Oyf doktoyrim zol er dos avekgebn.
(He should give it all away to doctors).
Trinkn zoln im piavkes.
(Leeches should drink him dry).
Lakhn zol er mit yashtherkes.
(He should laugh with lizards).
Meshuga zol er vern un arumloyfn (iber di gasn).
(He should go nuts and run around (through the streets)).
Ale tsores vos ikh hob oyf mayn hartsn, zoln oysgeyn tsu zayn kop.
(All problems I have in my heart, should go to his head).
Zol es im onkumn vos ikh vintsh im (khotsh a helft, khotsh halb, khotsh a tsent kheylik).
(Let what I wish on him come true (most, even half, even just 10%)).
On a similar note, I am also quite fond of Aman Yala's series,
"A Piano Should Fall On Their Heads."
Omeyn.
9 comments:
And I forgot to add: How much of an inconvenience is reading a bilingual ballot than a bilingual box of pasta?
My understanding is that bilingual education -- i.e., English as a Second Language programs -- exists in order to ensure that students who enroll in U.S. schools without English fluency won't fall behind in their education while learning English. Because it is difficult to understand new information (like multiplication or mitosis) in a foreign language, non-English speakers are taught such info in their native languages just as long as that is necessary. I do agree that the goal should be for students to transition to English-speaking classes as soon as is feasible (i.e. not causing them to fall behind in comprehending the subject matter).
Gingrich of course is a moron -- what does he think would happen to test scores if kids who didn't speak English were taught math in it, then made to take a test in a subject where they had learned almost nothing b/c they couldn't understand what the teacher was saying? somehow I suspect those kids will be encouraged to be sick on test day... -- but I think ESL is a wholly separate issue from cultural awareness. We have ESL in order to make sure that school do their job of educating children, including educating them in their native language until they're English proficient. We have American schools in foreign countries so diplomats' children don't have to learn the local language and take classes in it. (One of my best friends grew up overseas and is fairly good at Spanish, but I doubt she could have taken algebra in it.)
Cultural awareness is a different matter and to some extent a luxury. My high school *needed* its ESL classes; we scraped by without learning very much about different cultures.
As for the ballots, I suspect ol' Gingrich would lose his mind if he ever encountered a ballot in a developing country with linguistically diverse peoples and lower levels of literacy than the U.S. Indian politicians, for example, are assigned a symbol so illiterate people can vote for the candidate of their choice. (Of course, this "developing country" has managed to implement electronic voting.)
I make whatever money I earn through ESL teaching.
***Anyone who doesn't care for cussing please don't look any further than this***
Belle, please erase this if it's too, uh, colorful for your tastes.
This dumbass fuckwad gets under my skin like almost no one else. I hate him even more than Rick "Man On Dog" Santorum. This is the same asshole who served his wife with divorce papers while she was in the hospital being treated for cancer. Nothing he does or says could surprise me at this point. When it comes to curses, my personal favorite is the good ol'
"May the fleas of a thousand camels rest upon his loins"
That sounds about right for this jerk!
Belle, please erase this if it's too, uh, colorful for your tastes.
surely you jest...
May I also add:
lakh laanat
- on hundred thousand curses
gharki jogay
- worthy of destruction
lun peh charrh
- jump on (my? his? any?) dick
gaand phattay aur darzi chhutti peh ho
- may his ass tear wide open and the tailor be on holiday
There. That feels better.
Hebrew's supposedly a good language for swearing, but the only good swears in it are really Arabic or Russian words. So I'll chip in in the language I actually use:
May the puddle of piss get a stroke out of reading a bilingual box of pasta, go through nine rounds of administrative red tape at the hospital, and croak before a doctor gets a chance to look at him. And may feral dogs eat all of his body, except for one part that can be buried so that people can dance on his grave.
Have you heard about this update?
Newt Apologizes for Comments In Spanish
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