Assimilation is great, but shouldn't cost an immigrant his or her native language

In response to my Dec. 17 Valley Voice/Your Turn column, “A sign that something isn't quite right in the neighborhood,” many people wrote or went onto social media to either support or admonish the multilingual sign in front of my home.

Almost all of these responses, the brickbats as well as the bouquets, came from thoughtful readers willing to share views worth considering, making me wish that all of our political discourse could take place on such an exalted plain.

The most touching of these communications came from Eve, who moved from Poland to Canada at the age of twelve. Although Eve complimented the idea behind my sign, she worries that such displays of other languages discourage immigrants from learning English. “Your sign should use English only,” she wrote. “If your neighbors from various countries want to know what it says they will soon learn the language.”

As a newcomer in Canada, Eve attended schools that insisted that she express herself in English or stay quiet. One day, when she brought in a book from her native country to read during recess, her teacher told her to take it home and never bring it back. Apparently, the students and teachers there spoke no Polish and had no intention of ever doing so. Graciously, Eve credits this approach with helping her learn quickly. Not understanding her homework or anything her teachers said, Eve learned from classmates and, “little by little I got the gist of it and by the end of the school year I knew just about as much English as my classmates.”

Now living in the Coachella Valley, Eve offers a reasonable case for the benefits of learning new languages and customs, especially those that prevail in one’s new community. “When people immigrate to the U.S. and refuse to learn the language and customs, that's their affair,” she observes. “I don't mind at all, but it would be to their benefit to do so, don't you think?”

Most immigrants do just that. While pursuing a doctorate in English, I read research on language acquisition and language loyalty, with most studies revealing a great deal of the first and distressingly little of the second. In short, most people who come to live in the United States learn English quickly, even while retaining their first language, but relatively few pass along multilingual abilities to their children.

According to the results of the last census, almost 40 percent of Riverside County residents speak a language other than English at home. Of that group, which includes recent arrivals, approximately 85 percent speak English “very well.” Research has disproven theories that advocate the need to lose one language in order to learn another. The human brain is substantially more developed than a 1990s disc drive, making it possible for humans to learn new information without having to delete old data. Anecdotally, Eve supported these findings. “I wanted to add that my mother spoke Polish, Russian, French and English, with a smattering of German,” she told me. “Her English was excellent, though with an accent.”

In the end, enforcing English only deprives people born here of an educational opportunity. While immigrants get to learn a new language, citizens of the United States remain monolingual. For those interested, language learning can help develop and retain mental function. Why would we pass up this gift of immigration?

Marco Katz Montiel, PhD, author of "Music and Identity in Twentieth-Century Literature from Our America" (Palgrave Macmillan), divides his time between New York, Madrid, and Palm Springs. He thanks his Coachella Valley neighbor, Eve Newey, for agreeing to share her story. Email him at marco@sydmusic.com