America. If we can only become poorrnenough, maybe some nice, rich sugarrndaddy hke Japan will see the benefit ofrnone day signing a NAFTA-type accordrnwith us.rn—]ohn P. CreganrnSPEAKING ENGLISH has becomernrarer than I thought. When I recentlyrnput my 1985 Plymouth Horizon up forrnsale in the classifieds of the WashingtonrnPost and the Washington Times, I wonderedrnhow many people would respondrnto my ad. Little did I know how manyrncalls I’d actually get.rnProblem was, I couldn’t understandrnany of the callers, because they were allrnforeigners. Well, that’s an exaggeration.rnI could understand most of what theyrnsaid, but you get the picture. Not onernAmerican, white or black, came to lookrnat the car. Instead, I got a variety of Ilispanies,rnan Afghan, and an Iranian, thisrnlast one being the guy who plunkedrndown 500 bucks for it and told me therncar was burning oil. Hooray! The guyrnunderstood a combustion engine.rnAt any rate, when the 1990 Censusrncame out, it wasn’t hard to reckon whyrnselling a car in Arlington, Virginia, wasrnakin to selling rugs in a Turkish bazaar.rnAbout 15 percent of Arlington County’srnresidents can’t speak English well,rnas the Washington Post put it, comparedrnwith 2.8 percent ten years ago. A heftyrn25 percent of Ariington’s residents speakrna language other than English at home,rnwith the total for the Northern Virginiarnsuburbs at 17.3 percent.rnThe Maryland suburbs are no better.rnIn the metro area that includes PrincernGeorges and Montgomery Counties,rnamong others, 15.5 percent of the residentsrndon’t speak English at home. Inrnthe District itself, the figure is 12.5 percent.rnThat’s a total, reported the Post, ofrnsome 568,000 people who aren’t speakingrnEnglish at home.rnIn and of themselves these figuresrnmight not seem alarming, until yourncompare them to the figures ten yearsrnago. In 1980, the percentage of Ariingtonianrnaliens speaking a foreign languagernat home was 16 percent. MontgomeryrnCounty’s figure increased from 13.4 percentrnin 1980 to 21.2 percent. The Censusrnnot only tells us Third Worlders likernto cluster in and around urban areasrnsuch as Washington and New York, butrnalso that many more immigrants arernswamping our shores. In MontgomeryrnCounty, for instance, enrollment in Englishrnclasses has grown from 10,000 inrn1986 to 16,000 now.rnBut there’s more to this than the majorrnirritant of having to speak Vietnamesernor Korean to buy cigarettes orrngum at the 7-Eleven. The popular m}’thrnpromulgated by open-border advocatesrnlike Ben Wattenberg is that all these immigrantsrnare a blessing. They make lotsrnof money. They improve the economy.rnThey take jobs we Americans thinkrnwe’re too good for.rnWhere Wattenberg & Co. live is anybody’srnguess, but it ain’t in Arlington.rnMany of the immigrants I see prowlingrnaround the streets look and act like bumsrnand, as soon as they get here, go straightrnonto the welfare rolls. Mario Escobarrnarrived here from Guatemala seven yearsrnago, the Post reported. When he lostrnhis construction job, his pals, otherrnGuatemalans who no doubt knew howrnto work the system, told him he couldrnget unemployment compensation. Hernshops at stores owned by Hispanics.rnNeither he nor his wife speaks English,rnalthough when he buys a shirt he knowsrnto look for an “M,” meaning medium.rnCounty social workers, subsidized byrntaxpayers, occasionally provide translationrnservices for Mario. And finally,rnthis—and let’s quote directly from thernnewspaper: “Although they realize thatrnlearning English would improve theirrnprospects, they see little hope for improvingrntheir lot. Escobar has a fifthgraderneducation and is barely literate inrnnative Spanish.”rnThen there’s Jose Pena, who camernfrom Bolivia in 1982: “He is proud thatrnhe passed his driver’s license in English,rnhe said, but his wife still needs his helprnwith the language.” Whether Mariornand Jose are even citizens the paperrndidn’t say, but they are, the open-bordersrncrowd would argue, “American.” Itrnmight be impolitic to ask, but don’trnmost “Americans” speak English atrnhome?rnNow back to life in Adington County,rnwhich the Vietnamese and Hispanicsrnhave turned into a cross between Saigonrnand Mexico City. On Fridays, I frequentlyrntake a cab to work in the city,rnbecause those of us who still drink distilledrnspirits (as opposed to wine coolers)rnare the only targets of law enforcementrnthe police can stop withoutrnprobable cause, force to confess, andrnmake the charges stick (unless yourrnname happens to be Rodney King). Notrnone taxi driver has been an American.rnEthiopians, Burundians, Burkina Fasoans,rnyes. No teeth. No English. NornAmericanos. Not that it should be surprising.rnAs the Associated Press reported a fewmonthsrnago, “once, the stereotypicalrnNew York cabbie was a cigar-ehomping,rnwisecracking hack who was born andrnraised in the Bronx. Not any more. Today,rnhe may be a Pakistani-born, turbancladrnman who’s more comfortablernspeaking Urdu.” As New York goes, sorngoes Arlington. Where’s Travis Bicklernwhen you need him?rnR. Corf KirkwoodrnCANADA’S social engineers got themselvesrninto a box by creating what thernBilingualism and Biculturalism Commissionrncalled in 1967 “an equal partnershiprnbetween the two foundingrnraces.” Descendants of all other immigrants,rnwho until then had thought ofrnthemselves as Canadians, were suddenlyrnexcluded from the new definition. Tornplacate them, the engineers declared therncountry to be multicultural.rnIn a preview of the 1982 Charter ofrnRights and Freedoms’ fundamental flawrn(tfie multicult label preceded the Charterrnby ten years), Canadians discoveredrnthat to define is to limit. It was nornlonger enough to announce, as PierrernTrudeau did in 1971, “a policy of multieulturalismrnwithin a bilingual framework”;rnthat policy would have to be reinforced.rn”The government will supportrnand encourage the various cultures andrnethnic groups that give structure and vitalityrnto our society,” said Trudeau.rnTo suppose that a culture could notrnonly consist of various cultural and ethnicrngroups, but that their variety andrnnumber could give it structure and vitality,rnreveals not so much an ignorancernof human nature as a determination tornchange it. To suppose that civil servantsrncloseted in Ottawa could support andrnencourage anything vital argues a faithrnin bureaucracy unequalled since thernheyday of Beatrice and Sidney Webb.rnTo suppose that a people whose forebearsrnbrought civilization to the wildernessrncould be told and retold that theirrninherited culture was of no account revealsrnan underlying aim as mischievousrnas it is mistaken. Former prime ministerrnJohn Diefenbaker spoke truly: a Canadianrnis a Canadian is a Canadian.rnWe know who we arc. Attempts torn6/CHRONICLESrnrnrn