This week we were tasked with confronting two more articles. One of these was titled “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why” authored by Kyle Wiens. The last article is, “Being an Immigrant Writer in America Today,” and its author is immigrant Carmen Bugan. One article places an extreme stress on grammar and pushes an agenda, essentially making the bold statement that a business the author of the article is in charge of only hires those with the highest literacy skills, practically boasting that many face the wrath of this businessman and are turned away due to a singular activity for some— meaning that certain groups of people, barring non-native English speakers and the dyslexic community, are singled out of his hiring process. The second article, “Being an Immigrant Writer in America Today” by Carmen Bugan does not stress this, but places an emphasis that the English language may never be to the standards of the likes of businessmen similar to Kyle Wiens.
Taking a deeper dive into one of the articles, “I Won’t Hire People Who Use Poor Grammar. Here’s Why,” Wiens is a businessman for an online repair company and founder of a manufacturer documentation company. The entire article spans around his adamant and abrupt dedication to what he swears is his craft and standard to have others work underneath him. He grammar polices any potential candidate that may have an interest in working for him. Using phrases like “litmus test” makes his stance practically undeniable. He uses statistics to leverage an advantage against all types of people who use English in their own distinguishable way by using phrases like “people judge you…” Overall, I never agreed with the practice of making other people prove their literacy with how they speak. I would liken his approach to judging a job interviewee by their speaking accent. Oftentimes, there is more to the story than carelessness.
Looking for more depth within “Being an Immigrant Writer in America Today” by Bugan was not difficult. She has a story that she was desperate to tell. She paints the linguistics of English as an aspect of hers and her family’s lives that saved them from total destruction. Towards the end of her article, her resolve seems to have weakened even further. When reading the ending paragraphs of this article, it felt as if Bugan tailored it to be a purposeful homage to all of English and its escapism principles that are shaped by immigrants shamed for who they are, and is a symbol of American diversity rather than its current, American-dubbed “stick in the sand” evolution. Using her story of her arrested father’s use of English to escape prejudice they faced regularly made me understand her viewpoint and turn my nose at Weins. He views English dryly and I have less appreciation for such an approach.
This leads into a larger conversation. Weins and Bugan have a vastly different lens that they use to analyze the English language. Toward the end of Bugan’s article, she calls attention to the fact that English in all of its forms provide the language with its colors and distinction. From an outside perspective, English is being corrupted by government and other means of division. All of such disconnection is happening to the linguistics of English while its speakers never realize the impact that it has made on immigrants when they are shown freedom by using it, instead of the shame associated with their native language in other territories.
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