The language people speak represents their culture and identity. When we, as a country, fail to appreciate these languages we exclude people from our society. A democracy provides people with a voice and allows them to be a part of change in communities. The question then becomes who is separated from our community? From what I have read it seem like that would be everyone that doesn’t speaks english, and that would be almost ninety five percent of the immigrants in American. The problem in this could be that those excluded don’t have a voice or any say in our today democracy. According to Chiamaka Nwosu, Jeanne Batalova, and Gregory Auclair, “ Nearly 41 million immigrants lived in the United States in 2012—a historical numeric high for a country that has been a major destination for international migrants throughout its history. About 20 percent of all international migrants reside in the United States, which accounts for less than 5 percent of the world’s population.” and if this is true, then that means that we are being selfish to these immigrants.
When thinking about Language and democracy, it is important to also think of different accents. For example the black people in America are also not listen to because of the way they speak, “Ebonics” which could also not help our democracy, because in order to fix a community you need every voice. I think the problem is that people who can’t speak english, and when I say english I am not only speaking about of regular english I am talking about “White English”. According to Tocqueville “Besides, democratic nations love change for its own sake, and this is seen in their language as much as in their politics. Even when they have no need to change words, they sometimes have the desire.” this shows how english is almost only privilege to people in power.
In most African American communities, majority of the people are raised speaking “ebonics”. So when they grow up speaking that way, they run into the real world and start to realize that what they speak can be very threatening to them. I have come to a conclusion that language is used to divide, but language differences should be appreciated. The fact that language in America is so filter, other people who speak languages like my mother’s tongue usually can't get anything from being in America. That also lead to their American dream, because how could one achieve their American dream without being able to speak the language that the American dream was written in. Languages should be appreciated to the point where anybody, from any racial background who doesn’t speak english should feel like they have a say, and that they can do whatever they want in America without language being an obstacle.