As mentioned on the welcome page, the research paper I have written goes to show my improvement in writing in general.

The Cover Letter 

     As someone who enjoys looking into the field of politics while also debating those who disagree with my opinions, I’m what many people would call a leftist as I try to look into ways of helping those less fortunate while also trying to strip those at the top of any privilege that they have that us common people don’t have, it’s what I have considered my goal after looking deep into the blood money the rich spend to stay on top while trying to cripple many to stop them from getting a piece of that luxurious cake. In the prompt I’ve written, I’ve decided to investigate further into immigrant struggles here in the United States with Standard English being the main emphasis of the whole ordeal. During my semester in English Composition, I’ve multiple read prompts but the two prompt that sparked up my idea to write my prompt was June Jordan’s “Nobody Mean More to Me Than You and the Future Life of Willie Jordan”, and Amy Tan’s “Mother Tongue”. Both of these prompts have an emphasis of language being spoken differently depending on your background while also mentioning the struggles of speaking differently from what is considered “the norm”. This is what I took into consideration when writing my prompt. When looking into detail about the origins of the standardization of language, I’ve found ties between the ruling class and what is established as a standard language with evidence leading all the way to early 21^st century Britain of class segregation, this information has led my hatred for the elitist class to go much deeper from seeing how even language is used to manipulate the masses to divide and conquer. 

     While it is pretty obvious of which audience I’m trying to reach, I tried to use the language of struggle to try to reach those of the middle class, the people who don’t fully understand the struggles of immigrants and how English is such a diverse language in itself while also leaving no room for arguments. I’ve decided to take the logos path when trying to present my argument by presenting how Standard English in itself hurts a lot of people such as those of immigrant backgrounds by creating a barrier of helpful opportunities. Of course, I wouldn’t bother trying to reach the richer folk because any social progress helping the unfortunate is just creates a dent in their wallet so they wouldn’t care to listen to the struggles of any unfortunate groups of people unless there’s profit to be found. Finally, this phase’s assignment helped me achieve the course learning outcome of “Examine how attitudes towards linguistic standards empower and oppress language users” by going into detail of immigrants having to overcome the language barrier while also needing to learn the standardized version of English to possibly live comfortably in the United States. 

Exploitation of Immigrants Through Standard English 

    There has always been a massive influx of immigrants entering the United States since the country gained full sovereignty, but one main issue immigrants face when settling in the United States is the language barrier due to most immigrants coming from countries whose main language is not English. Immigrants after a while of living in the United States start to understand English a bit better but they tend to speak it much differently from what a lot of people speak in the United States which is considered “Standard English”. Most first-generation immigrants do not learn “Standard English,” so they continue speaking it the way they have picked up on it, but many people tend to look down upon Immigrants who speak broken English which leads which eventually leads to discrimination. Immigrants already have a challenging time settling in the United States so there should not be a need to force this task upon incoming immigrants just so they do not get discriminated or get locked out of employment opportunities. In the United States it seems as if it is mandatory to learn “Standard English” especially when it comes to job opportunities, but even if an immigrant does not speak “Standard English” an employer can use this to their advantage and exploit an immigrant worker. When looking at “Standard English” from this point of view, you can see how it hurts many immigrants entering the United States and the exploitation involved when one does not know “Standard English” and so the following prompt will go into reasoning as to why “Standard English” is unnecessary and to go into further detail into the exploitation involved when an immigrant does not know “Standard English” . 

     Before going into detail of how “Standard English” leads to exploitation of immigrant workers, let us look at what purpose “Standard English” serves in the United States. “Standard English” is taught in schools across the United States from elementary school to high school, but outside of school kids do not speak in “Standard English” but they speak in their area’s dialect (Garner). When people speak to each other on a day-to-day basis there is no use of “Standard English,” in a grammatical sense we all speak to each other casually, so then, in what situation would it be required in speak in “Standard English”? If you are practicing law, then it would be logical to learn “Standard English” as written in the article Standard English: Good or Bad? ‘Good English’ always has been a path to the legal profession, especially when it comes down to having to study for the LSAT which requires you to have a strong reading comprehension, along with being a good critical thinker and to back up your claim through reasoning (Garner). So, if one does not want to become a lawyer why should “Standard English” be learned amongst new immigrants? The whole idea of having a standardized version of a language is implemented by the elites in society (Garner). It does not take long to figure that out because when you look at those who are much richer than your average citizen such as rich people or people in government positions, they always speak in the standardized version of their own language (Garner). Evidence for the use of language to show social classes involved is shown in Standard English and the Politics of Language, Second Edition in which later in the book it showed how classes were taught in early 21^st century Britain in which classes were split into two, one class to teach middle class children, and another class to teach poor children (Crowley, 180). Both classes did not interact with one another since they did not have, as Crowley wrote “shared knowledge to facilitate conversation” which led to middle class children to not understand the poorer children’s struggles due to little communication between the two (Crowley, 180).  

     As mentioned previously, the whole idea of “Standard English” leads to a superiority complex over those who speak non-standardized English which ends up leading to discrimination not only to immigrants but to people who also live in low-come neighborhoods which a majority of people tend to overlook (Curzan, 340). In a New York Times magazine issued on September 12, 1999, written by Margalit Fox touched on this issue a while ago about how people in the United States discriminate against those with a different dialect, while also saying “all languages—and all dialects—have equal merit.” (Curzan, 339). Almost a month later, there were many readers outraged by the magazine, sending letters the editor section of the magazine with one person who believed the article was nonsense and another blaming the leftist ideology for trying to spread political correctness by defying logic and reasoning which is blatant ignorance (Curzan, 339). This type of ignorance also leads to discrimination based on how these people choose to overlook the importance of other languages and to blame a certain group of people for trying to “pass an agenda”. 

     Now to talk about the struggles of immigrants and their transition to the United States. Many immigrants that end up coming to the United States are highly skilled in their labor as written in the article “Career Transitions of Highly Skilled Immigrants: Two Case Studies” with immigrants making up one fourth of all physicians that resides in the United States along with almost half of the United States’ scientists being immigrants with doctorates (Lane). While many immigrants make up a decent portion of the high skilled jobs, their transitioning process to the United States is gruesome with immigrants having to go back to school for retraining in their field of work, these immigrants also end up having to take up menial labor to while also having to pay off their school dues and they are needed to learn English if they wish to pursue a career in the United States may sometimes end up facing unemployment (Lane). Not to overlook the immigrants who were not able to acquire a proper education in their home country as they also facing similar problems to immigrants who were able to have access to higher education in their home country as well, such as unemployment, having to take up menial labor, and discrimination, and so immigrants of both skilled and unskilled labor (not the best terms to use when describing menial work) end up having to face similar problems.  

     This eventually leads to another problem when these immigrants end up having to take up menial labor which in many cases exploit them, they are then forced into residential segregation depending on the socioeconomic status of the immigrant as well as ethnicity of the immigrant (Gelatt). The menial labor that immigrants need to take up end up receiving small pay for their work which indirectly creates residential segregation by pushing immigrants into low-income neighborhoods. Since schools within those areas are heavily underfunded, it also affects the children of immigrants which end up not being able to teach “Standard English” proper to students which ends up causing a deficiency in learning English within the low-income immigrant neighborhoods (Gelatt). This entire process ends up crippling immigrants one they make it to the United States and putting them into a cycle of having to continue living in low-income neighborhoods and taking up menial labor due to underfunded schools that does not instruct their student on basic English let alone “Standard English”. 

     In conclusion, immigrants face many obstacles with little or no social programs to help them since they are not citizens. The United States also does not have any policies to help immigrants either which leads to immigrants being exploit, and as mentioned before, immigrants are forced into low-income neighborhoods which also contain underfunded schools due to low taxes being paid by immigrants living within those communities. While immigrants are suffering trying to live comfortably in the United States, they end having to sacrifice a lot, whether that be needing to take of menial labor you are not meant for, or being exploited of their labor, immigrants suffer across the United States, and one of the main reasons for their suffering comes out of the language barriers between the immigrants and employers which again leads to exploitation or if the immigrant does not know “Standard English” they lose out on a opportunity for employment.  

Work cited 

Crowley, Tony. Standard English and the politics of language. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. 

Curzan, Anne. “Teaching the politics of standard English.” Journal of English Linguistics 30.4 (2002): 339-352. 

Garner, Bryan A. “Standard English: Good or Bad? ‘Good English’ always has been a path to the legal profession.” ABA Journal, vol. 106, no. 3, June-July 2020, p. 32. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A628511465/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=3a9a54c2. Accessed 19 Oct. 2022. 

Gelatt, Julia, et al. “How Immigrants Are Reshaping Residential Segregation – Urban Institute.” How Immigrants Are Reshaping Residential Segregation, Urban Institute, July 2015, https://apps.urban.org/features/ncdb/immigrants-reshaping-residential-segregation/index.html. 

Lane, Alexandra, and Debbiesiu L. Lee. “Career Transitions of Highly Skilled Immigrants: Two Case Studies.” Career Development Quarterly, vol. 66, no. 4, Dec. 2018, pp. 315+. Gale Academic OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A575197419/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=bookmark-AONE&xid=8e7a4ee4. Accessed 19 Oct. 2022.