NEWT GINGRICH AND LATINOS SPEAKING SPANISH

We all know there are Americans who are against Latinos speaking Spanish in the U.S. As a boy growing up in Brooklyn, I remember the same prejudice against people speaking Italian or "Puerto Rican." But it is the mark of the uneducated to put down someone for speaking a foreign language in public.

Now we have Newt Gingrich (in an article by Kasie Hunt of the AP as reported in the WashPo) speaking to a group of cheering Republican Women saying that there should not be bi-lingual education in the schools, and that, furthermore, the government should not print voter information in languages other than English.

Hey, I thought we wanted our kids to be educated and be bi-lingual? That's why we send them to schools that teach French, German, Spanish, et al. That's why we require them to have two or more years of a foreign language in high school. But in the world according to Gingrich and a lot of his cheering anti-Latino supporters, the school language requirement is bull, just meant for show. Education and bi-lingualism count for nothing in the "real" world outside of academia.

I congratulate the hundreds of thousands of Latinos who actually are bi-lingual, who want their kids to learn English, but who value Spanish as an equally great and important language. Too bad that so many Americans speak only English.