THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, June 3, 1994 TAG: 9406020168
SECTION: VIRGINIA BEACH BEACON PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Beth Barber
DATELINE: 940603 LENGTH: Medium
The city's Human Rights Commission has been asked to take up the question why official welcome is expressed in only those two languages and not in others; Spanish, say, or Chinese.
{REST} Here's one reason: Of the 2 million tourists who visit the resort area annually, 83.2 percent come from the eastern third of the United States; 7.9 percent come from Canada, especially French-speaking Canada.
More Canadians, in fact, visit here during summers than do Marylanders, West Virginians, New Jerseyites, Kentuckians. Among foreign tourists, only Canadians comprise at least 1 percent.
So there is sense in the city's welcome in English and French. It reflects where tourists come from generally, and a special relationship between the Beach and Canadian tourists that's worth encouraging. They bring in, after all, some $65 million worth of business a year.
But sense and special relationships count less and less, and one of the absurdities of the age - include all or include none - counts more and more. Tolerance has somehow come to be defined as not tolerating such exclusivity as single-gender col-leges, boys-only classrooms . . . and signs that say only:
\ WELCOME TO VIRGINIA BEACH
BIENVENUE
So as sensible as those signs are, they could become a touchy subject. If so, who among city leaders will be so politically unsavvy as to note that singling out French-Canadians is hardly a slur on all others? Who will be so politically incorrect as to note that practicality is only the beginning of the pitfalls of the truly multicultural alternative - trying to include at each major entrance to the city a welcome in the language of every national or ethnic group that sets foot as visitor or resident in Virginia Beach?
How many welcome signs can roadways and traffic safety bear? Who will set some threshold for inclusion? Whoever is on the list, somebody gets left off. And to be excluded can be, these days, offensive beyond bearing. People who are looking to feel slighted seldom have far to look.
Someday there might be a universal written language. Someday there might be an internationally-recognized symbol for welcome. Someday there might be less emphasis on things that increasingly divide this one nation indivisible, and we'll all hyphenate the only way so many of us can now, and then only when forced to: mutt-Americans.
Meantime, what the city could unfortunately come down to is the simplest way to avoid being tagged an equal-opportunity offender: On signs welcoming tourists, the city sticks officially to what still is the primary language of this country, English. The signs in French come down, though brochures, videos, what-have-you go out in any language in which they're requested, courtesy of foreign-language classes or clubs. Private groups welcome whom they please on marquees, in brochures, maybe on sign space leased from the highway department, a la McDonald's or Burma Shave.
Does that scenario have a saving grace? It beats turning a welcome sign into a human right. Trying to welcome all is one thing. Mandating it is something else, something started in the name of diversity, and ending in divisiveness.
by CNB