Requiem For Heroic Culture Warrior

Philadelphia has gotten a lot of press in the past few days, largely because of flash mobs, high levels of violence, and a black mayor who spoke out honestly about individual responsibility and black on white crime. Amidst all the excitement, the passing of a brave and colorful local Philly character took back seat to the other events.

Philadelphia businessman and English-only advocate Joey Vento died of a heart attack at age 71. Vento owned and operated Geno's Steaks, a restaurant that is legendary and which gained Vento the unofficial title of "The Cheese-Steak King." Vento was the grandson of Italian immigrants who believed that one of the factors that allowed the great American melting-pot to work was a common language for all Americans--English. Vento believed the same thing, and in the midst of multiculturalism and multilingualism in a city which encourages immigrants to continue to speak their native tongues, he took a stand.

Nearly five years back, Vento decided that he and his business had no need or obligation to pander to those who refuse to learn and use the language that his grandparents adopted. He placed a large sign in his restaurant's front window that said: "This is America. When ordering, speak English." Vento encouraged those who could not do so to eat elsewhere, although he never had to turn a potential patron away. He explained: "If you can't tell me what you want, I can't serve you. It's up to you. If you can't read, if you can't say the word 'cheese,' how can I communicate with you--and why should I have to bend? I got a business to run."

Within what seemed like mere seconds, the mainstream press, local and later national TV, and government diversity pimps were all over him. Enter the ACLU, the Philadelphia City Council and the Philadelphia Human Rights Commission. The stake and pyre were set up outside City Hall, and all that was left was for the politicians and the bureaucrats to conduct the Great Inquisition, and Geno's business license would be revoked and his cheese-steak sandwiches would be toast.

The threats and "investigations" went on for years. The official inquisition took twenty-one months, including a daylong hearing in which pinky-finger multiculturalists compared Vento's sign to Jim Crow signs in the South in the 60s, and during which much weepy testimony was taken from locals who expressed the horror they would have felt if they had seen the sign and/or been able to read it. At the end, largely because of Vento's steadfast refusal to cave in to pressure to give up his First Amendment rights, all discrimination charges against him were dismissed.

During the inquisition, the Philadelphia Human Rights Commmission handed out pamphlets printed at public expense asking Philadelphians if they were victims of discrimination as a result of Vento's sign and English-only policy. The pamphlet was printed in seven languages other than English (coincidentally, the same number of languages as are used on a San Francisco ballot). The Commission naturally received dozens of complaints, but unfortunately for the cause, none could be directly related to Vento's sign.

Vento's business could have been seriously damaged by the language witch-hunters, but in fact continued to thrive. The most obvious conclusion (though unsupported statistically) is that for every easily-offended non-English speaker there was at least one patron who went out of the way to eat at a restaurant so boldly patriotic. Vento himself summed it up by saying: "I say what everybody's thinking, but is afraid to say."

His passing is a sad event. Vento proved that one man, unwilling to sell out his beliefs under the threat of ruin, can make a difference. He stood for the First Amendment and unity by defending the language that built America. He risked his very livelihood to stand against powerful and insidious forces which want to see America divided into competing ethnic and linguistic "victim" groups. I salute Joey Vento--American hero.