Language in America

About the importance of Spanish to the USA and the rise of Chinese in schools.
The first three paragraphs are meant to be informational.

First off, I would like to present some facts about the Spanish language before I come into discussion. It is one of the top five most spoken languages in the world. It is spoken in all of the America (North, Central, and South), Europe, and in parts of Africa and Asia/Oceania. Having said this, aside from English (which has more people speaking it as non-native than those who learn it natively), on a global scale Spanish is the most spoken with the greatest distribution. Chinese- from Mandarin and Cantonese that are some of the most spoken in the world are concentrated, for the great majority, to China. Hindi and Bengali? Those are mostly concentrated in India and Bangladesh. Japanese is on the top ten list of the most spoken language, yet most of the people who speak Japanese are concentrated on one Island. Spanish undeniably has a greater outreach.

Now in America, the Spanish speaking demographic is undeniably rising. No, it isn't because those darned illegals who refuse to learn English are just coming in floods over the border to take away jobs from hard-working Americans. See in America, there are many people that immigrate here from other countries, like Spain or Mexica or Cuba or Chile, legally. There's about 30/high 20s Spanish-speaking countries where these people can come from; There can be first generation, second generation, even third generation Americans that speak their heritage language. As a result, America is the fifth largest Spanish speaking country in the entire world in terms of population.

On the note of Spanish-speakers refusing to learn to speak English, 70% of the Spanish-speaking population in America speaks English very well/well. Considering that a portion of that population are immigrants, immigrants that emigrated from their Spanish-speaking country of origin at a later age, it is not surprising that some (about 20%) of them do not speak English very well - it is very hard to learn a language at a later in life. Under 10% do not speak English at all; there is the factor of just coming (in some cases, escaping) to America and having to learn and then there are cases that are the actual basis for the stereotype that Spanish-speakers come to our country and don't bother learning the language.*

In light of events in recent years, like heated immigration debates, the super wall, rising numbers of "hate crimes" against Hispanics, and that entire deal about spitefully or not spitefully making English officially the official language of the United States- I have noticed a growing trend of bias towards the Spanish language. This to me, is rather upsetting as American is (like it or not) is one of the largest Spanish-speaking countries, the Spanish-speaking demographic in America is growing regardless of tensions, and Spanish globally is, with the exception of English, distributed more than any other language across the world. Spanish inside and outside of this country gives its people so many opportunities.

I hear things about how "we Americans" shouldn't have to learn Spanish, or that everyone else in the world should just learn English. Well for one, more people speak English as a foreign language than people who speak English as a first language- so there's a good start on making everyone else learn English already. But honestly the next in line widely spoken language is Spanish! How can this be ignored? Parents and students are complaining that they have to take a foreign language in high school and college! Do they not realize that having another language, especially Spanish, will help their employment later in life? Demand for bilingual people is growing in the job market; in America, Spanish-Speakers are definately in demand for jobs ranging from translation to marketing to child services. Bilingual medics! I mean, Spanish is all over this country and there are many countries OUTSIDE of this country where Spanish is an asset.

This is where I introduce my point about China. Chinese programs are now being more introduced into American school. China is a world super power, right? They have the vagina-looking Olympic stadium, right? America wants to be friends with them (BUT NOT CUBA) despite their human rights violation and oh so threatening communism, right? What bothers me about introducing our kids to this language (in those lovely 2 years minimum required classes) is not that they are learning Chinese, but they are learning Chinese instead of, as an alternative to, Spanish; by learning Chinese, they are avoiding more contact with Spanish.

Of course there are some schools that offer classes such as French or German, and these also limit a child from formal education about Spanish. What concerns me is that so many schools have decided to start introducing Chinese. I am doing a teacher mentorship at a middle school in a different district than my high school. My high school is introducing a Chinese class for heritage speakers next year, in addition to the Spanish, German, and French classes it already offers. The district I am doing the mentorship at next years is implementing Chinese, and has not offered anything but Spanish before.

There are some parts of America where Chinese is spoken more than Spanish, but not many. So is it that useful to these kids? Yes, the number of Chinese-speakers in America has risen, but the numbers are still greatly dwarfed by the numbers of Spanish-speakers. Where are these kids going to practice their skills? What is going to happen if/when our relations with the one major Chinese-speaking country go sour? Keep teaching them Chinese despite re-isolation or in efforts to have more people go to war? I hate to sound so pessimistic, but relations with China- though eager at the moment- are looking more and more dreary as the world cries out about whatever the hell China is doing wrong and why it is bad. Not to put Chinese-Americans down, but cultures relating to Spanish-speaking countries, especially Spanish-speaking countries of Americas, have a much greater presence and influence in this country.

Chinese is also a very difficult language to learn, as I am told by my Chinese- and Taiwanese-American friends (I go to an international school). I have a Malaysian/German friend with Chinese heritage- her mom had her
do Chinese school and it was too hard for her despite having the
language and culture background from her family. From these people I've learned that apparently the average Chinese person isn't proficient in reading and writing their language until they are about thirty. Even though American kids won't have to be bothered with conjugating verbs in Chinese (as Chinese doesn't conjugates verbs like Spanish or English), they still have to learn the four tones (which they don't have naturally as a result of waiting until kids are about 10 to start teaching them foreign language) and grammar that is completely removed from what they are used to. Learning Chinese characters takes much time and dedication as well. How much of this can be taught in a few years of high school? Even though Ni Hao Kai Lan is an adorable TV show and superior to Dora the Explorer (in my opinion), I don't think it can prepare kids to achieve that kind of fluency of handle of the language.

So in all, the negative attitudes about Spanish and the newer options that expand away and replace Spanish education as alternatives are bothersome. Again, I have no problem with someone learning Chinese if they want to/are committed/it will help them somehow in their life, but massively introducing it into the schools means that X many kids will be required to take that class so it can run and they probably won't get a very extensive education. That means at least X many kids are not going to be learning something that can help them extensively. And yes, high school language class aren't very extensive as it is - so imagining the quality of a student's Chinese after two years is not exciting considering how much work I know a Chinese persons puts into becoming proficient in their language.

So, if you actually read all of this: How important do you think Spanish is to America? Do you think that Chinese can effectively taught in short term class of middle and high school levels? In general, which of the two do you think is the beneficial to learn? If you are in high school, would you rather take Spanish or Chinese, and why? If you were to have children, which language would you rather they learn?

*This information was provided by a census from 2000, issued in 2003. It is not the most recent data, but this is the source: http://www.census.gov/prod/2003pubs/c2kbr-29.pdf. I realize that this is not the most accurate assessment of the current situation, but finding an accurate and unbiased source at the current time is rather difficult. If someone who reads this provides a reliable and unbiased source with more up to date information, I will gladly modify the post.