It has been over a year since Donald Trump castigated Jeb Bush and Marco Rubio for speaking Spanish to interviewers, and one bilingual politician remains on the campaign trail: Hillary Clinton’s running mate, Tim Kaine. “Todos somos americanos," we are all Americans, Kaine declared Thursday night in a speech delivered entirely in Spanish: A feat few in his position could achieve, but one that will likely earn him grief. In recent times, being a bilingual politician has become an attack point for critics, but the ability to communicate in another language is a powerful asset for our country’s leaders.
Seeing a representative of the American people speak another language makes some Americans uncomfortable, leading partisan politics to unfairly demonize those capable of expressing themselves in another tongue. Marco Rubio and Jeb Bush, seen by staunch conservatives as illegal-immigrant sympathizers, faced campaign headwinds last year because of their ability to speak Spanish.
Similarly, during the 2012 Republican Party presidential primaries, John Huntsman Jr. had his motives put into question by political ads that denounced him as the “Manchurian candidate” simply for being fluent in Mandarin. That same cycle, Democratic and Republican critics alike portrayed Mitt Romney as an “elitist” candidate because he could communicate in French, something Secretary of State John Kerry has struggled with throughout his political career.
Americans clearly seem to have some vendetta against bilingual politicians.
Throughout history, Americans have chosen to take the stance of assimilate, not accommodate, in regards to new languages. Our detachment from different tongues is inherent in our term to describe them: foreign languages. English, to us, is as tied to the United States as the ideals upon which the nation was founded. Why should politicians speak anything else? English, we like to think, is American.
This makes sense to an extent: No matter how many millions of non-English-speaking immigrants come to the States, English will always be the country’s dominant, functional language. An immigrant would be hard pressed to realize the American Dream without being able to communicate with the clear majority of its citizens.
However, Americans shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss the world’s other modes of communication. The ideals of liberty and autonomy — American ideals — know no language. Since the establishment of our nation over two centuries ago, countless others have penned the same principles our Founding Fathers prescribed to freedom in their own way.
Tim Kaine, like the other bilingual politicians before him, recognizes this. Throughout July, the vice presidential candidate appealed to the Hispanic vote by going out of his way to give interviews to Spanish media and create dialogue about the nature of being an American. Speaking Spanish, or any other language for that matter, allows a candidate to more closely connect with voters who are more comfortable expressing themselves in that manner.
Furthermore, communicating to a foreign power’s people in person, not through a translator, has powerful real and symbolic ramifications. When France suffered the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attacks early last year, John Kerry was able to give his — and his country’s — condolences directly to the people of France.
Why then can partisanship portray bilingualism in such a negative light? Should Obama speak Mandarin like Huntsman, or Spanish like Kaine, Rubio or Bush, you can’t but wonder how relations between the United States and respective foreign powers would differ.
We’ve come to expect foreign leaders to speak English, yet we chastise our own who chose to adapt to our increasingly interconnected world. In this year’s election, foreign language presents a clear defining line between our candidates. Kaine’s willingness to speak engenders goodwill and cooperation, while the Republican platform begets resentment and obstruction. Linguistic capability may not be the election’s greatest issue, but having a bilingual politician with influence in the White House could be a stepping stone towards building amicable relations with our country’s neighbors.