When I was growing up, idioms like it’s "raining cats and dogs" or "it’s a piece of cake" were common colloquial expressions. Similarly, people used the idiom, "the $64,000 question" to refer to something of great importance.
The Grammarist, a website that documents the historical origins of such popular phrases, notes that "the $64,000 question" came from "an American game show, broadcast in the late 1950s, in which contestants got the chance to win $64,000 for correctly answering a series of questions."
They further explain that “Today, while most of us have never seen the game show, the phrase 'the $64,000 question' remains as an idiom. Its definition is loose, but it usually means 'the crucial or essential question.' Something referred to as the $64,000 question is usually an important issue whose outcome can’t be foreseen and on which much hinges.”
The age-old question of whether learning CHamoru interferes with learning and speaking English well continues to pop up in conversations. Long after that $64,000 question was first raised in the pre-WWII period during the early Naval administration in Guam, this query still lingers.
Misguided assertions surrounding language interference were very aggressively promoted after the war with the promulgation of the English-only policy. Guam schools were required to teach English exclusively as a deliberate colonial strategy of the Americanization of the people of Guam who were either monolingual CHamoru-speaking or dual language speakers of CHamoru and English at that time.
Why does this question persist? In what context is it usually raised today? Why does it remain a crucial or essential question almost a century since it was first asked? Let’s address these concerns by exploring the questions behind the questions. That is: Why do people in our community continue to ask, "Is CHamoru a dead language?"; "Does learning CHamoru have any relevance to life in the 21st century?"; "If Guam is part of the U.S. and English is the language of Americans, why bother learning CHamoru?"; "I’m not CHamoru, why should my children be required to learn CHamoru in school?"; "My parents and grandparents didn’t speak to us in CHamoru, so why should I consider it important to learn it on my own?"
All these different iterations are tied to the key $64,000 question which framed the discussion in the 1950s. Will learning and speaking CHamoru interfere with learning and speaking English? No!
My nephew, whose daughter attends Hurao’s Neni Academy, asked me quite sincerely the other day if his three-year-old would be able to remain competitive when she goes to an English-medium school. She is starting her formal schooling in CHamoru immersion. This is a very important question to explore. The short answer is a resounding YES!
You might be thinking, “Of course, you would say that, you are a champion of the CHamoru language – what else could you say.” Full disclosure, yes, I am a proponent of the value and importance of learning CHamoru to connect us to our cultural roots. Speaking our Indigenous language is an act of CHamoru cultural sovereignty. Decolonization does demand that we reconnect with who we are and reclaim our identity as Indigenous people of this land. There is no denying that CHamoru revitalization fuels my passion and informs my worldview!
Notwithstanding, I am also a consummate advocate of authentic literacy skills development. I continue to study how children acquire language and the significance of language learning to developing critical thinking skills, personal efficacy, socio-emotional well-being, cultural ethos and Indigenous identity. Plainly put, language grows intelligence. It doesn’t matter what language. The more languages a child knows, the smarter the child becomes.
I assured my nephew that CHamoru immersion is definitely a plus. Scientifically-based research on dual language speakers provides abundant evidence that the more languages children learn and speak, the more proficient they become in all the languages they speak. Children in the United States who speak two languages or more get higher scores in achievement tests than children who only speak English.
Global studies have also demonstrated the cognitive benefits of learning another language. Kendell Dick documents that, “these studies have shown that bilinguals tend to have bigger brains, better memories, are more creative, better problem solvers, etc. … Bilinguals can switch between tasks much faster than their monolingual counterparts and can handle many more tasks at once.” It is time we lay this $64,000 question to rest.
