Speak English or Die

The tragic deaths of a Korean couple in Dallas a couple of weeks ago clearly demonstrates the importance of learning to speak English. They accidentally drove their car into a lake and called 9-1-1 for help. The dispatcher couldn't understand them because the couple couldn't speak English.

Now there's no absolute guarantee that they would have survived had they known English, but it certainly would have increased their chances. There is also absolutely no excuse for a couple who have been in America as long as they were, over 20 years, to not speak English.

There were two young kids from Lewisville who died in a trailer house fire a few months ago who might have been rescued had the adults known English. They tried to tell the firefighters where the kids were, but there was a language barrier and that barrier caused the kids to die in the fire.

Immigrants come over here and expect, and even try to force, us to learn their native tongue. They expect us to allow them into our workplaces and demand that we teach everyone else their native language and get insulted at the mere suggestion that they should learn English.

They expect us to allow their kids into our schools and insist that we teach our kids their foreign language, instead of requiring them (the immigrants) to learn English.

They demand that job applications, voter registration forms, driver's license tests, and myriad other government forms be printed in English & Spanish. Why? Because they are too lazy to change.

The sad thing we have exacerbated the problem by capitulating, or giving into their demands. Job applications should be in ENGLISH ONLY. If you come here, then you must do so LEGALLY and learn ENGLISH before being allowed to earn one dime.

Voter registration forms should be in ENGLISH ONLY for the obvious reason that only those immigrants who come here LEGALLY and assimilate should be allowed to vote.

All of our traffic signs, car instrument clusters, etc are in ENGLISH. If you can't speak, read, or write in ENGLISH, you should not be allowed to drive. Don't forget, driving is a PRIVILEGE, not a RIGHT.

And don't dare even begin to think about asserting that police and firefighters be required to speak other languages and that if they don't and someone dies, it's the officer's or the firefighter's fault. It is not.

If an immigrant comes over here and refuses to learn ENGLISH & thus in an emergency cannot effectively communicate with first responders and dies, it is the immigrant's fault, and that of the emergency personnel.

It is the immigrant's responsibility, to first come here LEGALLY and then to LEARN ENGLISH. In that order. Basically, it could, as we have been so tragically reminded recently, come down to this; SPEAK ENGLISH, OR DIE.

Jim Chitty