Will someone please tell Harry Reid that 'people who speak Spanish' come in all races?

Yesterday

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid called a proposal to make English the official language "racist" on the Senate floor yesterday.
"This amendment is racist. I think it's directed basically to people who speak Spanish," the Democrat said during the already tense debate over immigration reform.

Note to Harry: 'people who speak Spanish' come in all races.

More importantly, as Roger points out,

Any encouragement to immigrants (in the current situation, Spanish-speaking immigrants) to think that they can live and work here in their language of origin is the most surefire way to condemn those same immigrants to a life of poverty and bad jobs.

Roger is right: Take a look at the professions where English prevails, not only in the USA, but across the world:

engineering
computers
other technology
natural sciences
medicine
financial institutions such as banks, stock markets, commodities markets, and trade in government-issued securities
accounting
economics
international law

A small amount of research will show you that those are the highest paid occupations in the world.

According to the College of Natural Science, these are the highest-paid college majors; look at the average starting salaries for recent graduates:

Chemical Engineering $55,900
Computer Engineering $54,887
Electrical Engineering $52,899
Mechanical Engineering $50,672
Accounting $45,723
Economics/Finance $45,191
Logistics/Supply Chain $43,017
Civil Engineering $44,999

While Harry bellyaches about job outsourcing to China, he should take a look at the high-skilled jobs being outsourced: I guarantee you that the best Chinese engineers with world-class skills, like engineers all around the world, learned English.

Harry should also try getting hold of his friendly tech support hotline person. The odds are the person is in India. India's become a preferred place for outsourcing jobs because India's an English-speaking country. Again, English pays:

India's IT and outsourcing sector is currently worth about $22bn and expected to grow by 25% until the end of the decade, it said.

India is actively courting more investors, and its economy will continue to grow in those areas.

Even Rochefort (a town best known for its cheese) in France, the most language-chauvinistic - they created the word - country in the world, was holding an English language music festival, in a bid to put itself on the cultural map. (click on sidebar item for video)

Newton's post, About Darned Time! explains that making English the official language should have been done a century ago. Newton, like me, was born and raised in Puerto Rico, and has a word or two for Harry:

For those who believe that such measure amounts to "racism", count me among the "racists". Yep, a multi-racial individual married to a white guy, two languages under the belt, and an International Relations background is a "racist", just because of advocating English as the official language of the United States. That makes sense... not!

Sen. Harry Reid just insulted a huge chunk of the electorate, including those who learned English after arriving here in order to be successful in life.

While you're at it, forget about official second languages of any kind. Every country with an official second language is permanently divided. While the teaching of foreign languages should be compulsory in every school in our country, English is and should remain America's language.

Every person who comes to the USA should work hard to participate in all of our country's opportunities. Learning English is only the first step.

Harry can't seem to realize that.

(technorati tags Immigration, Politics, outsourcing, Harry Reid, Democrats)