America stands for diversity. We welcome different cultural traditions, enjoy restaurants’ taste of the world and connect with other countries. We settle for superficial acceptance of others’ cultures. Most, however, fail to see the ways that we turn a blind eye to our cultural indifference, the most obvious way being our negligence of the value of linguistic diversity. “The entire world speaks English, so why bother learning another language?” captures the attitude of many Americans. In this sense, considering how a language represents a culture, a people, we accept our lack of cross-cultural self-education. We welcome immigrants and we seek business opportunities in a global market, but we leave communication to an interpreter or Google Translate. 

Language holds value as a marketing tool in fields such as medicine, law and others. However, language is much more. Our population’s general lack of interest in learning different languages shows that we do not see how the communication of ideas stifled by a linguistic barrier hinders our personal transformation. We settle for being culturally accepting instead of being culturally proactive. 

St. Joe’s mission statement upholds “professional success” and “engaged citizenship.” We strive to exemplify the Jesuit values of “cura personalis” and “solidarity” through our liberal arts education that allows us flexibility in our discernment of our life passions. As a double major in Spanish and Linguistics, who also speaks Portuguese and Italian, I ask the faculty at St. Joe’s to recognize the value of language study as part of how we learn to engage in a multicultural and multilingual society through exchanging ideas and valuing someone’s whole identity. 

With curriculum reform underway, the proposal to eliminate the language requirement threatens our university’s power to combat the disinterest of foreign language in our country and foster the formation of culturally responsive individuals. In an ideal world, we would all voluntarily take a second language, but the accountability of a language requirement serves as a necessary push for us to change and grow. This, after all, is the power of a liberal arts education, a well-rounded experience that lets us continue exploring through core classes and discern how we are called to set the world on fire.