English! English! When did America stop speaking English?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


A bunch of white bread ninnies worrying "Oh mah lawd, they's yellow hordes and lots of brown people all around us. See what happened when we let the coloreds off the back of the bus. Trent Lott was right."

No. People concerned by the concentration of a large number of immigrants of one cultural background, in one part of the country, to such an extent that OTHER immigrants may start learning Spanish rather than English as they attempt to assimilate.

Now Im quite aware of data showing that hispanic immigrants are linguistically assimilating as fast as previous immigrants, so i dont particularly share those concerns. But if youre going to argue against them, you need to at least understand what they are.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark

And there was no such requirement in the treaty, as the borders were still open.

Id have to see the text of the treaty, im not sure how the borders being open would extend a right given to those present in the territories at the time and their descendants to future immigrants.

I haven't read it in some time, but there was no set immigration policy, no policy concerns about "future immigrants" etc. at that time in the US. People got off of ships, went someplace and did something. It would be odd, in that legal context, for a treaty involving cession of territory to mention immigration policy in the ceded territory when there was no immigration policy in the United States as a whole. The rights attached to occupants of the territory.

Nobody needs to "make any claims" for anything. The ol' First Amendment takes care of that problem.

Im still not sure how the first amendment applies to any of the policy solutions discussed on this thread. Noting that banning private conversations in Spanish was NOT one of said solutions.

Something about "no law abridging freedom of speech"

Private employers can certainly require English proficiency if they want, as they can also require bilingual applicants.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Something about "no law abridging freedom of speech"

Private employers can certainly require English proficiency if they want, as they can also require bilingual applicants.

again, which policy that anyone here has proposed would abridge free speech?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
No. People concerned by the concentration of a large number of immigrants of one cultural background, in one part of the country, to such an extent that OTHER immigrants may start learning Spanish rather than English as they attempt to assimilate.

If they pay taxes, don't commit crimes, and contribute to the economy, I don't give a flying **** if their languages of choice are Swahili and Hmong.

Now Im quite aware of data showing that hispanic immigrants are linguistically assimilating as fast as previous immigrants, so i dont particularly share those concerns. But if youre going to argue against them, you need to at least understand what they are.

I was simply mocking them - I don't consider it an issue, let alone one worth arguing against.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark


again, which policy that anyone here has proposed would abridge free speech?

Has anyone actually proposed a real policy?

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat


If they pay taxes, don't commit crimes, and contribute to the economy, I don't give a flying **** if their languages of choice are Swahili and Hmong.

If some of them speak swahili, and some speak hmong, etc thats fine. Since sooner or later most will learn English. The development of an entire region with a different language and culture within a larger democratic polity presents real problems to that polity, as our neighbors to the north have found out. Switzerlands are rare in this world, unfortunately (probably because the circumstance of Switzerland - an island of Protestantism against a Catholic sea - and the libertarian governing style - are rare)


You may be comfortable with that result, or you may (like me) think such a result unlikely, but to mock the concerns, expressed even by prominent political scientists, as nothng but the ravings of rednecks, seriously misreads the issue.

Of course at least this means you think the establishment of democracy in Iraq will probably not be significantly impacted by the linguistic fault lines between Arabs and Kurds.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Damn. I read through this whole thread and didn't see the word 'shizzle' once. I'm disappointed in you people.

[Pekka]

You have to send a message to people who don't want to learn. IN here, we have a weird language that is difficult to learn. So we have these immigrants, but they speak our language. Not very good all of them, but you know, they get by, and they do get your orders correct. And they have to try hard, this is a weird language to learn too. But what we do here, we be racists on you, like real haters if you don't speak us. THat's right, we hate you. When you learn and try our language, we laugh at you for having funny accent and imitate it and make you cry for it. Then you learn a bit more, and that's when you are more accepted and we don't necessarily burn down your business and drag you in a rope attached to a car.

It works.

It's funny though.. I talked abou tthe same problem in here when I got back out of the US this summer.. It was weird to me, that yes, in McDonalds, they didn't understand english. They didn't understand english, that simple. I wanted a bigmac meal. Trust me, my accent is not that bad, to be an excuse not to understand. I hardly even have an accent at all. I can damn well order a bicmac meal and get it. But no... You'd think, that you can get a bigmac meal, because bigmac is like a brand, it's not a real word either. YOu'd think it wouldn't be hard to understand. I mean you go to Madagascar and talk to the first person 'big mac?' and they know what you're talking about. Except the people in McDoanlds didn't. I even point the board and say 'number two, big mac meal' and show with my fingers '2'. NO! I mean how hard can it be. At this point I was frustrated even. How the hell can't she know what I want, she could talk mars and still should realise what I want. Well finally I got what I want. Then there's a guy who comes to load up my tray and says 'daddy'. I was like wtf?.. 'daddy?' and then I figured out he treis to say 'that's it?'.. then why the hell doesn't he just say so!? Or even close to that's it? it was DADDY. How the hell are you supposed to understand that ****.

And in every motel, the cleaning ladies don't speak english. It's not a problem, you rarely need to really talk to them, but once we needed to know where the breakfast is because they had a huge sign they have free breakfast for customers, so we wanted that, and she wouldn't understand.. breakfast? Sorry no ingle. Fortunately one of my friends did speak spanish too, which made him a god.

It's not huge, but you know in some place it can be a sort of a problem. I mean it's really difficult to get by, because it seems like the people who don't speak spanish also have difficulties speaking the international sign language too.

But still.. I don't think they should be required to speak english. Not unless they want citizenship. It's their own problem. It's the fault of McDonalds and the likes that hire people who don't speak english. Of course we all know why that is, but we should point the finger at their direction more. I mean, I'd like to live in Japan for example for few years but shiit I can't learn that language!

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by MrFun
While I agree with you and others in that Americans need to learn to live with the reality that many parts of our country is bilingual, to be fair, Tiamat is not angry that she cannot CHOOSE to speak with people who do not speak Spanish -- the problem that she claims she experiences, is when she does not have a choice, when she needs to rely on a clerk or whomever for a particular service.

As MTG noted, this is a real stretch on reality. I sincerely doubt that Tiamat has no alternative but to patronize Spanish-only businesses.

This is what bugs me about rants against non-English speakers in the U.S. It's simply not an epidemic. Everyone will, once in a while, come across someone with whom contact is aggravating due to this, but this is overwhelmingly not the norm, even in the areas where Spanish is widely spoken. People like to take isolated incidents and blow them out of proportion. But really, how often is it problem enough that it causes people disruption? Once a week? Once a month? Big deal.

America's English-speaking majority is still quite, quite safe from overthrow by other languages.

[Boris Godunov]

Originally posted by Pekka
You have to send a message to people who don't want to learn.

We do, it's called "You won't get any better than a crummy minimum wage job unless you learn to speak English." What more message do we need?

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
You may be comfortable with that result, or you may (like me) think such a result unlikely, but to mock the concerns, expressed even by prominent political scientists, as nothng but the ravings of rednecks, seriously misreads the issue.

Considering the massive dominance of English throughout the US, I don't really get worked up over some barrios and "Little Saigons" doing their thing. Here in San Diego, there are enough Vietnamese that they even have their own ARVN Veteran's club, kind of like a VFW post.

Of course at least this means you think the establishment of democracy in Iraq will probably not be significantly impacted by the linguistic fault lines between Arabs and Kurds.

Gee, I didn't realize we were talking about Spanish speakers and Tiamat getting crappy service at a Mickey D's in IRAQ.

But now that you mention it, I don't think language issues between Kurds and Arabs will be in the top ten issues affecting the establishment of stable democracy in Iraq, no.

[General Ludd]

Re: English! English! When did America stop speaking English?

Originally posted by Tiamat

I go through McDonalds and literally have to give my order to the person 5 times and finally I have to revert to speaking spanish to them just to get them to understand my order.

It took you five times to figure out that they spoke spanish? Man, they must need some spanish lessons.

[MichaeltheGreat]

Originally posted by Boris Godunov


We do, it's called "You won't get any better than a crummy minimum wage job unless you learn to speak English." What more message do we need?

I hate agreeing with you, it's such bad form.

Reality is most anyone who speaks English even half-decently can get a better job for more pay, so very few proficient English speakers would ever apply for those jobs.

[Pekka]

Boris, I guess so.. and in here for example, it's difficult to fall into the trap of never having to learn. We don't have ethnic places to live.. you can't live in a place that is mostly inhabitated by your country men, simply because they don't exist. So what ever language that you speak, you will most likely be pretty lonely with it. So you have to learn. And I congratulate our few immigrants, they do so. They really do learn, and quite fast too. MOst of them would speak english, and you can get by in here with english. Most anyone speaks english in here, it's not a problem. But they take the effort to learn the language you don't need anywhere else, and that's kind of cool. Showing that effort.

[Agathon]

Originally posted by Last Conformist
An NZer complaining of messing up English?

Youse fullas bedda watch yoursels, bro.

We don't like people geddin smart, eh?

We'll give you the bash, cuz.