The United States of America has prided itself on being the melting pot of the world.
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
When I was a kid growing up in this country,
The United States of America was portrayed as the refuge to the people of the world, no matter their place of origin or their beliefs. We were supposed to accept people from all walks of life and work together in harmony to build a better future, as long as they shared the same “American Dream”.
Yet, as a nation, we don’t.
Now I’ve grown older, traveled to many countries, and noticed that on a world scale, a lot of the American citizens act like sheltered, self centered, asshole children. Loudly and boisterously, claiming the title of #1, demanding service, and insulting other countries, cultures, languages, or accents wherever they go all because they are different from their own.
Which is exactly my point…
If we are going to claim to be the melting pot of the world, perhaps we should set a better example, or at least become more neighborly.
On a global scale, Chinese, Spanish, English, Arabic, and Hindi are the most spoken languages.
So, when I heard my fellow countrymen damn people for the use of a second language, I argue that we consider here in the United States it is estimated that there are at least 350 different languages spoken daily and our multilingual brothers and sisters are enriching us as a nation.
To push the point further, we the monolingual Americans should work to be multilingual ourselves.
This would not only help global communication in business and personal travel. It would also help to unify us as a nation as well as set a positive example towards the movement of acceptance at home and around the world.
To conclude my point I leave a quote from one of our founding fathers. A strongly opinionated abolitionist, and author of the pamphlet Common Sense, which is said to inspire the revolutionary war and our supposed fight for freedom.
“The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion” -Thomas Paine.
