It's Official!

If I had Musk's money, Wilde's wit, Einstein's brain, Mozart's perfect pitch, Patton's battle smarts, Edison's inventiveness, Paul Robeson's talent versatility, the fanatical loyalty of a brainwashed soldier, the thousandfold enhanced memory of the most prodigious computer, and my unwaveringly self-valued life hinged on my learning to say "Where's the toilet" without cue cards in any foreign language,  I'd still be hopelessly lost.

Lucky for me that English was my assigned language at birth. That made me linguistically compliant with the Oval Office's apostolical bull declaring that henceforth and forever more, English shall be the "official language" of the land. 

English has rarely been so mispronounced as in President Trump's executive order. That is my official conclusion.

Although his stated rationalization makes some sense and can be forensically debated, the conclusion's merits are largely annulled by the subliminal, divisive message behind it, though that too is arguable.

The executive order claims that it will make society more cohesive, facilitate the exchange of ideas, make the American dream more achievable (and presumably more palatable), expand economic opportunity and immersion in national traditions, streamline communications, solidify national values, promote efficiency and "ensure consistency in government operations and create a pathway to civic engagement."

Like it or not, policymakers enamored of Trump's E.O. will still be forced to accommodate reality, even if they're not willfully guided by it. Ten percent of Americans now speak a language other than English, more than triple the amount compared with 1980, according to NPR, citing the 2022 U.S. Census.

Although Trump's action revokes former President Clinton's E.O. of 2000 (what goes around, comes around in Washington's partisan carousel), it doesn't force any federal agency to "amend, remove, or otherwise stop production of documents, products, or other services prepared or offered in languages other than English." 

The EO's teeth is less for cost-cutting than morale cutting. But it scores sectarian political capital and pisses off targeted but not openly identified people. Even prior to Trump's bold initiative to hamper people of limited English proficiency's access to services, the "official language" enshrinement was already symbolically codified in more than half of our states. 

Who knew?

Since colonial days, English has always been the unofficial official language. Every historical document was composed in it. What was practiced in reality simply became legally recognized. But Trump's E.O. satisfies the dual appetite for political capital and pissing off archfoes. The Gulf of Mexico was not unilaterally renamed to make the geographical designation more accurate, but rather to spit in the eye and thumb the nose at perfectly loyal, albeit less nationalistic citizens.

English doesn't need to be crowned or enthroned as the sovereign among languages. It has long been the most universal among educated people, especially if they're involved in global commerce or diplomacy. Whether as a primary or secondary language, they all speak it fluently, whether they're from the Ivory Coast, Cambodia or Greenland. And its omnipresence does not constrict expression of diverse thought. 

More than 90 percent of countries have an official language. English is already the official language of 86 nations. But since Americans communicate in more than 350 languages, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, it's a practical necessity to establish a common denominator. 

It's goofy to guarantee on demand, the right to real-time translation services in dozens of languages for people accessing government services. Imagine battle-hardened soldiers, with all the dangers they face, being told in endangered languages to pass the ammunition.

The supremacy of English as an instrument of communication doesn't mean that English is a "better" language, or that people who do not master it, or are not even familiar with it at all, are somehow culturally inferior. Languages, with their tones and quirks, have different "personalities" and English is, for some, the object of a cult of personality of language. They brag about English as a way to boast about their affiliations.

These are some of the same people who salute the emanations from the Office of the Oval and the Den Of Goddamned Efficiency (DOGE). Musk is assuredly on the spectrum of non-empathy. They oppose unfunded mandates but promote surrealistic mandates. 

Making English our "official" language won't aggravate or create any new schisms in society. Languages are not divisive. Cross-lingual intolerance is.

As things stand in our country right now, we already have a Tower of Babel, and having an official language will contribute not a syllable to universal translation.

Learning English should be an ambition of every newcomer to this nation, but it should not be imposed, in effect, as a litmus test of patriotism. It should be required of applicants for certain positions when fluency is directly linked to the job. 

English is not everybody's mother tongue. Yet there's something ineffably bonding about tongue-sharing, whether in romance or the commerce of ideas. 

In the couple of weeks since English became our "official language,” it has hardly created a stir and we have collectively moved on from what was, in part, an optics ploy. If fundamental rights of equal opportunity are unmolested, the existence of an "official language" won't be more than a footnote in the chronicles of executive order follies. 

The president’s tough love approach of magnetizing non-English speaking newcomers to the bosom of the American Dream is outed by his having deleted the Spanish-language version of the White House website within hours. Now there's a novel way to achieve common cause with people by welcoming them to the fold and hearth.

While we're on a kick to make things “official,” let's make it official that all New Yorkers, perhaps all Americans, maybe all people from wherever they hail, have free admission, with no extra charges for special exhibits, to places like the Bronx Zoo, the Hayden Planetarium, the Museum of Natural History and The Metropolitan Museum of Art. That's the way it used to be. 

Future scientists of animals and potential astronomers and great artists need to be able to practically live in these instructional shrines, but most of them cannot, because filthy lucre is in the pockets of yahoos. 

Let's also codify in officialdom our national broadcast journalism enterprises, even though they are brazenly top-heavy ideologically. A risk/benefit analysis of the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and NPR argues resoundingly for their perpetuation. Members of Congress who are presently proposing legislation to defund it are the same egotists and elitists who regard an official language as a sacred tenet of their hellish Doctrines of Official Thoughts.