... the issue in this country right now is whether we, as a nation, should be required to cater to every language spoken by "visitors" to our land . . . What I do object to is the concept that the United States is REQUIRED to help them retain their language without learning English.

I don't believe that any US authority or enactment requires that immigrants be helped to retain their original language at the expense of learning English.

I understand that 30 states in the USA have declared English to be a de jure official language, and of those, one has declared Spanish to be an official languge, another has declared French an offical language and a third has declared Hawaiian (no - it's not Alaska!) to be an official language in addition. I don't know what the position is with regard to the US's overseas possessions apart from Puerto Rico, which has Spanish and English as official languages. So far as I am aware, the remaining 20 states (including New York) and the USA federally have no official language, and no duty to use or preserve English any more than French, Spanish, Hawaiian or Arabic, apart from the obvious fact that, if they didn't, their laws and ordinances would not be understood.

But even where a state has only one official language, there is nothing wrong with it trying to make the life of its inhabitants easier by speaking to them in a language they understand. (We do it a lot over here in UK. Only far-right fascists and stubborn Little Englanders seriously believe that our nationhood is being jeopardised as a result. Most of the rest of us think it is being enhanced.) It's just common courtesy to speak their language if you can, as I have already illustrated, and it makes bloody good commercial sense too! If A Inc and B Inc are both competing for business from a French company, and A Inc translates its tender into French and quotes a euro price, while B Inc tenders in English, quoting a dollar price, then 5'll get you 500 that A Inc gets the business!

Allowing, or even helping, other languages to flourish won't undermine the position of English within the state or the country at large.

As for dual language schools. They encourage the use of both, and maybe that way both languages are enriched. What they don't do is undermine English, and they don't force English speakers to learn another language. If you refuse to learn another language, go to an English-only school.

A question for you: You are crossing a road. A car driven by a Spanish-speaking citizen of New Mexico, who is taking his driving test, is bearing down at you at a frightening pace. Would you prefer it if the driving examiner yelled "Stop!" or "ĦAlto!" to the driver?

India has 22 official Languages and hundreds of unofficial languges and gets by without any undue threat to its nationhood or to the integrity of any particular language. So don't fret about one little English/Arabic school, or the fact that California is cosmopolitan and knows it.

TYWD