Boyles guest Corsi: "No bilingual nation has ever survived in the history of the world"

Summary: During an appearance on Peter Boyles' 630 KHOW-AM show, right-wing author Jerome Corsi contended that bilingual nations have been doomed to failure throughout the course of history. In fact, numerous countries currently have more than one official language.

On the February 13 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show, guest Jerome Corsi -- in addition to making ethnic slurs about Mexicans and Mexican-Americans -- erroneously claimed that "[n]o bilingual nation has ever survived in the history of the world." In fact, several countries -- including Canada, Ireland, Switzerland, and India -- have more than one official language.

Corsi's falsehood about bilingual nations was prompted by Boyles' comment that he got his "Dex" telephone directory "in Español." Corsi replied:

Well, you know, it's shocking what they're doing in this. I mean, pretty soon if anybody wants to teach in the public schools, you're going to have to go take, get Spanish. You're going to have to learn Spanish. All the signs are going to be in Spanish. You're going to have Americans prosecuted for violating somebody's civil rights because they refuse to speak Spanish to them. No bilingual nation has ever survived in the history of the world.

Boyles did not ask Corsi to provide a single example of a bilingual nation that failed, and according to the U.S. State Department, a number of nations currently have more than one official language, including:

• Switzerland: "Switzerland has four official languages - -German, French, Italian, and Romansch (based on Latin and spoken by a small minority in the Canton Graubunden)."
• Ireland: "English is the common language, but Irish (Gaelic) is also an official language and is taught in schools."
• India: "The government has recognized 18 official languages; Hindi, the national language, is the most widely spoken, although English is a national lingua franca."
• Peru: "Spanish is the principal language. Quechua, Aymara and other indigenous languages also have official status."
• Finland: "Finnish 91.6%, Swedish 5.5% (both official). ... Few tensions exist between the Finnish-speaking majority and the Swedish-speaking minority."
• Singapore: "Malay is the national language, but Chinese, English, and Tamil also are official languages."

Moreover, according to the Public Service Human Resources Management Agency of Canada's Official Languages Branch (OLB) website, "September 2004 marked the 35th anniversary of the coming into force of the first [Canadian Official Languages] Act" naming French and English as Canada's official languages. According to the OLB, "The Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (the Charter) ... states that 'English and French are the official languages of Canada and have equality of status and equal rights and privileges as to their use in all institutions of the Parliament and government of Canada.' " The OLB also notes that the Charter states:

Any member of the public in Canada has the right to communicate with, and to receive available services from, any head or central office of an institution of the Parliament or government of Canada in English or French, and has the same right with respect to any other office of any such institution where a) there is a significant demand for communications with and services from that office in such language; or b) due to the nature of the office, it is reasonable that communications with and services from that office be available in both English and French.

Corsi, co-author of Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery Publishing Inc., 2004), made his comments during a discussion about Bank of America's decision to "quietly" offer "credit cards to customers without Social Security numbers -- typically illegal immigrants," according to a February 13 Wall Street Journal article (accessed through the newspaper's electronic edition). Boyles suggested Bank of America's policy was another example of a two-tiered system: "I say this all the time, there's the tier that the U.S. citizen stands on, and there's the tier that the illegal stands on. And the treatment is always afforded the illegal."

Of Bank of America's policy, Corsi said, "[I]f you're speaking Spanish, you come in with a sombrero, and you got the bags and, you know, bean bags, they're just going to say, 'Oh come on, well, there's a special line for you over here.' "

From the February 13 broadcast of 630 KHOW-AM's The Peter Boyles Show:

CORSI: When we integrate with Mexico --

BOYLES: Yeah.

CORSI: -- I guess we might as well just get ready for the drug cartels to move in and, and the -- and Bank of America'll be happy to move their money around too.

BOYLES: Well certainly when they used to catch the Florida banks. I have a friend who was a writer, lives in Florida, and he said the guessing game back in the seventies and eighties was to drive the causeways in Florida and guess which banks were owned by which cocaine cartels. And -- although I'm a fan of the movie Scarface, which is, you know, obviously what it means. But that whole production when he's dealing with the bankers in Miami. I mean, these guys will look the other way. They have in the past.

CORSI: Right, but, you know, if you as an American citizen, Peter, go into that bank and, you know, you try to deposit two or three --

BOYLES: Oh. Oh.

CORSI: -- deposits of five thousand dollars in cash --

BOYLES: They run you.

CORSI: -- you're going to be hauled into federal --

BOYLES: Sure.

CORSI: -- investigators and talking to you. What are you doing?

BOYLES: Yeah, they run you.

CORSI: Yeah, but if you -- if you're speaking Spanish, you come in with a sombrero, and you got the bags and, you know, bean bags, they're just going to say, "Oh come on, well, there's a special line for you over here."

BOYLES: And that's --

CORSI: It's insane. It's just insane.

BOYLES: Oh no, it's insanity. And, like I said, it's -- if you don't think there's two, there's two tiers -- I say this all the time, there's the tier that the U.S. citizen stands on, and there's the tier that the illegal stands on. And the treatment is always afforded the illegal.

CORSI: And the short end of the stick is given to the American citizen, over --

BOYLES: Oh, without a doubt.

CORSI: -- and over and over again.

[...]

BOYLES: I have in front of me, as do many of the morning show 630 KHOW listeners and callers, I got my Dex in Español.

CORSI: OK. Well, you know, it's shocking what they're doing in this. I mean, pretty soon if anybody wants to teach in the public schools, you're going to have to go take, get Spanish. You're going to have to learn Spanish. All the signs are going to be in Spanish. You're going to have Americans prosecuted for violating somebody's civil rights because they refuse to speak Spanish to them. No bilingual nation has ever survived in the history of the world. And always before, including the Italian and Irish and all the other immigrants who came here -- you know, in the early part of the 1900s and through the 20th century -- they were resolved to become Americans. My father came -- was born of two Italian immigrants. My father did not learn to speak Italian. I learned to speak Italian. My father didn't because he was discouraged. To become an American, my Italian grandparents did not want my dad speaking Italian. They wanted him speaking English. Now -- now today, it's completely reversed. We all have to speak Spanish because, you know, the illegal immigrants from Mexico speak Spanish. Well, that's totally backwards.

—T.S.P.