Gingrich Calls Bilingual Education "Ghetto"

[Sinister]

By KASIE HUNT, Associated Press Writer
Sat Mar 31, 10:00 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich equated bilingual education Saturday with "the language of living in a ghetto" and mocked requirements that ballots be printed in multiple languages.

"The government should quit mandating that various documents be printed in any one of 700 languages depending on who randomly shows up" to vote, said Gingrich, who is considering seeking the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. He made the comments in a speech to the National Federation of Republican Women.

"The American people believe English should be the official language of the government. ... We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto," Gingrich said to cheers from the crowd of more than 100.

"Citizenship requires passing a test on American history in English. If that's true, then we do not have to create ballots in any language except English," he said.

Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition, which supports bilingual education, said, "The tone of his comments was very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto."

He said research has shown "that bilingual education is the best method of teaching English to non-English speakers." Spanish-speakers, he said, know they need to learn English. "There's no resistance to learning English, really, among immigrants, among native-born citizens. Everyone wants to learn English because it's what you need to thrive in this country."

In the past, Gingrich has supported making English the nation's official language. He's also said all American children should learn English and that other languages should be secondary in schools.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070401/ap_on_el_ge/gingrich2008

[*Katy*]

I agree with him, although i dont think that speaking another language is ghetto. I think that if you live here then you should learn the language. I dont agree with having a ballot for every single language, other countries dont do it so why should we? Im all about diversity, but families come over here and live in the same neighborhood as their friends, go to work where their boss speaks spanish to them, and send their kids to school where they are having to struggle to learn english the first few years of school instead of learning the material which only brings them behind. If their parents made a effort of learning the language and helping their children things would be alot easier on EVERYONE. I at least took a few classes and can speak enough spanish to get by in combination with hand gestures to communicate but most dont even try to learn our language from my experience...why should our country go out of our way to accommodate them if they dont accommodate to live in this country? And im talking about people that have lived here for 10 years and cant speak one bit of english.

[James Dean]

Such a bold statement like that only makes me question if Newt has ever been to a ghetto. If he had he'd know how in many places their education system is so flawed that so many students don't have the educational resources that others do. That's part of this major problem, if he and others only visited these places. But that would be asking too much.

I have a problem when people, anyone, uses the term ghetto so loosely.

[Sunflowergirl]

:manson:

Newt Gingrich does not speak for the American people. At least, not the majority...

On the flipside, I find it funny that so many American tourists are stunned and annoyed to find that residents of other countries either can't or won't speak English just to serve them.