When I was in school in the afternoons we all ran home to watch the new episode of Dragon BallAlthough we watched the series dubbed into that ultra-normative Catalan that no one spoke, the Japanese animation broadcast on TV3 did more for the language than the entire language policy put together. A few years ago, I heard a rapper singing in Spanish, and in one of his songs he said he didn't like Goku unless it was in Catalan (to be exact, the verse was: grind more in Catalan, in Català gralla). But since then, the world and our society have changed a lot; the possibilities for entertainment have become more fragmented and multiplied exponentially.
Blaming immigration for all the ills of the Catalan situation is unfair and places the blame on the last to arrive, those who have enough work to do supporting their families in the most adverse conditions. Ask the people from Salta who were demonstrating the other day if it's any use to them to speak the same language as the Mossos d'Esquadra (Catalan police) who come to remove them from their homes. Furthermore, shifting the entire linguistic debate to this terrain is completely useless; it solves absolutely nothing. Can anyone believe that with the transfer of immigration powers, the problems of Catalan will end? It's believing in magic solutions and miracles, really. Unless someone has in mind putting newcomers in re-education camps to turn them into exemplary integrated citizens, the debate makes no sense. Languages and their transmission are complex, and some crazy people who scream every time a waiter brings them a café con leche instead of an iced coffee would do well to bear in mind that intransigent and extremist attitudes have counterproductive effects. They yearn for purer, cleaner times when hospitality workers had to recite Carner and Riba, times that never existed. I fully understand the pain, sorrow, and anguish that comes with realizing your language is losing ground, but I don't think there are simple solutions, especially in a state governed by the rule of law where all people should have their rights guaranteed and not be blamed for all the evils.
It's absurd to continue implementing the same policies designed decades ago with a reality that bears no resemblance to that of that time. Absurd, dogmatic, and unintelligent. Given the length of time that language immersion has been in place, for example, shouldn't it be subject to review? Shouldn't the results be measured objectively? The school failure rates, the low levels of reading comprehension, and the lack of enrollment in Catalan philology, for example, are indicators that something is not right. The problem is that this issue is always approached from an ideological rigidity (practiced from antagonistic positions) that makes it impossible to reasonably assess its long-term effects. It should be researchers and education experts who examine it without preconceptions, independently, and completely detached from partisan interests.
Exactly the same thing happens with language policy. Is the same one that was conceived forty years ago useful for a completely different demographic landscape? When I walk through Barcelona, for example, it's not just that the signs are in Spanish, it's that they're in English, something that's not reported to the tireless guardians of the essence who complain because they can't be served in restaurants in their own language. Perhaps we prefer the foreign language substitution.
