English as Amer Essay

Submitted By revolverjosh
Words: 626
Pages: 3

Singh, Danpaul
College Writing (Levine)
Essay 1, RD1
5. Take a position on the proposition that the United States should be an “English-only nation”

Essay #1 First Draft
The United States of America is the melting pot of the world, which is something that everyone knows all too well about this great nation and its history. Yet, wouldn’t things be so much easier if the US makes English its official language? Why don’t we all get on the same page and assimilate to the language? If you live in America as an immigrant, speak proper
English, or go somewhere else!
That’s what makes this country great, doesn’t it? Well if you believe in that sort of thing, I wouldn’t want to be the one to tell you that
English was brought to the
Americas by the British on conquest that were, in fact, immigrants themselves at the time.
We all come from different backgrounds, cultures and ethnicities. To make this country an “English-only nation” would be a highly exclusive change to the
“land of opportunity”. The United
States was born as a country of equal chance, and if we close our doors and hearts to speakers of other languages, we wouldn’t be very gracious hosts as law-abiding
American citizens!

We, the people of the United States have a duty to ask ourselves: “If the
United States has gotten by without an official tongue for two hundred years, why does it needone now?”
My parents came to the Americas for better opportunity and to unite with family in a better environment.
I was the only one in my immediate family to be born American, and the differences seem minute to even look at. My family would describe the Caribbean language that they speak as “broken English”. But why? It sounds perfectly fine to me, having grown up around it, and is very relatable to normal English, it is a different dialect at most, not even a different language. People in the Caribbean simply acknowledge their working language as broken, just like that? The British have colonized many nations, but the
English spoken by the island peoples have gotten them by in their respective countries for centuries, why does it have to be any lesser than the English that the
English speak?

I know that Amy Tan, author of
“Mother Tongue” would agree with me. Her mother dealt with people who tried to take advantage of her inability to speak fluent English.