Fraternity-Testvériség, 1959 (37. évfolyam, 1-12. szám)

1959-08-01 / 8. szám

FRATERNITY

OFFICIAL ORGAN OF HUNGARIAN REF. FEDERATION OF AMERICA

Editor-in-Chief: George E. K. Borshy. — Managing Editor:

Joseph Kecskemethy. — Associate Editors: Emery Király and László L. Eszenyi. — Chief Contributor: Alexander Daroczy. Published monthly. — Subscription for non-members in the U. S. A. and Canada $2.00, elsewhere $3.00 a year.

Office of Publication: Expert Printing Co., 4627 Irvine St., Pittsburgh 7, Pa. Editorial Office: Kossuth House, 1801 “P” St., N. W., Washington 6, D. C.

Volume XXXVII AUGUST 1959 Number 8

MELTING POT THEORY OBSOLETE

By DR. WILLIAM RILEY PARKER

Chief, Language Development Section, U. S. Office of Education

In times past we were greatly concerned to “Americanize” in a hurry the newcomers to our shores, and a usual by-product of this process was to make the second and third generations ashamed of their cultural heritage, including the foreign tongue.

Thus, in many schools in the Southwest, children of Mexican background were punished for speaking Spanish in school, even on the playground. Although in the workaday world they are expected to know Spanish, these children still, for the most part, have no opportunity to learn to read and write their mother tongue until they elect Spanish in high school — if they get to high school, and if it is taught there.

It has recently been announced, however, that Spanish-speaking children in New Mexico will hereafter be given the opportunity to master their mother tongue beginning in grade five (while English- speaking children will learn Spanish from grade one!).

Whereas speaking only English was once almost universally identified with good citizenship and patriotism, there are other signs that this inhumane and, in view of America’s rich history, illogical tendency is diminishing.

We may yet demonstrate our national maturity by inviting the educated among foreign-bom Americans (i.e., those with accents we want to imitate) to help us acquire a second tongue and some knowledge of another culture than our own.