[lurk2]

> What would be the benefit or reason for this?

If people are not forced to speak the official language they never learn and eventually self-isolate within their own communities. This leads to the Balkanization of the country. Canada is currently dealing with this in relation to its Indian population, which is approximately equivalent to the Hispanic population in America in terms of percentage of the population and the occupations they work in.

Canada has two official languages and knowledge of one or the other is theoretically required to immigrate there, but almost all government offices and most private banks provide services in multiple languages (e.g. Mandarin, Punjabi, Tagalog, Hindi, etc.), so it's quite common for immigrants to never bother learning English or French. There's also lots of entry programs which don't require the applicant to speak either of the official languages, as well as a lot of fraud in those programs that do.

This has not had positive effects on Canada's social cohesion.

Another (somewhat ironic) example is in Mexico City, where some local residents are upset about the influx of predominantly American digital nomads and retirees changing the character of the city because they do not speak Spanish.

[hot_gril]

Canada also has an English vs French problem that cannot be resolved at this point.

[AlecSchueler]

Aren't individual freedoms and not having having to bend to communal norms core tenants of being American? I didn't expect to wake up to Trump introducing socialist policies today but things just get weirder and weirder.

[hot_gril]

If precedent is what decides core American tenants... Every immigrant group in history has learned English over time, or at least their children have. Even if the majority of the country were ESL, English would still be the most commonly understood one by far.

[lurk2]

> Aren't individual freedoms and not having having to bend to communal norms core tenants of being American?

I suppose you harbor similarly negative feelings towards affirmative action and the civil rights act?

[AlecSchueler]

Could you quote the parts of my comment where you felt my "negative feelings" were implied? I'm a European and a socialist watching this from outside. The idea of putting individual freedom above the common good is not one that I necessarily agree with, it's just one that I understood as being essential to the American experience, hence my question and surprise.

My point in essence is that I feel like this particular policy comes more from a desire to make life harder for those people who live non-normative linguistic lifestyles rather than to foster strength of community as was implied above. I'm all for community but I also believe in supporting diversity between communities as well as within communities. Hopefully that makes my feelings about the civil rights movement &c. clear to you.

[lurk2]

> I'm all for community but I also believe in supporting diversity within communities as well as between communities.

A community is shared. You can't have a community if you can't communicate with your neighbor.