Trump's English-Speaking Edict For Immigrants? The President May Be Surprised To Learn Most English Speakers Are People Of Color
President Donald Trump wants to give top priority to immigrants who speak English. Considering his record on race relations and grasp of foreign affairs, he might be surprised to find that most of the planet’s English speakers are people of color.
Trump introduced legislation Wednesday with Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia intended to slash legal immigration to the United States.
"This competitive application process will favor applicants who can speak English, financially support themselves and their families and demonstrate skills that will contribute to our economy," Trump said.
That’s certainly good news for India, widely considered to have the single largest population of people who speak English, after the United States. And it’s great news for Nigeria, the seventh-most populous country in the world and one where immigrants outrank all other nationalities in levels of education.
In fact, India, Pakistan, the Philippines and Nigeria — in that order — trail only the United States in the number of English speakers. Coming in sixth is the sort of country that Trump has been accused of favoring with his English-only edict, the United Kingdom.
Other English-speaking countries include Botswana, Cameroon Micronesia, Fiji, Ghana, Hong Kong, Kenya, Lesotho, Liberia, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Mauritius, Namibia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Rwanda, Samoa, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Singapore, the Solomon Islands, Sri Lanka, Sudan, South Africa, South Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Why So Much English?
English is the world’s most influential language for a number of reasons. In places throughout Asia and Africa, the language is a legacy of the once-vast colonization by the British Empire. Many countries in Western Europe speak English because it has been taught since childhood due to the U.S. occupation of regions held by Nazi Germany. In a world dominated by the U.S. economy, it's also the language of commerce. One of the easiest jobs in the world to get is as an English teacher in China.
Likewise, many Eastern Europeans learned Russian because of the Soviet occupation of those countries, though the language fell fast out of fashion with the collapse of the USSR in 1991. In all likelihood, more people have forgotten Russian than speak it fluently.
Trump’s nationalist leanings have long extended to language. Shortly after moving into the Oval Office, he took down the Spanish-language version of whitehouse.gov. Which is interesting, because Spanish is the world’s second-most spoken language, just ahead of English and trailing the leader, Mandarin Chinese.
African-American Influx?
Trump may not be aware of the many African nations where English is an official language. The continent where so many African-Americans trace their slave roots includes the West African nation of Liberia, which was settled by freed American slaves and has long considered itself an offshoot of American history.
The capital of Liberia, Monrovia, was named after President James Monroe. There are schools named after President Richard Nixon, the Monrovia Police Department wears uniforms modeled after the NYPD and the Liberian dollar resembles its U.S. counterpart.
The United States maintained a military presence in Liberia for decades, tracing back to the 19th century, but it abandoned its stepchild at the end of the Cold War, resulting in a chaotic decade of war that was finally replaced by a stable democracy.
One thing that never changed is the Liberian flag, a gorgeous tribute to the Stars and Stripes, with a single star standing in for the fifty on the U.S. flag.
And so proudly it waves.
Related link:
How Trump Has Alienated The World
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