José E. Serrano: “this is the kind of amendment that shows up every so often. It plays to our patriotic feelings and to our feelings of…”

“this is the kind of amendment that shows up every so often. It plays to our patriotic feelings and to our feelings of wanting to be good Americans. So what you tell Americans is that if a language other than English is used anywhere in the country for any purpose, somehow, as the gentleman says, it attacks our democracy and threatens our democracy. We are not saying that we want people to stay away from learning to speak English, and I think it is important to note that when people come into this country and what some folks go through to come into this country, that is a statement about how much they want to be in this country. Is it true that Mom and Dad may take a little longer to speak English? Absolutely. But the young man that comes in or the young woman that comes in at the age of 8, 9, 10, 12, whatever, I assure you that 10 months after they are here, they are acting very American and a year or two later they are speaking English. That's a fact of life. In fact, I know this for a fact as one who spoke Spanish before he spoke English. When Hispanics sit around the dinner table and the issue of language comes up, it has never been a plot against the English language. It is usually the lament by the grandmother that the grandchildren no longer speak Spanish. That is the reality of America. That is how it has been from day one. That is how it is always going to be.”