NOT all people from the other half of the world that English is not the official language in the United States. India may be the world’s largest democracy but to the strictest sense of the word, the United States is certainly the most democratic country in the world. The fact remains that majority of the people in the United States (Caucasian and African-American alike) speak English but because of democracy at work, lobbyists from the Hispanics, the immigrants and the Native Americans are making sure that English must not be called an official language.

Politics may well play an important role here because the Republicans are clearly the conservative ones but the Democrats are the ones who are craving for change. I personally have a line to walk here because as a Roman Catholic, I certainly cannot tolerate their stand on pro-abortion. On the other hand, I do not want the rights of the gays, the Native Americans, African-Americans and the immigrants to be trampled. The idea of making English as the official language in this country does not worry me at all.

After all, we need English to deal with entrepreneurs in this country. It’s not like Canada where half of the people speak English and the other half speak French. So there are lots of children here in the United States who direly need English education. Most of them are Hispanics and the sons and daughters of immigrants.

And that’s when I admire the conservative President Bush to come in. In 2002, he signed into law a landmark legislation called the No Child Left behind Act. The $15-billion Act is aimed to fund massive public education for children of non-English speaking immigrants as well as Hispanics and other impoverished children who cannot afford to pay private elementary and secondary schools here. Of course, this includes acquisition of the English language. And that’s where my admiration of President Bush comes in. Even if he is conservative, he certainly values the minorities in this country.

His wife, whom herself is a teacher prior to being First Lady, has also initiated in her own way the injection of English language acquisition in the education mainstream, not just in public schools but also in private schools. The First Lady, being a private citizen, can easily convince the private sector to have its own counterpart in the No Child Left behind Act. Because of her efforts, the superintendent of Roman Catholic education in Washington, DC, Patricia Weitzel-O’Neill, has initiated massive English language acquisition in her own area. Her practice is now replicated by Roman Catholic education superintendents all over the country. There are 2.3 million students in Roman Catholic high schools nationwide and all of them benefit this English language acquisition method. Because of that, 97 percent of graduates in Roman Catholic schools ultimately go to college. Now isn’t that lovely?