Analysis Of Essay 'America Has More Than One Spanglish'

“What they mean is not only that a lot of English words and phrases are sprinkled in, but also that Spanish words are used with meanings influenced by English”. 1. As John McWhorter wrote in his essay, “America Has More Than One Spanglish” In this quote he implies that both the Spanish and English language have influenced each other. So how does immigration affect America? How does America affect immigration? Why are Americans so against immigration? Looking through America’s past, immigration is the building block of America. Going back to some of the first immigrants known, the pilgrims who immigrated to America from England in 1620. William Bradford wrote about how the pilgrims relied on the Native Americans to help them adapt to life in

mercy to these poor people, that here they got seed to plant them corn the next year, or else they might have starved. . .” (11) This just shows how heavily the pilgrims relied on the Native Americans to help them survive. The pilgrims acknowledged that without the help of the Natives, they wouldn’t have been able to survive. Immigration allowed for cultural immersion to occur and without this exchange of culture America would be different than how it is today. After immigrating to America, it’s inevitable that immigrants start to adopt American culture and customs. McWhorter writes, “And, it seems, immigrants bring their languages here, only to see them blow away in the wind after a generation or two.” He talks about how immigrants' languages of origin start to slowly be forgotten as generations are born. McWhorter describes the slow loss of language use and fluency as something that is so easily blown away by wind, this shows how fast assimilation in America can affect the culture of those who immigrate here. With America’s main language being English, this has caused more and more generations to use less of their language of origin and use more

Some generations are beginning to speak “Spanglish” which is Spanish with a lot of English words in it, some Spanish speakers see it as being impure and a digression from “real” Spanish (1). These are just some of the ways that America has been affecting immigrants. If immigration is the building block of America, why are Americans so against it? According to Resident Scholar of the Islamic Association of North Texas, “Immigration strikes at the very heart of a central metathesiophobia, or fear of change.” This implies that the reason Americans are so anti-immigration is because they’re afraid of change. The expectation of loss – loss of language, culture, and the power and privilege that is connected to their identity – can be the root cause of their fear. If you think about it, who isn’t an immigrant? For example, look at the Native Americans who helped the Europeans, although they were