1st post: English as Official Language

Whether you consider yourself an English-speaking American or an immigrant who speaks one of the 6,800 languages, the vote to nationally set the official language for the U.S. as English impacted everyone greatly. I remember around this time last year, the topic was first introduced to me when taking a Journalism course in High School. Immediately, it troubled me to think that people would want to make one language superior to another in a country that was built on immigrants who spoke in many languages and were from many countries. Although I lost touch on the topic since the media shone less light on this controversy, according to Senate Votes to Set National Language, the Senate overruled it. From a quick overview of the matter, it really stirred up the Spanish community. Although the national language of the U.S. isn't English, I'm almost sure that Michigan made English as it's State Language.

By setting a national language, I believe that it hinders the progression of this country. Language is crucial for business with the world and by making this country a bilingual country rather than a multilingual one, it just halts the communication movement. With Spanish being the most spoken language and Chinese falling shortly behind, it just doesn't seem smart to favor English. English is a popular language and definately used a lot during business meetings, but by setting it as the national language, it takes away the neccessity to learn more languages. Language is important because with language we grow as a culture, with language we learn of other cultures, with language we communicate. Although, I still have a lot to research (or update myself) on, I feel by writing my paper on this topic, I can open other people's eyes on this controversy, and maybe even open my own eyes to things I don't exactly know.

Apart from all that, I want to see how [or if] the ruling of English as being Michigan's official language affected Michiganians. I want to talk to English speakers, Spanish speakers, Chinese speakers, Arabic speakers, etc., and find out their opinion. I need to learn more about this topic because I think it's very important to know why so many people want to officially make English the national language. There's so much more to this topic and hopefully it is as interesting to me as it is to other people.