It Depends On What Kind of a Country You Want

Chrystia Freeland sings the praises of Canada’s approach to bilingualism and multiculturalism:

“Multiculturalism isn’t just about statistics, it is about attitude. It is about seeing diversity as strength,” Henry Kim, the director of Toronto’s dazzling new Aga Khan Museum, one of the world’s finest collections of Islamic art, told me. “Canadians believe that blending makes you better and stronger.”

Mr. Kim is a Chicago-born Korean-American. He doesn’t speak Korean, and his mother baked apple pie “badly.” Mr. Kim suggests that his homeland is still uneasy about incoming cultures: “Canada has a minister of multiculturalism. Can you imagine that in Washington?”

I think it all depends on what kind of country you want your country to be. The reality of bilingualism is that in every country in the world that has multiple official languages the speakers of one language dominate the speakers of the other both economically and politically. That’s true in Switzerland where the German speakers dominate the French, Italian, and Romansch speakers. And it’s true in Canada.

The Canadians point proudly to the the fact that the median incomes of Francophones in Quebec are higher than the median incomes of Anglophones in Quebec (which proves my point rather than contradicting it). However, the median income in Quebec is lower than the income of primary English-speaking provinces despite a half century of attempted remediation. Today primary French bilinguals are actually preferred among the national civil service. One wonders what the income disparity would be without the subsidy.

The kind of country I would prefer us to be is an egalitarian one and the global evidence overwhelmingly supports the idea that such a country will have a single official language. I don’t think that we should actively suppress speakers of minority languages as both the French and British have for centuries but I don’t think we should subsidize them either.

I note, too, that Ms. Freeland elides over the differences between Canadian immigration and that in the U. S. Canada has a point system that gives priority to skilled workers and doesn’t have an illegal immigration problem at the scale of ours. Even illegal immigration from the United States.

Consequently, I think the lesson we should learn from Canada’s experience is more a cautionary tale than one we should emulate.

4 comments… add one
  • PD Shaw Link

    My 10-yr-old son had a new classmate this year who spoke no English, only Spanish. She was assigned an in-room translator and an iPad so they could communicate with each other during lessons. This is not a school district with any money to burn.

    Seems like it worked well. I first saw her at the winter concert, and she was belting out English songs with gusto. Has to be a great way to learn a language. By Spring, she gave an oral presentation to the parents, and other than occasionally slipping back into Spanish, she did great. She exhibited genuine enthusiasm. I only wish the best for her, but the school district will keep firing teachers to meet special needs and this is an expense I would rather not have.

    But my understanding from friends in the L.A. school district is that these efforts are not made, probably because of the size of the problem, and if anything, efforts are directed towards educating non-Latinos on understanding the discrimination their non-English-speaking classmates have inherited. That’s not helping immigrants to better themselves, it’s embracing the suck of a secondary status.

  • That’s not helping immigrants to better themselves, it’s embracing the suck of a secondary status.

    Coincidentally, “embracing the suck” enhances the power of politicians who depend on a reliable minority to keep them in office.

  • I really can’t think of anything more damaging to the immigrant population and their descendants than pretending to be a bilingual nation when what would happen instead is two relatively monolingual ones (with one being substantially wealthier than the other) . Fortunately, I think the immigrants themselves understand this better than many of their advocates do.

  • Andy Link

    Historically, bilingualism in the US was local and transient. I have no problem with continuing that tradition for Spanish speakers and the Federal government should just stay out of the way.

Leave a Comment