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Jewish World Review
June 13, 2005
/ 6 Sivan, 5765
When bilingual means doublespeak
By
Debra J. Saunders
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Academic freedom and quality suffered a blow last week
when writer Richard Rodriguez announced that he would not speak at
California State University East Bay's commencement. He didn't want to
endure a ceremony boycotted by some students. So reasonable minds didn't get
to hear what Rodriguez has to say because unreasonable mouths won the day.
"He believes in assimilation and rejection of one's own cultural
identity," student and bilingual teacher Leah Perez complained to The San
Francisco Chronicle. That's a ridiculous assertion. Rodriguez does not
reject his identity. The more accurate charge would be that he is not a
fanatic.
Sarah Gonzales, a professor all bow who supports the move
to intimidate Rodriguez, used doublespeak when she told The Chronicle: "We
need to teach our students to be able to listen to diverse opinions, but
they also need to be able to respond. As a commencement speaker, he gets
free air time." Guess what. He also gets free speech.
Except at CSU East Bay.
And so the censorious students and authoritarian faculty decided
to have their own little graduation ceremony, even with Rodriguez bowing
out. That way, they won't have to expose their minds to any view that might
offend them. When they threw their graduation caps into the air, they could
pat themselves on the back for guaranteeing a ceremony that didn't make them
think.
I take what happened to Rodriguez personally, because while he
is getting flak from the left, I experience the same nasty censoriousness
from the far right. If you stray from a certain set of opinions, the posse
of extremism goes a-hunting. You see, no pundit is allowed to think that,
just maybe sometimes, folks from another political persuasion have a point.
In the Internet age, partisans can log on to opinions
tailor-made to conform to their own beliefs or sites that report only news
they like. So they've come to see conservative-only news as something of a
right: The right to not hear contrary opinions and discomforting
information.
They also believe the Internet and talk radio will and
should spare them from information they don't like. The far left and the
far right share this dangerous conviction that they shouldn't even be
exposed to what other Americans think. In this case, the students' rage was
based on their views of Rodriguez's 1982 book, "Hunger of Memory." "The sad
part is people doing this based on a book they haven't read," campus
spokesman Kim Huggett told The Chronicle.
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No lie. Then again, you can see why bilingual-education
advocates wouldn't want to hear or read Rodriguez. Their cause relies on the
ability of zealots to ignore unwanted data and, more importantly, student
success.
When English-immersion activist Ron Unz put Proposition 227 on
the ballot in 1998, most Democrats opposed the measure, and many educators
did, too. They had their reasons. They feared non-English speakers would not
learn subject matter. They believed English immersion would be especially
harmful to older students.
But a funny thing happened. Proposition 227 worked. Within five
years, the number of limited-English students who could speak English
proficiently tripled. Educators who cared about immigrant children
succeeding reassessed their beliefs. They didn't have to turn their backs on
bilingual education entirely, let me add. To their credit, they simply came
to realize that English immersion often works better with young children.
Bilingual advocates have been faced with two ways to address the
success of Proposition 227. They could admit that bilingual education only
works best for some people, and concentrate on that niche. Or they could
ignore the successes of English immersion because they want Latinos to speak
Spanish first and foremost. Imagine, then, how bilingual zealots would be
especially threatened by a Latino who, from personal experience, knows in
his heart that English fluency is attainable and essential for immigrant
children to succeed in America. His crime is that he makes it more difficult
for the bilingual lobby to dismiss English immersion supporters as racists.
Such a man must be vilified. He must be marginalized. He must be
silenced.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
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Debra J. Saunders Archives
© 2005, Creators Syndicate
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