I am American and proud of it. Surely, that statement is enough to get my fellow patriots saying “Heck yeah!” or at least some appreciative nods. I am positive others will agree when I say the whole country practically reeks of freedom in the form of red, white, and blue t-shirts, cupcakes, and those little flags from the dollar store that are passed out on the Fourth of July. Not to mention the fact that nobody can agree on what those red, white, and blue popsicles are called.

But The United States is more than McDonald's or 24 hour Wal-Marts. We also value things like hard work and individuality. We believe in concepts such as the American Dream and the Land of Opportunity. You will not find a place more diverse than major cities in the United States. Which is why it is somewhat puzzling that despite an increasingly global world, we maintain an embarrassingly high rate of monolingualism.

As the old joke goes:

What do you call someone who can speak two languages? Bilingual.

What do you call someone who can speak three languages? Trilingual.

What about someone who can only speak one language? American.

For the first half of the twentieth century, researchers believed that bilingualism actually put children at a disadvantage when it came to verbal development. Immigrant parents were advised to stop teaching their children their native language as it distracted and hurt their English studies. However, in the 2012 findings of Ellen Bialystok, bilingual speakers actually have the leverage in academic performance, excelling in the ability to sustain attention while switching between tasks (Konnikova).

Not only is the ability to speak more than one language good for exercising different parts of the brain, but it also forces an individual to see the world from a different perspective. Multilingualism is having the ability to bridge the gap between cultures. As Nelson Mandela once said, “If you speak to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

So why is it that only 15 to 20 percent of Americans consider themselves to be bilingual as compared to the 56 percent of Europeans? It starts with the education system of the United States. Instead of forcing students to memorize long lists of vocabulary, it is necessary for the advancement of the country for schools to teach languages in ways that are able to be retained and utilized. Berating others to speak only English and using “because you are in America” as a rationale is a poisonous mindset. We should take pride in the diversity of tongue scarcely found elsewhere in the world because preserving the different cultures that make the United States great is what this country is all about.

Americans have the notorious reputation for being “stupid” as exacerbated by street interview segments like Jimmy Kimmel’s “Can you name a book? ANY book???” or “How many Americans know where North Korea is?”. However, they are not stupid for their monolingualism. They are stupid for their lack of willingness to do anything about it.

Work Cited

Konnikova, Maria. "Is Bilingualism Really an Advantage?" The New Yorker, 22 Jan. 2015. Accessed 9

   July 2018.

Laka, Itziar. "Mandela was right: the Foreign Language Effect." Mapping Ignorance, 3 Feb. 2014.

   Accessed 9 July 2018.

Franklin, Lauren. "Americans suffer from inadequate foreign language education." The Daily Texan, 6

   Oct. 2013. Accessed 9 July 2018.