The official language of the USA

The other day I was in the line at the grocery store and I heard the person in front of me asking for ten dollars cash back in English. Look- I'm not a racist, but I was slightly offended that the person in front of me hadn't taken the time to learn how to talk about money in Spanish. I mean, here we live in a school district where 70% of the population is Hispanic, and a county that has a clear Spanish-speaking majority, and some people can't even buy groceries using the language of the land. It's high time that we make Spanish the official language of los Estados Unidos.

It's also time we got serious about our immigration policy. Let's say one night un ladron (that's a robber for all of you gringos out there) broke into your house. It's a nice house with a full pantry and so the thief decides he'd like to stay awhile. When you awake the next morning and complain, he sends you to live in the garage. It turns out that he's a pretty industrious robber, and pretty soon he fills your house with some nice furnishings of his own- a big plasma screen TV, a remodeled kitchen, even a new Mercedez. The trouble is, with the new car and boat, there isn't much room for you in the garage anymore. It's time to send the encroacher back to his native land- Europe.

Some mornings, when it is my turn to drop the kids off at school, I see a sign proclaiming "this is a gun free zone." Let me tell you that this doesn't do much to reassure me. If you have to say it, it probably isn't so. This same principle applies to legislating an official language for the country. If you have to say it, it probably isn't so.

Do Hispanic immigrants spell doom for our borders, language, and culture? I hope not, because if they do, it is probably too late to do anything about it. We've simply had a porous border for too long. Our community is one that now has a Hispanic majority. Can we send them all home? By now, most of them are here legally. Many of our neighbors are Latino, and they seem like good hardworking citizens. Most of them value their families and religion. Most of them speak English. In fact, almost all second-generation immigrants speak English.

Ultimately, borders are really just lines on a map. We draw them, we fight over them because it is in our economic self interest.

Shared language is important, but I notice that most businesses are more than willing to hire bilingual employees if they see a profit in it.

Culture is in constant shift anyway. Can anyone argue that we have the same culture that we had in 1776 anyway? Do we have the same culture in rural Eastern Washington that exists in Savannah, Georgia? Culture isn't static, it is fluid- we've always borrowed from other cultures in an evolution from one generation to the next.

During my mission to Guatemala, I saw first hand the poverty that most immigrants are trying to escape. Let me tell you that I would do almost anything to not raise my children in those circumstances. I've heard the arguments for enforcing harsher anti-immigration policies. These arguments center around economics and politics. Mostly politics. In fact, it seems like the discussion always becomes a little more urgent during an election cycle. I'm more interested in hearing an argument based on values. Values such as faith, hope, and charity.

I think Hispanics are here to stay. And I'd like for us all to be friends.

Consumer society

I'm reading Culture Jam, a book by Kalle Lasn. One of the arguments that the author makes is that our society has become a spectator culture. We don't sing or play musical instruments in our homes- we listen to the radio and buy other people's songs. We don't play sports- we leave it to the professionals. Often we don't make our own meals. We don't live our own lives- we watch others live on TV. With the rise of pornography in the last few decades, we can assume that many people spend more time watching others rather than investing in their own relationships.

Lasn writes from the perspective of the left. He places the blame for the rise in consumerism on the corporation and laissez faire capitalism. And yet I think that he raises issues that we should all be concerned with. What happens when you take a people that for millenia worked the land for their livelihood and transplant them into an urban environment where they have much less contact with the natural world and communicate with each other more often than not through electronic devices?

Looking to the future, it is not hard to imagine a society in which we all exist as cyborgs. Perhaps that future is already here as we depend on technology for transportation, for entertainment, for remembering, for learning, and even for communicating.

It's too late to stop the clock (and who'd want to give up their ipods, anyway?) and yet it seems that as we go forward we are oblivious to the changes around us. So quickly do innovations become part of what we see as the "natural world." It is hard to imagine life without the internet- we take it for granted. But how will the cyber-world interact with the "real" world? In Fahrenheit 451, Bradbury imagined a future in which the people were pacified by the television, where no one read books anymore, or had meaningful conversations with each other.
Oops, gotta go- the Office is coming on.

Here's to the ninety-and-nine!

The Ensign this month has an inspiring article about a young mother who had dreamed of a career as a CEO. She had worked hard through college and had an opportunity to begin work at a great company with a high salary and a career track that seemed to offer everything she had dreamed of. She prayed to ask her Heavenly Father if it was the right thing for her to do, and received a prompting to stay home and raise her children.

I can imagine that this would be a hard decision to make, and this sister should be applauded for making it. At the same time, the story makes me think about how many women in the church have made this same decision, but under less dramatic circumstances?

I know that my wife Christina has many talents, hopes, and dreams. When we were dating, I asked her what she wanted to do with her life- what where her goals and ambitions? I am grateful that she made the decision at an early age that her desire was to be a mother first. Many of the decisions that she made as a young girl have blessed our family, and I am thankful to her for her example of doing what is right.

In the church I think sometimes we give the glory to the Almas and Zeezroms. The ones who strayed a little (or a lot!) and then came back to the fold as strong witnesses for the power of the atonement. And in a way, we all have strayed and can identify with the lost sheep.

Yet while the stragglers deserve our love and celebration, so do the ones who have never strayed. So here's to Christina! To Nephi, Moroni, and Helaman! And to pay tribute to Michael McClean- to the ninety-and-nine!!

On term papers

I'm supposed to be writing my term paper right now, but I need a break. Being a writer has been on my list of career possibilities since high school, but with every term paper I write, I find that it slips farther down that list.

With assigned papers I find that I have to squeeze out every line. It's an effort to compose each thought, relate it to the topic and find appropriate citation to self-validify. Its a laborious process.

Writing is a commitment of time. Investments are to pay dividends, but often the only other person to read my term paper is my professor. Most times, I don't even receive a marked-up copy. Just a final grade and some credits to add to my slowly-growing collection. I don't feel much satisfaction about what I write, just relief that it is over and a vague hope that all of my studies will "pay off in the end."

One more term paper, a thesis, and it's all over.