Saul Tello Jr., Orestimba High Valedictorian 2012 (Source: CBS Sacramento)

When US high schools make international headlines, it’s usually because of a school shooting. But Orestimba High in Newman, a city of 10,000 in central California, is making the headlines for an entirely different reason: a 5-minute speech was delivered there in Spanish!

Sounds unbelievable that anyone would take notice of such a mundane event? Speeches in foreign languages are an everyday occurrence in schools around the world so why would this one make news?

At this year’s graduation ceremony on May 31, the valedictorian, a 17-year-old named Saul Tello Jr. delivered his speech in Spanish. In order to be the valedictorian, you have to be the smartest kid in your grade and Saul earned his spot out of 173 graduating students with a GPA of 4.2. Like more than three quarters of the students at Orestimba High, Saul is bilingual and speaks Spanish at home. His parents, who are first generation immigrants from Mexico, don’t speak English well and he wanted them to understand his speech, where he spoke about always striving to do your best, holding on to your dreams, and acknowledging those who came before you. I haven’t seen the full speech on the internet (my summary is based on an article in The Oakland Tribune) but it sounds like a beautiful speech (and actually not all that different from the valediction I delivered at my high school graduation more than a quarter century ago

Saul wrote his speech in English and Spanish and asked the principal’s permission to deliver the speech in both languages. The principal readily gave her permission but asked him to do the speech in Spanish only because it was a large graduation ceremony and there wasn’t enough time to deliver the valediction in two languages.

By all accounts the speech was well received and everyone was happy and proud of their achievements, as they should be – until …

… until conservative political commentator Bill O’Reilly spoiled it for them by having a go at Saul and Orestimba High on his show, denouncing the speech as an example of “this whole self-esteem craziness” (whatever that may mean …). The predictable result was a media beat-up where more and more media got in on the story and their social networking sites quickly filled with comments mostly critical of Saul’s language choice (e.g., here, here, here or here) and decrying it as evidence that Hispanics don’t “respect the United States” or are “rude.”

Personally, I consider a media empire such as Foxnews and a media personality such as O’Reilly having a go at a teenage kid and his provincial high school morally equivalent to kicking a lame dog.

However, my personal moral judgement aside, what interests me about this story is that bilingualism and multiculturalism obviously work well at a local level but that locally uncontroversial practices are undermined by media and politicians demanding national conformity in the name of “maintaining standards.”

In the social networking comments I have read, people who self-identified as “local” were all voicing support for Saul’s choice, such as these two on Facebook:

Our classmates knew his speech was going to be in Spanish and they didn’t complain so it wasn’t rude and it was a privilege he had gained for his hard work.

The media is making this a bigger deal than our Orestimba community. Not once did I hear of a student or parent complain about his speech.

By all accounts the valediction in Spanish thus worked in its local context, similarly to the way in which multilingualism and multiculturalism work locally in the Vienna Central Library. However, as soon as linguistic and cultural diversity become a matter of abstract national debate – be it the media, politicians, or even researchers focusing only on macro-level issues – they come to be seen as a problem.

O’Reilly went on to use Saul’s language choice as a launching pad for a discussion about falling educational standards in American schools. It was all fairly typical Republican union- and teacher-bashing but only very few of the comments I’ve read pointed out that Spanish was the language of choice not of someone who had no choice because they didn’t speak English but of Orestimba High’s top student.

The connection between speaking Spanish and falling standards only works if you are wilfully ignoring the evidence. Similarly, the connection between multilingualism and lack of respect for the nation only works if you are wilfully ignoring the evidence.

I was curious to find out whether the emergence of a new industry (nail care) and the transnational domination of that industry by a specific ethnic group (Vietnamese) had anything to do with language? Sure has, as I’ve learnt from a 2011 article in the International Migration Review (Eckstein & Nguyen, 2011).

Migrants often find that lack of proficiency in the local language is a barrier to workplace entry in their field and/or at the level at which they are qualified. They also often find that they can’t wait around till their language has improved sufficiently before having to make a living. The Vietnamese leaving Vietnam in the 1970s were no exception to this.

Linguistic barriers to employment are highest in the professions, where usually (part of) the qualifications and training process needs to be re-done and/or certifying and registration exams need to be undertaken in the local language. That’s why migrant lawyers are rare. Linguistic barriers to employment are lowest for self-employment in areas with little state regulation. That’s why migrant-owned corner stores are frequent.

Within a particular industry, the same rules apply. Let’s take the beauty industry: if you are a cosmetic surgeon and want to move to another country, chances are you’ll never work as a cosmetic surgeon again. Depending on where you are from and how your previous qualifications are assessed, you are facing years of re-training, qualifying exams in the new language and other hurdles to re-gain your license to practice in the new country. At the other end of the beauty industry, you’ll find nail technicians: to practice as a nail technician in Australia, for instance, you don’t need any formal qualifications whatsoever. Limited proficiency in English thus poses no or only a minor obstacle to workplace entry as a nail technician. However, speaking Vietnamese might confer an advantage, as I’ll explain now.

In the 1970s, the family of a former commander in the South Vietnamese Navy found that there were few opportunities for them and fellow Vietnamese refugees in California. Like many others in a similar position, they tried their luck in all kinds of ways and opened a beauty school, the Advance Beauty College (ABC) in Garden Grove, CA, an area aka ‘Little Saigon.’ They taught in Vietnamese and after a short course, students could go and start their own nail salon. Many of them did because in addition to the lack of linguistic barriers, the financial investment was low, too.

At that time, nail salons hardly existed and manicures and pedicures were a preserve of the rich and famous. However, the emergent supply of Vietnamese nail technicians and nail salons meant that manicures and pedicures suddenly came into the reach of Californian women of lesser means.

Vietnamese nails-only shops revolutionized manicuring in much the same manner that McDonalds revolutionized inexpensive, fast food service. Like McDonalds, the nails-only shops appealed to busy Americans who wanted quick, dependable service, when convenient to their schedules, and who were content with the provisioning of the service in an impersonal manner. (p. 654)

Vietnamese entrepreneurs thus did not fill an existing market but created a new one. Once established, this market spread easily through franchises. Regal Nails, located within Walmarts, for instance, was founded by a first-generation Vietnamese, as was the Australian market leader, Professionails.

Once established, linguistic necessity became a virtue for Vietnamese nail entrepreneurs, as ethnic networks ensured a continuing supply of first-generation workers with few other options. As such the continuation of the business model depends on continuing emigration from Vietnam because with better education and bilingualism, the second-generation does not need to rely on their ethnic ties and have many other employment options.

As I’ve explained it was the absence of regulation combined with the availability of training in Vietnamese that made California that birthplace of the Vietnamese creation and subsequent domination of the nail care industry. Furthermore, when the State of California introduced licensing exams for nail technicians in the 1990s, there was the option to take the certifying exams in Vietnamese. Thus, the Californian state chose, in this instance, not to erect a linguistic barrier to employment for its Vietnamese-speaking citizens.

Once established, and as the nail care industry expanded beyond California, across the USA and, later, went global, Vietnamese domination had the effect of excluding non-Vietnamese from the industry so that today lack of proficiency in English is rarely a barrier to becoming a nail technician but lack of Vietnamese does constitute such a barrier. As the industry transnationalized, it moved back to Vietnam and many nail technicians now train there before emigrating and have jobs already lined up before they even leave the country.

In case any of our non-Vietnamese readers are inclined to feel jealous, consider that it is only the continued ‘Vietnamization’ of the supply chain that makes your cheap manicures and pedicures possible.

[…] they work in the least skilled, least revenue-generating segment of the beauty industry. Most typically, when Vietnamese entrepreneurs expand their business involvements they do so by opening additional salons of the same sort, not by diversifying their beauty care offerings to include those that are most profitable. Similarly, nail technicians do not invest in additional training to qualify for the better paying jobs in the beauty industry. Vietnamese, accordingly, are creating conditions that work against their own longer-term interests. They are fueling intra-ethnic competition that is likely to drive down their earnings, unless they further increase demand for their services. (p. 666)

Eckstein S, & Nguyen TN (2011). The making and transnationalization of an ethnic niche: Vietnamese manicurists. The International migration review, 45 (3), 639-74 PMID: 22171362