July 19, 2006

The English-only crowd is taking its cause to ridiculous lengths.

Look at Steve Lonegan, mayor of Bogota, a small town in New Jersey. He is calling for a boycott of McDonald's restaurants because the fast-food company displayed a billboard advertising a new iced coffee drink in Spanish.

Lonegan said the ad was "offensive" and "divisive" because it sends a message that Hispanic immigrants do not need to learn English.

"The true things that bind us together as neighbors and community are our belief in the American flag and our common language," Lonegan said. "And when McDonald's sends a different message, that we're going to be different now, that causes resentment."

The mayor's action shows how hysterical the anti-Hispanic sentiment is getting in parts of this nation.

There is no provision in the Constitution -- nor any intention displayed by the founding fathers -- to require that everyone in the United States speak any particular language. And there has never been a reference to an "official" language in our federal law.

The tolerance the founders promoted with rights protecting the freedom of press, speech and religion should be used as a guide for how our country handles the language debate.

It is a myth that Hispanics do not want to learn English. Most become English-dominant by the second or third generation in the United States. In fact, children of even recently arrived immigrants tend to prefer English.

When large corporations like McDonald's choose to advertise in Spanish, it is only an indication that they are trying to sell a product to as many consumers as possible. This is a business practice that has long been celebrated as a core value in our free-enterprise system. Such ads have been used in the United States for decades.

Is Mayor Lonegan willing to boycott Yankee Stadium the next time the Yankees play just because the huge advertising sign posted in the outfield is written entirely in Japanese?

More than 75,000 English words come from foreign languages, many of them from Spanish.

Should Americans who enjoy summer barbecues give them a different name because the word comes from barbacoa, the word used by the Taino Indians who inhabited Caribbean islands like Puerto Rico and Cuba?

Spanish explorers landed in half of the lower 48 states before the English ever made their first attempt at colonizing Roanoke, Va., in 1571, according to a recent New York Times article.

The legacy of Spanish colonialism shows up in so many towns, mountain ranges and valleys of the Southwest and California that we would have no way to speak of the area without using Spanish.

And how could Mayor Lonegan forget that the very town he represents, Bogota, has the same name as the South American capital city of Colombia?

When people begin to disparage different languages, we are showing a grave weakness as a society.

It hardly promotes an image of ourselves as world leaders, and it is an attitude that will slowly and surely tear us apart from within.

Ed Morales is a contributor to The New York Times and Newsday, and author of "Living in Spanglish" (St. Martin's Press, 2002). He can be reached at pmproj [at] progressive [dot] org.