America, the land many come for salvation from their cruel and unjust government. Most who come to seek salvation are the U.S.'s minorities, which average about 38% of United States' total population as of July 1, 2009. Many are questioning their right to remain in America because they lack the skill of speaking English. Even though non-English speaking citizens reside in the U.S., they should not be required to learn English.

Even though English is almost considered the universal language, a language that can be spoken by everyone, there are still a lot of people that do not speak English because it is not an easy language to learn. The English language consists of more than 1,000,000 words and it has a very complex pronunciation for a large selection of words. Another aspect that makes English difficult to learn is the homophones: red and read, our and hour, by and buy, etc. Another variable that should be taken into consideration is not the language itself, but the person that is learning the language. If the learner is at an older age, the difficulty of teaching that person would multiply because of their exposure to their native language.

Another reason that people should not have to learn English is because it is not hurting anybody except them self. If a person chose not to learn English, he isn't physically putting the U.S. at jeopardy, only himself because he is just limiting his future. For example, lets say a Chinese man just moved here from China and doesn't know a tad of English, would that affect America at all? No. It would only affect that Chinese man and prevent him from doing everything he can in the United States.

If we( as Americans) were to force every non-English speaking citizen into learning English, would we not be killing the best part of America? America is the land of salvation because of its freedom and if we made them do anything at all, we would be stripping them of their freedom and be exactly what they were trying to escape, a very controlling and strict country. And what if the person is physically unable to learn the English language? " If a person is mute, what then? Kill him?" I quote from Ben Thoi. That is why I believe it is the non-English speaking citizen's choice to learn English or not.