The parents of one of four Massachusetts middle-school students killed three weeks ago on a student band trip to Nova Scotia argue with that. They argue that their daughter s bus might not have crashed in a complicated traffic interchange if the driver, a Chinese immigrant, had been proficient in English. At one of the stops when they were talking in Cantonese she asked him whether he knew English. He said, 'Only a little. She was surprised.
Anecdotal evidence goes only so far, of course, but common sense goes far enough.
Anyone who merely takes note of the common sense idea that encouraging new immigrants to learn the language of their new home in the way earlier waves of immigrants learned the language risks being called a bigot. The pols who pander to those who want to make America multilingual can pose as associates of angels. They re targeting instead the Hispanic vote, a worthy project if done in an honorable way, but some in the party foolishly think the way to sew up the Hispanic vote is to keep em in the kitchen, washing dishes. Last week Mitch Daniels, the director of the Office of Management and Budget, was confronted at a hearing of a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee with a question of what the Bush administration intends to do about Mr. Clinton s infamous Executive Order 13166. The answer he got was not much.