Persuasive Essay

                Multicultural or not, English is Still our First Language.       

Mrs. Pollema

 English 9

Alexis Scott

The United States is made up of a several different ethnic backgrounds, which includes different languages. Even though the US is becoming more multicultural, English is our language and everyone should know it.  America is doing quite a bit around the world, yet we are still a  little selfish. Is wanting people to speak English in America too much to ask for? When people come to America to live they should adapt to our living. One big thing would be to add the ability to speak English.

This past year, 2011 it was recorded that about 11.2 million illegal immigrants entered the US. That is outstanding! This is getting a little out of hand. So out of hand, that they can't control it anymore. A large ammout of the illegal immigrants can not speak English. This is a problem, and it is causing more and more problems everywhere. It has become a major issue in the medical field. Whenever a non-english-speaking patient comes into clinic or hospital, nurses and doctors spend about $2 per 5 minutes they are on the phone with a translator. That money is our tax money, this means we are spending our own working money on illegal immigrants or just stubborn “citizens.” This is ridiculous. If they move to America to live a life, they need to change.

Some standards to become a legal citizen of the US are: physical presence in the US, a continuous residence for for 5 years, a basic understanding of US history, and more importantly, the ability to read, write and speak ordinary English. So since that is a requirement, we shouldn’t have to learn other languages for them. They are suppose to know English. It’s just like us going to Mexico or Paris, we learn their language when we go there, we don’t make them learn English for the tourists. English is America’s first language, so if you’re a citizen in the US, you should know English.

What I am trying to say is that America is growing nation, full of all kinds of races that bring in a many of different traits and characteristics. That is OK, but what I don’t think is good is that we could forget our own culture and language, by changing for the other cultures. I know that being able to speak a second language won’t hurt us anyway, but not everyone wants to, so they don’t need to. This means everyone needs to be able to speak English in America.