Mountain View’s Mayor to Everybody: “Speak American!”

There’s a masochistic component to why I love being an American. Namely, it’s that all elements of our population are given a voice, and more often than not, that voice is achingly stupid.

In other cultures, I can’t help but feel that these people would be shouted down by a majority in possession of good sense and at least nominal taste. Probably, they wouldn’t be allowed to rise to a position of prominence in the first place. Not so in Arkansas, however, where Mountain View Mayor Jim Cash has proposed to pass an English-only resolution. In an interview with a Little Rock television station, Cash has stated:

"I think we need to make the English Language or the American Language or what ever you want to call it the number [one] language of Mountain View…If you move to Mountain View you need to speak American and that's the way I feel about it."

In a cruel twist of dramatic irony, Mountain View’s Wikipedia page informs me that the principal driver of the local economy is tourism. I’m aware, of course, that European or Asian backpackers probably don’t descend on the town by the busload. My guess (and it’s a snide one, I know) is that Mountain View’s B&B syndicate relies more on what I’d call Cracker Tourism…the kind that my family and I participate in, it should be noted. The kind that involves watching Fox news in a hotel room after eating a meal that, at one point or another, had a hoof. The kind that does not ask for a wine list, but rather, asks if there’s any White Zin.

And yet, Mountain View hosts many local cultural festivals. Lesser among them is the Great Championship Outhouse Races (the prize for which is a golden toilet seat), but chief among them is the Ozark Folk Festival. There are two elements of irony in this that you guys may have seen coming a mile away:

1. Folk music is, inherently, a celebration of cultural identity and, based on the depth and breadth of the genre, it’s one of the most heterogeneous forms of art that’s out there. Most of what is played at this annual gathering, I’m guessing, stems from cultures that are not English (or American) speaking.

2. “Ozark” is a French portmanteau, historians seem to believe, coming from the words “Aux Arkansas” (meaning “towards Arkansas”). So why not, Mayor Cash: English only, please. Rename your festival, your surrounding mountains, your national forest, and anything else that bears the name “Ozark” in or about your fair berg.

And yes, it’s very easy and a bit lazy to condescend in instances like this. Of course this idiocy is in no way a reflection on the populace of Mountain View. Rather, it’s a sad attempt to stir up frenzy by a bantam-weight, would-be demagogue. But do you see where I’m going with this? With only weeks until Election Day, I think it’s worth ruminating on the fact that our elected officials are our figureheads. They stand in as representations for us as a people. What they do, we become associated with indelibly.

In America, when you cast a vote, you don’t only affect what happens for your household or your street or city or state or even for your country. Your vote, cast only by you, affects the entire world in a manner which, frankly, I don’t see any other citizen in any other country being able to approximate. Of course, that's certainly subject to change as we stumble into the 21st century, but the fact remains: we cannot be cavalier in deciding our leaders. Nor can we can we continue to let divisive domestic social issues have pride of place at the table. It’s time to get over ourselves and understand that these are real positions of power (even the office of the mayor in a town with fewer than 3,000 residents), not to be filled by any goon who promises us that he will punish those different from us.