Subtitles

In response to E Pluribus Unum, Comprende? (http://money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/newstex/IBD-0001-21160351.htm)

Americans can speak Spanish, and still be American. Or should we edit the words on the Statue of Liberty to read, "Give me your tired, your poor, Your english-speaking masses yearning to breathe free..."
Multilingualism is not an affront to the identity of the United States. The author, in alluding to the previous waves of immigration "wanting to be American", overlooks the time it takes for new citizens to learn a language. Often it was only the second generation who learned English out of necessity and a desire to pursue opportunities for advancement. To get certain jobs, knowledge of English was necessary. This is still the case today.
So why is a two women speaking Spanish while sorting clothing cause enough to be fired. It seems to me, that this is an overreaction to the point of paranoia. For an employer to require English as a prerequisite makes sense where customer interaction is involved. Some fields, such as health care professions, have even started looking for people who can speak spanish. Communicating with the customer is key for business, so it makes sense that job options would be limited by language skills. What is slightly more confusing, is why do they matter for positions in which there is no customer interaction? This is not as simple as limiting people's freedom of dress with a dress code as the columnist implies. There are outside laws and societal as to appropriate dress for work and public, and also limits to what people can control through a dress code. (e.g. religious garb.) There is no such correlation for mandatory language. In a situation where miscommunication is not an issue, and it does not disrupt or affect the work of other employees, I feel that discriminating for work based on language is unjust.
Similarly, I don't believe clinging to laws or ideas of the past and what being American has meant is the best justification. In the 19th century, that meant no Irish. Jim Crow laws and constitutional justification of slavery, that a slave was only three-fifths of an American citizen, show that laws must change with perspective and time.
Assimilation, however, seems like an inevitability. The new culture(s) affect America and over time, through pushing and pulling, the country again has "assimilated" to a new culture. As long as the majority of media is in English and education remains predominantly in English, then learning English is a near inevitability for the next generations. I mean it's not like there are spanish only television stations, separate music awards for latin music, or spanish dubbing on national television networks.... oh, wait.
Is it possible "Transmido en SAP" (forgive my spelling, Spanish, and memory), the words at the bottom of the screen before major television programs indicating the availability of Spanish dubbing, could lead to a permanently bilingual country? Possibly. It enables spanish speaking immigrant communities to truly isolate themselves in a language the way their 20th century European counterparts could not. If a person wanted to enjoy the scope of American media entertainment, English was a prerequisite in a way it is not any more. A solution to this problem (if indeed someone feels it is a 'problem' that needs a 'solution') comes in a very simple form. Subtitles. On TV, movies, and everywhere. This subtle script exposes Spanish-speakers that would otherwise be isolated to English, while simultaneously allowing them access to a wider range of media. And the next generation, would be exposed to English before their reading picked up, and be put in situations where they want to learn the language and what is being said. (It could even be sold as an attempt to up Spanish literacy.)
This is the secret behind the Israeli population's understanding of Hebrew.
This is a real exchange I heard over dinner at my cousin's house:
--I didn't know you speak English. Are your parents American or do you just watch a lot of TV?"
--I watch a lot of TV.
Over time watching TV, hearing the words, and reading the screen, people pick up the language.
But if this doesn't happen, and for the first time, the third generation doesn't embrace English over their grandparent's tongue for daily use. I'd encourage the columnist not to think of this specifically as the balkans, but as any European state where dialects and languages vary greatly within a single countries borders. Change is not the end of the world; just the end of the world that was.