Homogenized Milk

I’ve always valued the diversity of Urban America. You can walk down the street and see a hundred different skin tones and hear twenty different languages. This gives character and teaches one to not be afraid of that which they do not understand. Living in Seattle has definitely expanded my horizons and taught me to value most (no one is perfect) everyone.

However, on some of my hikes over the years, I have been to small country towns and one thing always stood out to me. These towns are usually very homogenized with only white people looking almost like zombies. Not to say that under the surface they were not good people, however, living a “sheltered” life, they are usually misinformed about the world and tend to fear that which they do not understand.

On the debate of English as the official language of the US… why? I think it’s just small-town-head-in-the-sand thinking. This thinking is already harming America because of the lack of Arabic speaking citizens. Instead of having an official language, we should require that everyone be bilingual. It’d defiantly make us more competitive in the world.

Anyway, I think this letter to the editor in the Seattle PI is quite eloquent and pretty much says it all.

Coffee shop tale shows need for multiple languages

The English-as-official-language debate ended for me one morning at my neighborhood coffee shop where caffeine and politics mix in a volatile and dangerous way. The topic came up, people ranted about immigrants and raved about patriotism when out of the vitriol and noise came the steady voice of an old man.

He said, "If it had not been for the Navajo language, we never would have been able to keep a secret from the Japanese in World War II." The room fell silent for a moment; you could hear the sound of a spoon stirring milk into a fresh cup.

That settled the debate for me. America is stronger for her rich diversity.

Carl Nelson
Seattle