In a recent speech, Newt Gingrich said, "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..."
The CNN headline was “Gingrich: Bilingual education akin to ghetto talk. In the article, “Peter Zamora, co-chair of the Washington-based Hispanic Education Coalition,” said, “The tone of his comments were very hateful. Spanish is spoken by many individuals who do not live in the ghetto.”
Kevin, a regular reader to Recliner Commentaries, sent an e-mail to me about the article. Kevin wrote,
“Someone apparently needs to learn English. Ghetto means ‘a quarter of a city inKevin is right. Gingrich is an academic. He was using “ghetto” in an academic sense and making the point that people cannot succeed if they don’t know the language of the country in which they live. Opponents of “English-only” legislation may actually be hurting the very people they intend to help.
which members of a minority group live especially because of social, legal, or
economic pressure.’ By saying ‘a ghetto’ Gingrich's point is that we need to
focus our energy on encouraging and enabling people to learn the primary
language of the nation not enabling them to remain in an isolated group
unable to achieve as much as other who have a language advantage. It's
amazing how quickly people scream ‘hate’... I am told by my sister in law
that in order for her to continue to reside in Austria she must learn
German... sounds like a good thing.”
