Bilingualism in Politics in the United States - Essay Example

Bilingualism in Politics in the United s The United s of America experiences the highest rates of immigration. English is the first language of most American nationals. Majority of the non-English speaking Americans are the Hispanic Americans mainly composed of Dominicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, and the Mexican Americans. Their similarity is that they all speak Spanish yet are different in other aspects of life (Schaefer, 2006). The high Hispanic number poses a great dilemma of whether to support multilingual politics or not.

Multilingualism raises a question of whether the US as a nation should have Italian, German, Chinese, Spanish or even Iranian senators (Schaefer, 2006). Some people argue that multilingualism in politics will create confusion among the people because voting is used to determine senate members and the president. This poses a threat to the American presidential candidates because the Hispanic vote is influential. Presidential candidates have been keen to appeal to the Hispanic voters because they are concentrated in Texas, Illinois, California, Florida and New York, the key states carrying more than half votes required to win the presidency (Schaefer, 2006).

Allowing multilingualism in politics may create the impression that illegal immigrants have the right to vote hence threatening the vote power of the natives. Some citizens however support multilingualism and political candidates who support it like for example president Obama. With regard to laws, the natives feel that the US state and federal laws eventually should change so as to reflect specific privileges accorded to the immigrants (Schaefer, 2006). However, a large section of the Hispanics cannot vote because they have not attained US citizenship Hispanic communities have different political organizations reflecting their diverse needs.

The Congressional Hispanic Caucus is currently working on the issues that affect the Hispanics constituencies though the members often disagree due to differences in the Hispanic communities (Gutierrez et al, 1995). The issue of multilingualism in the US is greatly debatable and is yet to gain momentum due to fast growing numbers of Hispanic and other communities. Multilingualism has the advantage of ensuring that the Hispanics are protected due to substantial representation in the senate and allow them to make great political strides and gains as indicated by their vote power.

References Gutierrez D., Walls G. and Mirrors F. (1995) Mexican Americans. Mexican Immigrants and the Politics of Ethnicity in the American Southwest. Berkeley: University of California: Online.http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/garcia.htm Retrieved on 11th January 2011 Schaefer R. (2006). Racial and Ethnic Groups. (10th Ed.) Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.