Annie Abbott: Multilingualism not a threat. It belongs in our country.

Chicago Tribune

03-03-2025

When Bishop Mariann Edgar Budde spoke to President Donald Trump and the congregation on the day after his inauguration, she asked him 'to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now.'
For many of those people, that fear is pronounced miedo, and speaking Spanish (or any language other than English) is now part of what makes them feel like targets. The recent 'Day Without Immigrants,' launched as protests in Chicago and cities across the country, was the national response to attacks on Spanish-speaking immigrants especially.
Now reports indicate Trump will sign an executive order declaring English the official language of the U.S. and rescinding requirements that programs that receive federal funds provide language assistance for non-English speakers.
In the current fearmongering against immigrants, language is used as a proxy for who belongs in the United States — or who does not. This misunderstanding of the vital role of multilingualism in our communities, our economy and our government helps drive the anti-immigrant attitude and actions that will only weaken our country.
One week after Trump took office for the second time, the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL) spoke to this language connection in a message to its members: 'In light of the recent wave of Executive Orders issued by the new Trump administration, it is more important than ever to reaffirm the critical role that world language educators serve in our multilingual communities, here and abroad. … As the world becomes more interdependent, the demand for multilingual and culturally competent individuals will only grow.'
As a language educator with more than 30 years experience teaching Spanish at the university level, I know, and research shows, that embracing all languages enriches schools, communities and businesses.
Yet deeply ingrained in U.S. culture is the problematic notion that being a monolingual English speaker should be the norm. Indeed, an overwhelming majority of people (78.3%) in the U.S. speak English only, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
However, a majority of those who speak languages other than English are bilingual and speak English 'very well.' And a full 17% of immigrants in the U.S. speak English only. Clearly, English is in no danger in this country from the presence of people who also speak many other languages.
A recent international survey of more than 20 countries, conducted by the Pew Research Center, asked what makes a person truly belong to a country. The top response (91%) was 'being able to speak their country's most common language.' The response of participants from the U.S. was lower (78%) but still high.
Trump — who is monolingual — has espoused throughout his career that speaking English equals belonging. In a 2015 Republican presidential primary debate, he said, 'This is a country where we speak English, not Spanish.'
Nine years later, at a 2024 rally in Phoenix, he went further, claiming that non-English-speaking immigrants push out those who truly belong: 'There are a lot of languages that we don't have here. … And they're sitting down in a school, taking a student's place that might be a hardworking good citizen, the child of citizens. And they're taking their place.'
That is not how public schools work, obviously; one student's presence does not shove out another. School is precisely where immigrant youths need to be to learn English. In the fall of 2021, 10.6% of public school students in the United States were English learners, equaling 5.3 million students.
The deeper implication resonating from this administration is clear: If you do not speak English, even if you are learning it, you cannot be a 'good citizen.' You do not belong.
It is not surprising, then, that the Spanish version of the White House's website and social media accounts disappeared the day Trump took office. Even if it is true that a Spanish version is in the works, that stands in stark contrast to the preparedness with which this administration launched its priorities in the first hours and days with a spray of prewritten executive orders and policy plans.
The bigger problem is that these beliefs about languages translate into action. Research shows that negative attitudes about the way people speak English, let alone another language, results in bias and discrimination, '(exacerbating) existing prejudices towards minority communities.'
Studies have found discriminatory hiring practices against job candidates with 'nonstandard' accents and bias in artificial intelligence against nonnative English writers.
Even worse, this conflation of language and belonging is tied to deportation efforts. This is not new. During Trump's first presidency, a Manhattan lawyer was recorded threatening to call Immigration and Customs Enforcement on workers who spoke Spanish, and two women in Montana were detained by a Border Patrol agent for speaking Spanish.
The official mechanisms for raids, detention and deportation have recently ramped up even more. At the top of the ICE website, in red, a button encourages people to 'Report Crime' and provides a phone number for reporting 'suspicious activity.'
The problem is that speaking Spanish has so thoroughly been cast as a 'suspicious activity' that fears swirl around claims that U.S. citizens are detained for speaking it in public.
To be sure, speaking English in the U.S. benefits immigrants. That is why around 900,000 adults in the U.S. are enrolled in English classes. But if learning a language were quick and easy, far fewer Americans would be monolingual themselves.
On the first day of this new semester at my university, and the second day of Trump's administration, a student emailed me to say she would miss class while she and her family huddled in Chicago where a massive federal deportation operation was announced.
That same day, a former student reached out to me and wrote that 'speaking Spanish is a core part of my career as a humanitarian immigration attorney in Chicago — where 90% of my clients speak exclusively Spanish.'
Speaking Spanish and other languages in the U.S. must be a point of orgullo — pride — not a cause of terror.
Annie Abbott is an associate teaching professor of Spanish at the University of Illinois and a public voices fellow of The OpEd Project.