By Alexa 
The world is becoming more interconnected. Looking at music, we can see the influence that the world is starting to have on each other. America used to be the center of the world when it came to influence with its media and culture spread all over the world. Now, countries all over the world are coming together culturally to have a huge influence on each other, including America. Afrobeats and Amapiano has a global influence, reaching Europe and America K. Pop and Japanese music is transcending borders. As they grow in influence, they are continuing the reach of bringing out lesser-known voices into the fold so that they grow as well.
Beyond music, people are beginning to pay attention to and connect with different people in other ways including travel and as the world becomes more interconnected, it’s going to become vital for American children to start acquiring another language.
Current Climate
There seems to be a large amount of pushback to keep this global interconnectedness from happening. It’s not just happening in America, but globally. People are pushing back against large amounts of tourism and foreigners coming into specific countries. There’s Brexit, there’s the border policies that America is putting in place with expulsion of international students and stronger border patrol, its massively shutting down accommodations for tourists in certain countries or strongly discouraging foreigners altogether.
It seems like globally becoming connected and relationships expanding past borders scares a lot of people, citizens and world leaders alike, but on the other side of this there are many people are excited, happy, and willing to make these connections.
Relationships Will Out
I do believe connection will win out. People will continue to travel, transcend cultures, learn, explore and grow. In many other countries, people are learning their native language along with English as it’s become a somewhat global language that is useful to know. In countries where people only speak their native language, there’s an underlying feeling of that person being somewhat behind because they are monolingual, which means they can’t communicate as effectively with “others.”
This same sentiment is eventually going to reach America, despite its efforts to keep “others” out. Soon, it will be necessary for relationships to effectively communicate with others. Yes, there’s a competitive aspect of this about jobs and opportunities, but beyond that, it’s about being able to connect with others in a respectful way. Taking the time to have learned another person’s language is a sign of respect and takes the burden off one person to do all the heavy lifting. Both people can lean in, knowing that they have shared the work of acquiring language.
Implementation
It’s easy enough to implement this. Kids are like sponges when they are young. Introducing the second language in preschool or kindergarten. It’s easier to acquire a new language at that age. Kids can take a language course outside of school or enroll in a language school in addition to being in public schools. There are many ways to facilitate this learning of a new language, but it will become necessary as time moves forward.