The phenomenon might otherwise be humorous.  I refer to the negative reaction among many USAmericans to a family or group of friends speaking in Spanish.  The response when verbalized is always something like “Why don’t they learn to speak English?  This is America!”

I was reminded of this in early 2012 when former Senator Rick Santorum recently regarded English as the “official language” of the United States, and the language that the island of Puerto Rico would need to master before they could be considered for statehood.

Such pontifications must have been aimed at the “English Only” crowd back home, because they were certainly insulting to the Spanish speaking Puerto Ricans, who, incidentally,  were about to vote on the possibility of statehood.

Far too often political candidates desperate for votes will raise the specter of our “God-given land of exceptionalism” being overrun by Spanish-speaking foreigners. (Forget for the moment that many of us are descended from foreign English speaking settlers who did overrun the land of another people.)

This plays well to that crowd who loves to degrade anyone not themselves, especially when it can assign to them some nefarious motivation. It also betrays ignorance of our country’s history.

While English is undoubtedly the primary language of our country, and the common language for all ethnicities and backgrounds, it has never been (nor will it ever be) the sole language of people in the United States.  There is a reason that many of our states abound in Spanish named cities. (Los Angeles: The Angels; Santa Fe: Holy Faith; San Francisco: Saint Francis; El Paso: The Pass; St Augustine was originally San Augustín )

Clearly, Spanish speakers were among  the first European explorers and settlers in the area which we call the United States! (La Florida was the original name of Florida)

So why is it that political candidates, while proudly espousing their faith in God, often are the very ones obsessed with a fear-motivated linguistic bigotry?

To these may I be so bold as to share a scene from our common Christian faith?  Above the head of the crucified and dying Jesus was the declaration, intended sarcastically only to become a precursor to Christian evangelism.

¹⁹ Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. ²⁰ Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. ²¹The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”

 ²² Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”       from John 19, NIV

Ironic isn’t it?  That in the very moment of his sacrificial death, the Son of God was suspended within the reach of three languages and the cultures they represented.  It’s possible that the Roman centurion posted below did not understand fully Jesus’ final words spoken in his Nazarene (Galilean) Hebrew.   What he did hear was a language of love which transcended all other languages.

Now please understand, I am an ESL (English as Second Language) instructor, so I am very involved in helping people to learn English.  Certainly I understand its value. I agree with presidential hopeful Mitt Romney that English is the “language of opportunity” in the U.S. But I am also a follower of Jesus.  From him I learn humility and love–not the arrogant hostility that I see far too often!