Hola! Bienvenido al Condado de Adams! (Hello. Welcome to Adams County).

That’s not exactly the welcome message that typically rolls off our tongues when we meet newcomers to our area and for good reason.

But increasingly, such a welcome might be greeted by an appreciative smile rather than the puzzled look most of us would have as our brains rushed to find where the high school Spanish lessons were filed in our skulls.

An increasing number of people are coming here from non-English-speaking countries. Although our corner of the world remains somewhat isolated from this growing trend, it’s still experiencing some of those language barriers.

That’s why we were pleased to learn that Copiah-Lincoln Community College is preparing to test the need a bit soon by offering an English as a Second Language course.

ESL classes are aimed at allowing students to quickly learn conversational English, which is most needed in the real world, on the job sites, in schools, etc.

These classes would be for legal immigrants to our country. We applaud Co-Lin for being out ahead of the potential need and preparing the classes. That nimbleness is one of the reasons community colleges such as Co-Lin are so great for our region

The proverbial naysayers in the world will gripe that immigrants coming to America should know how to speak the queen’s English before ever stepping foot into this country. That’s an extremely shortsighted view of what it means to be an American.

Where would our nation be had we not had the wonderful influences of non-English speaking immigrants to our nation?

We’d be a far less blessed and culturally diverse as we are today.