
For 6 weeks in the last quarter of 2023 my wife and I traveled around, mostly just the 2 of us, in Argentina & Chile. We had done something similar, traveling for 4 months in Asia after having lived several years in Abu Dhabi. All of this ‘Southern Cone’, South American soiree effectively scheduled and arranged via smartphone, including hikes, flights, day tours in various cities, restaurant & winery reservations, cheapo boutique hotels, overnight luxury (cheap) bus travel, et al …in and to places like Salta, Mendoza, Puerto Varas/Arenas, Santiago, Bariloche, Ushuaia, Iguazu, and BA.
#1 Takeaway: If distracted Americans would learn just 1 more foreign language, i.e. Spanish, they could communicate with pretty much everyone from the North Pole to the South Pole, in the Western Hemisphere.
Amazingly, most of the Chileans & Argentines we met who worked in lower-level labor positions, i.e. drivers, cashiers, attendants, some shop clerks, waiters, etc. could speak rudimentary English. Unlike most of Asia from our earlier adventure. It also helped that I knew rudimentary Spanish from a technical sales position I had many years before, working in the US-Mexican maquiladora industry.
However that is not the point. In Southern Chile & Argentina we encountered larger groups of European Germans, Poles, Romanians, and others from Eastern Europe—down there buying real estate. They all spoke Spanish and 2-3 other languages, including English, as is common practice in Europe.
We also saw evidence of large scale Chinese infrastructure investment (trans-Andean tunnels, bridges, canals, roads, etc.), and some of their way-cool, el cheapo electric cars. A direct confirmation of a feckless US foreign policy under Biden and his DC NeoCon war-handlers, who have clearly taken their eyes off the hemispheric ball.
Yet God forbid legions of ordinary mind-numbed, addled Americans become proficient in at least one other foreign language.
That’s precisely the point here. Were Arizona conservatives to have this epiphany about the incredible economic, social, and technical advantages a fully bilingual workforce conveys in tomorrow’s economy, they might get onboard the issue. Especially as A.I. looms; an unstoppable techno-force that will winnow down all un-useful handicaps, starting now with worthless college degrees and their bloated university promoters. Being fully bilingual, pre-college, in Spanish might easily save the bacon for one’s children or grandchildren over the next 50 yrs.
Aside from the cultural, social, and political advantages of having a fully bilingual population—-the economic & trading aspects are off-the-charts. It will speed up the inevitable ‘harmonization’ of a galaxy of things that have heretofore been considered costly ‘friction’. National security aspects along the US-Mexican border cannot help but be improved.
For Arizona to be the first state nationally to do such a bold move politically, not to mention educationally, while still maintaining the sovereign integrity of its borders (if the District of Corruption concurs), sends an incredible signal. One that might overcome the recent stain of being considered the crazy nuthouse on America’s southern border.
Yeah, crazy like a fox.
Sellers is a Southpark, Roosevelt-Republican (TR) living in incorporated Oro Valley; his background is federal technology commercialization