I was born in Lowell, Mass, and received my early newspaper training there.
Lowell, one of the most famous Mill Towns (Now a National Park and well worth a visit) was home to a variety of ethnicities. Yankee, Irish, French, Germans and up through the 1960s, home to the largest community of Greeks in the nation. There were also smaller communities of other ethnicities.
All mixed and merged -- and yet retained their individualistic national languages. Now, there is an influx of Vietnamese and Cambodian refugees struggling to find a place in the city's society, *and learning English apace.
A friend of mine has a brother who is a very highly placed exec in a multi-national in Sweden. As I recall, he said that Sweden used to require all to learn the language in order to live and work there. Then a sea change occurred and the requirement was changed. He said the change was not good. "Disasterous" I think was his word. He also said "In this case, (learning the language) America got it right."
Anyone from Sweden on the Board who can comment on this and correct or amplify my recollection?
In years past, the US government promoted assimilation by forbidding use of other languages. Witness the proscription on speaking in a Native American or Hawaiian or Native Alaskan language. Today there is a resurgence in those languages ... in Hawaii Punana Leo is an example where youngsters (ages 4 to 12) learn Hawaiian and teachers have found those same children do better in English Language skills than the children who speak just English.
You can go to any country live there for a lifetime, learn the language, customs, and still be a foreigner ... here you can be an American regardless of where you were born.
Have no unalterable opinion except to say that English/American has bound us together all these years.
