The last time I would ever see you, a number of years ago, the topic of that language, and how your parents when you were within earshot only ever used it as a secret code language, came up... Now maybe I was just seeing things, but it seemed like there was some regret in your eyes and in your voice, like you wished your parents had taught you their own language. In other words, it seemed like you were "jealous" of me, for lack of a better word, for being raised with that language by your daughter who learned it in adulthood when she emigrated.

Given this apparent regret over being denied that language, I reckon you might've enjoyed the sight of two of your grandkids — myself who was raised with that language as said, and my cousin who chose to learn it in adulthood — speaking it to each other while watching dubbed Peanuts specials on Thanksgiving. Indeed, each generation of the family after you, has in greater numbers been able to claw back that which you were yourself denied.

I would say from experience, then, that US nativism will not only inevitably collapse, but has in fact already failed.

In the old days, you know, the nativists banned "everything but English" from schools and churches, they repressed newspapers like Gaa Paa, they tarred and feathered people, they convinced immigrants that bilingualism was harmful and shameful, thereby sending non-English publications into an economic death spiral — but what did all of that violence amount to in the end? What did parents refusing to translate for their children, what did the enforcement of property rights, what did the outright physical assault, all carried out in the service of false consciousness, actually manage to achieve when all is said and done?

It all amounted to two young adults riffing on a cartoon in the selfsame language that the US nativists tried to suppress — all that the nativists' efforts achieved was that these two young'uns now speak with marked accents.

Do you think they'd call that a victory?

Love,

Erika