Barack Obama: Learn Spanish

Barack Obama recently confirmed why many people find him off-putting when he admonished Americans to learn Spanish as a second language. At the same time he dismissed the idea that there was a problem with immigrants not learning English.

"Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English -- they'll learn English -- you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish," Obama said at a recent campaign event in Georgia, according to a CNN clip posted on YouTube. Then he went on to scold Americans for their alleged lack of multi lingual skills. "It's embarrassing when Europeans come over here, they all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe and all we can say is merci beaucoup."

It is a good thing for every American child to pick up some second language. Study of other languages broadens the mind. And, Obama is correct that it allows one to be understood better when ordering in a European restaurant. Mind, Obama may have opened himself up to charges of elitism again with his crack about Ugly Americans saying "merci beaucoup" in Europe. With high fuel prices and the value of the dollar as opposed to the euro, most Americans can't afford a European vacation.

Obama also seems to be oblivious about an old problem in the United States. Contrary to what Obama suggested about immigrants learning English, many in fact are not. The government has responded by posting multi lingual signs in government offices and mandating bilingual education in public schools. One does not have to be a nativist to wonder how immigrants could be expected to prosper in the United States if they are unable to speak the language.

And there seems to be a contradiction in Obama's admonishment to American children to learn Spanish. It would seem that the obligation of any immigrant is to learn the language of the country he or she is living in. It should not be the obligation of the citizens of that country to learn the language of the immigrant.