This upcoming presidential election will be my second to be able to vote in. With that being said, since becoming old enough to vote, I started to wonder about the history of presidents passed and discovered there have only been 20 multilingual presidents, the last being Franklin Roosevelt, who spoke English, German and French. This means it has been over 70 years since we have seated a multilingual United States leader. At first glance, it might be a passing interesting fact; however, this fact is just a rabbit hole into much deeper issues.
“America the free!” “America the brave!” “America the… melting pot?” Somehow that phrase doesn’t roll off the tongue as smoothly anymore. There is no denying that the United States is very diverse. However, our politicians are not representative of this reality, especially since so many are unwilling to try to connect with the minority population on a basic level, such as language. Can we truly represent our multicultural citizens if we cannot understand them? We cannot celebrate our idea of inclusivity when it is just another sparkly term we throw around at dinner parties when we “talk politics.”
Most of my friends throughout my life have been multilingual, and I have always dreamed of having that superpower; however, that dream does not seem to be a goal for most other Americans. An article by the Pew Research Center titled: “Most European students are learning a foreign language in school while Americans lag” examined the differences between the United States and European emphasis on language learning. It states, “Learning a foreign language is a nearly ubiquitous experience for students throughout Europe, driven in part by the fact that most European countries have national-level mandates for formally studying languages in school. No such national standard exists in the U.S., where requirements are mostly set at the school district or state level… Overall, a median of 92% of European students are learning a language in school.” (2024).
This makes sense for the European Union (EU) to prioritize language learning as their continent has an array of distinct native tongues. Whereas the United States borders the English and French-speaking Canada, and South America, which has 448 different languages spoken -Spanish being the primary language used. Yet, we do not cultivate relations with those places as intentionally as European countries do with the ones they border, so the importance of learning Spanish or French takes the backburner. But, there is an ironic component to all this: only five countries in the world do not have an official language: The United Kingdom, Australia, Costa Rica, Eritrea, and… The United States of America. With this in mind, the fact that we do not declare an official language means that we are indicating the idea of valuing diversity in tongues. Yet, our education system and political leaders do not seem to reflect this.
An article written by Sandy Dietrich and Erik Hernandez titled “Nearly 68 Million People Spoke a Language Other Than English at Home in 2019” relays a survey taken by the United States Census Bureau in 2019. Through their findings, it was seen that the U.S. has had a large shift in our language culture. The article states, “The number of people in the United States who spoke a language other than English at home nearly tripled from 23.1 million (about 1 in 10) in 1980 to 67.8 million (almost 1 in 5) in 2019, according to a recent U.S. Census Bureau report.”
Growing up, summer evenings were drizzled with the perfect smells of barbacoa and a boombox singing latin pop from my hispanic neighbors. Laughter and the sweet sound of Spanish whirled around our predominantly white suburban block. But when mass shootings became more reoccuring in schools and the United States became less safe, there was no more barbacoa lingering in the air and the music faded into a distant memory. The family I had grown up with were struck with fear and went back to Spain.
We are living in a bubble, believing in these spoonfed warped realities of the “preposterous undignified outside world.” But as we pretend to be God in front of the ones we see as so disproportionate to us, we cannot hear our country’s desperate cry for their own people’s attention. How can we be so bold as to proclaim our betterness if we cannot even understand our neighbors? We must get off our delusional high horses and come back to the ground where reality is an ugly thing that we must face.
What do you look for in a leader? Confidence? Drive? Compassion? Good looks? The eeriness of the future takes hold of my breath as I flip through articles on our potential presidential leader. Over 70 years is too long to wait to be heard. Over 70 years is too long for us to be ignorant of the reality we are coming to. I often hear people ramble on about how they will change the world, how they want to be the hero. Which is a fine dream, but ask yourself this, “can I understand my neighbor? Or do I put words into their mouths?” Leaders were born listeners, not shouters. As a country, we must raise our standards for who will represent us, the “melting pot.”