[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 154 (2008), Part 11]
[House]
[Pages 15016-15017]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                           A COMMON LANGUAGE

  (Mr. POE asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute.)
  Mr. POE. Mr. Speaker, there are those who now proclaim that our 
children be required to learn Spanish. Mr. Speaker, I thought English 
was the national language. Up until recently, almost all immigrants 
that came to America learned the language, English. That included the 
Germans, Dutch, French, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, South Asians and 
on and on.
  So why the push to require Americans to learn Spanish? Why not 
Chinese? More people in the world speak

[[Page 15017]]

Chinese than any other language, or German. According to the Census 
Bureau, more Americans, including my family, claim German ancestry over 
any other heritage. But when our Forefathers debated this language 
issue years ago, English won out over German.
  It seems to me that it's logical that in the U.S. we ought to speak 
at least the same language, English. And if people want to speak an 
additional language, let them choose, not the government, which 
language to speak.
  It doesn't seem too much to require people that come to America that 
they work, follow the law, and learn the common language. Otherwise, we 
will become a community of nations, rather than a Nation of 
communities.
  Und das ist nur die Art, wie es ist.

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