Safety Signs Fail To Serve Immigrants

The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming … to Staten Island beaches in such great numbers that the Parks Department has installed Russian-language signs to inform swimmers when lifeguards are on duty. The policy started two years ago in South Beach and was just extended to Wolfe's Pond Park. There are already Spanish-language signs on the beach, so why not Russian?

Accommodating new immigrants with safety signs might seem like a good idea, but isn't it also just another sign that the city is enabling a refusal to assimilate? One of the things I've always loved about this city was its international essence. One could walk down Fifth Avenue and hear dozens of different languages and, whenever I'd make the acquaintance of a foreigner, I'd try to learn a few simple words in their native tongue. At the same time, these new immigrants were practicing their English skills on me, with their children serving as interpreters.

Borough Parks Commissioner Thomas Paulo told a Staten Island Advance reporter that the Russian signs were for public safety. Funny, but I can't recall any incident where a Russian immigrant endangered him or herself by strolling into treacherous waters without a lifeguard on duty. There's something patronizing about an attitude that declares common sense is not inherent in foreigners.

While a few Russians applauded the Parks Department move, one woman from Moscow disagreed. Lana Buxbaum, who teaches English to Russians at the Jewish Community Center in Staten Island's Greenridge and Seaview neighborhoods, worries that such accommodations can make immigrants less likely to pursue English.

"They came here, they came to a new country, they're learning a new language," she told Advance reporter Glenn Nyback. "If everything is reversed back, they think there is no reason to learn the language."

She continued: "It's not just the lifestyle they have to change, they have to change the language, too." Exactly. Way back when, many of us in Spanish Harlem went to schools with no bilingual programs, and that was a very good thing. Our parochial school was 95% Hispanic but all classes were in English and we learned our traditional American History. During holiday seasons, however, assemblies paid homage to our ancestry with native dances and songs along with those in English. I dimly recall a group of us appearing on a religious television program, "Lamp Onto My Feet," to sing a Puerto Rican Christmas hymn, "Pastores A Belem." We all, however, spoke perfect English. Then, in the late 1950s, as our population continued to grow, city officials took a very misguided turn. It was one thing for shop keepers to carry signs that read "Se Habla Espanol" to drum up customers; it was quite another thing for the city to have Spanish translations everywhere. The message this move sent was: "Don't bother to learn English. We'll learn Spanish to make it easier for you to live in this city."

So which came first — the language accommodation or the failure to assimilate? Unlike previous immigrants, such as the Italians, Germans, and Japanese, some Hispanics found it was no longer necessary to speak fluent English. Ms. Buxbaum is exactly right in recognizing the danger of language accommodation to newcomers. Our Department of Education is not so astute and has established special schools designed to make New York City students understand and appreciate other cultures. Shouldn't it be the other way around?

A contributing editor of City Journal, Sol Stern, wrote a critical essay in the May issue on how Mayor Bloomberg and the schools chancellor, Joel Klein, have "paved the way for travesties like the radical math conference, the proliferation of social-justice, and the legitimization of bringing leftist politics into the classroom. It's ironic that while Bloomberg extols the benefits of the market in education, his schools are becoming rife with radical teachers using the classroom to trash the American system."

Both Mr. Bloomberg and his chancellor could take a lesson from the late Albert Shanker. The former president of the American Federation of Teachers was not much in favor of multiculturalism. In a 1996 speech in Prague, he said, "Excessive promotion of allegiance to groups, instead of to ideals, such as democracy, human rights, and justice, encourages the breakdown of civil society."

When you have a multi-ethnic society, as we do here in New York City, a common language binds us all. I'm willing to bet that Russians are smart enough to know when it's safe to swim — with or without a sign.