And you can pretty much replace America and english with any other country along with the language of a majority of it's speakers.

I know this debate has been done before, but some fool at my lunch table was ranting about how unfair it was that Geno's (one of the leading cheesteak places in Philly) had decided to stop serving anyone who didn't order in English. He just kept ranting on about "FREEDOM OF SPEECH" regardless of any points anyone tried to raise. He shut up pretty quickly when I told him to go to the food line an order some shit in spanish without pointing at anything but it still got me thinking.

While America doesn't have an official language, a vast majority of people in this country speak English. Our television shows are all in English, same with our periodicals and all that jazz. Is it so wrong to expect someone to speak the same language as everyone else? Doesn't have to be perfect but an effort should at least be made by the non-english speaker.

No, but I do think the government shouldn't be publishing anything in Spanish.

I think so. The national policy is integration, not multiculturalism. I dont feel it is a very pressing issue at this moment thuogh and doesnt need immediate attention to correct and enact.

No, but they should be expected to speak english if they want to be anything close to integrated with society.

I think until we make English an official language, you should be able to speak whatever the hell you want, and I don't think you should be turned down service for it like in your case.

However, I think jobs that require significant communication with primarily English-speaking people (ie retail, fast food, tech support, customer service, etc) should have a language requirement. I say leave it to the employers, though. It's not the government's right.

I sort of agree and disagree with you. I understand why they'd make a rule like that at Geno's. You pretty much just stand in line until you make your order and get your food, someone at the front of the line not speaking any English would really just hold up everyone else, and since the place is usually packed, one person not being understood would waste a lot of people's time.

Oh and I got it a bit wrong, Geno's doesn't not serve people who don't order in English, they just give them cheese whiz on bread, which is pretty jerky.

I... agree with SEP?

the dark side is drawing you in

i dont think that we should have to learn Spanish because they cannot speak english

I don't see why not. Everyone else learned it.

English should be the language of the Government, and if they exspect to do anything within the government, including voting or getting a drivers liscence, learn english. Otherwise speak whatever you feel like

Well, he's right. You're NOT Canada. You're a melting-pot Under God and the English language, not a multicultural entity unified under a common nationality of "Canadian".

thats nice you french muscle deteriorating fag but multiculturalism doesnt work, its nice and pretty but when you will always be on the outside looking in with marginalized section of the population and you end up with the horrid mess they have over Europe with their islamic citizens.

you lisping french fag

Pointless insults make you 145% cooler

Ummmm I thought English WAS the official language, and they were thinking of adding Spanish to that list of official languages.

Nope, the US has no official language.

If there's a significant enough Spanish-speaking population where you live that they have to make a rule about people ordering in Spanish, then they should hire somebody on their staff that speaks Spanish as a secondary language. This is not only less of a dick move, but it makes economic sense and would lead to more sales for them, hence, more profit.

Also, I hope somebody that gets cheese whiz on bread throws it right at the manager's face.



Nobody is asking you too. You can get along in America perfectly fine without speaking Spanish.



Yes, from birth. Try learning German. It's not so easy to learn a secondary language, especially not one as complex as English.

You realize that German is one of the easier languages for English speaker to learn right? It's not like there are some German words that look just like English ones minus 1 letter and mean the same thing. No common roots or anything like that.

Nope.

The entire thing isn't an exactly a bias on Spanish speaking people, it's on all non-english speakers, and the sign stating this rule has apparently been there for years but it's only recently gotten any sort of attention.



Honestly the only group of people I have ever met who have complained about learning English are generally ones from Spanish speaking countries, everyone else just shuts up and gets it done. I'm friends with a Korean transfer student and he's so damned self-conscious about having to speak English in front of people (and it's a damn shame too since he really does speak better English than half of the school) but he doesn't whine about still having to learn words and phrases and shit. He sits and listens to other people talk and when there's something he doesn't get (usually slang) ask someone to explain it to him.

Modern English is a Germanic language. It is based on both latin and olde english. It is thus easy to transition from it to other germanic languages like German or Dutch. Meanwhile, Spanish is a romantic language based on am ix of latin and French; other such languagfes include modern French, Portuguese and Italian.

Yes, I realize that, and that's why I picked German. It's an easy language for an English-speaking person to learn, and yet I bet it would still take you a few years to learn it. Learning languages isn't that easy.




Is the sign printed in foreign languages? After all, if someone doesn't speak English, they probably can't read English signs, either.

wow you guys are assholes. It takes some time to pick up on english. Immigratign here,I'm sure most of your families spoke their native languages and were isolated in their communities and often recieved foul treatment from other groups. You can't just sling around your opinion of what languages people should kow. Btw, America is more than just the United States. And most official documents are available n Spanish. Since we have such a large Latino population shouldn't our country accomodate for them? They arent't going to pick a language like English up quickly, and some are just here to work. Why should you learn an entirely different language first before moving somewhere for a few months to pick fruit?

Also, at one of tthe highschools I attended every sign, form, etc. ws printed in english, Spanish and Hmong. English sin't even thee language that will really help you out in the world nowadays. Better off learning japanese, mandarin, or cantonese for business purposes.

Oh and the whole thing about people from spanish speaking countries complaining and other immigrant sjust getting it done. God thats way too much of a generalization and is probably due to the fact that the largest number of immigrants hail from those countries.

You choose to move/work there. Why should they adapt to you?

The Hmong are a good example. I had those multi-language things too, but I rarely see them now once I left elementary school. Hmong children have adapted very well and are able to help their parents out. Not only that, the Hmong community is very visible here in St. Paul and you can tell they help each other out a lot. Worked out for them.

Also, if I moved to China, should I expect people to know English? Definitely not. They might, but I think it'd be wrong for me to be angry at people who don't want to deal with my ignorance of the language.

Because it isn't necessary to learn english. Spanish is the 2nd most commonlanguage here and is spoken by 28.1 million people. only half of which report knowing english well. Maybe it just makes more sense to have translated forms and shit for that large of an amount of people. A lot fo times people move out of necessity. TWe have jobs for them. We know it is good business to be able to speak to the people you want to employ.
How resonable is it for someone to study english several years before moving. Especially since it is really freakin hard to learn a language you can't be practicing and using in your everyday life.

And of course htey aren't expecting everyone to know spanish here to make due for them. But many people do, so it isn't that unlikely. I'm not suggesting we be required to know 2 languages(although in any sense its a plus) I'm saying we should have shit translated, important things like official forms and whatnot. Thats just common sense. We're all immigrants, we've always had other languages. We don't just assimilate people into our hive mind... just doesn't work like that. And also after coming here at a certaina age, learning a new languae is even harder.My grandparents have been here a several decades, the language still isn't fluent for them. And my grandpa has had a fulltime job the entire time they've lived here still to this day... even though hes 74. As they get older they seem to remember even less english. And when we went to Mexico my grandpas spanish.was way rusty.
funny how that works
Much easier for children to pick up a language.

...you want people to translate to Spanish because they can't work/live otherwise, but you're saying it isn't necessary to learn English. Something does not fit. Which is it? Is it needed, in which case it's their fault for not learning it, or isn't it, in which case there's no need to bend over backwards to translate stuff for them? It's not FREE to translate millions of pages of public documents y'know.



10% of the population. 5% if you count those TRUELY in need of spanish forms. Wow. You know how many people here in Canada speak French? 25%, and you can BARELY find the forms you need in French - and we have BOTH as national languages! French stuff in Alberta? DREAM ON! English stuff in St-Alma? Dream on!



No, we not it's good business to hire illegal immigrants. Which, im my WILD GUESS of an opinion, account for a good majority of the 5% who can't speak a word of English.



Very

Can't? Bullshit. Won't.

Also, printing stuff and Spanish just says that it's okay to not learn English, so they never do. The only way to learn is to become completely immersed. I know that when I'm in France I speak French better because I have to, but not much better because I can still talk to my brother and parents in English.

At fourteen my dad came here from Haiti and watched Sesame Street everyday until his English was good enough to get a job. It's hard, it sucks, but it can be done.



So you can come here and maybe get a job better than that.



Still doesn't change the fact that there's a very strange want to hold onto their native language for a lot of Spanish speaking people. Wanting your children to speak the language you spoke as a child is nice and all, but there's no reason for particular things that I've seen like not letting your child be exposed to any English until their around 5 or 6 so "their Spanish is better." All that does is net your kid an accent and a better oral assessment grade than the other kids in their Spanish class once they get to high school.

How is wanting to hold on to your native language strange? it is about making sure an entire culture continues. Language is a huge part of that. I have no idea why you're arguing about whether or not things should be translated into spanish when they already are, and are readily available. Obviously the government already determined it as useful and necessary.

And expectig them to study english beforehand is incredibly impractical. Classes cost money, take time. Time you could be working, and have to be working to support your family.

If there are so many french speaking folks in Canada, then they should be pushing them to have translations.

I wan't them to translate things into spansh(already done), because there is a large enough population of spanish speaking families that need it. What are you going to do otherwise? Send them away and say come back when you learn english? Thats ridiculous. Apparently the money to translate shit was less then the money they would lose in business if they could not provide spanish documents. Whats the big deal?

How can you expose your children to english before age 5, if you don't speak english yourself. Thoise children go to ESL classes and schools, and pick up english usually very well and quickly. It isn't as if they purposefully keep their children indoors and away from 'english speakers' or forbid them from english speaking television. geez.

The whole thign about having things in spanish makign it so they never learn english is stupid anyways. What the hell kid of logic is that?
A lot of people can speak english, but learning to read it is another thing. What are they supposed to do while they are learning? They need to know what this crap says, they cahn't just be forced into learnign to read it out of necessity. Have some empathy. We can't expect immigrants to become english scholars before considering moving. If it wasn't possible to survive here without proper english skills, there wouldn't be so many maing it in spite of the language barrier. What is so ridiculous about expecting a government to take care of its citizens? At least in this miniscule way... one they need to do in order to have files in order.

The 'won't' idea is bullshit., its proven that this is the best way to learn a language. A lot of kids take classes in second languages but could never go to a country andspeak that language very well. You need to hear native speakers, you need ot be immersed in it. Have to use it fairly frequently or it doesn't stick. Our brains worjk this way. You can't just read a text book. There are also things like improper usage and slang to consider. Takes some time for you to catcho n to that stuff. It can be pretty confusing without it.

If you wanted the fucking culture of your "mother country" as it were, FUCKING STAY THERE. Is that really so hard to understand?

Yeha dude, cuz im just going to move to another country and forget about my identity. It is pretty obvious why pople move here. It isn't unreasonable to think people will want both to move but also to bring with them who they are, and your culture has a lot to do with that. They aren't goign to move here and become hot dog eating, porn watching, suv driving patriot drones. what the fuck would that be like?

There would still be native Americans here( I wish) if we gave up on our culture for moving here. duh. Why is America so interesting? Hmm, maybe its because of how dynamic the different cultures thrown together makes this country. I'd really hate to live in a U.S. without all the different foods and cultural experiences and celebratins.WTF is american culture? We don't have something that defined because we're so fucking diverse. Thats kind of the whole idea behind it.

People will learn english because they know it will behoove them to do so. But they won't just stop using their native language, they won't want to. Why should they? And in the meantime, it isn't too much to ask for things translated for convenience. Especially since it takes U.S. kids like 8 years to learn english well enough to be able to make sense of shit, often more.

I've actually got an example. Where a friend of mine lives there was a Spanish speaking family. The mother and father weren't bad english speakers, but at the same time, they weren't great. They knew just enough to help them get through their day to day lives. Their daughter on the other hand, a four year old girl, spoke nothing but Spanish since that's all they exposed her to. No tv except Spanish channels, was only babysat by Spanish speaking people, and yes, like you mentioned, she was kept away from English speakers. They chastized my friend's mother when she tried to strike up a simple conversation with the girl when she saw her playing on the sidewalk.

Of course I'm not going to say that sort of thing limited to Spanish speaking people. In my own family it was pretty customary to just send a kid back home to Haiti for a summer or two during their childhood to perfect their Creole (I got lucky since my mother decided she wasn't going to do that, but instead figured she'd only speak to me in French, a language she sucked at.)

Sure it's nice that they can speak to my grandmother in creole (since over the last ten years or so her English speaking skills have deteoriated) but it's given them sometimes thick accents (and coupled with the one they pick up from living in ghetto or whatever) that make it difficult for people to understand them a lot of the time.

Most people can't understand a damn word out of my cousin Carlin's mouth (due to the accent and speech impediment) so for years most of his teachers just thought he was challenged.



The logic behind it seems to be that "Well, if everyone's going to bend over backwards and just show me things in Spanish, I don't need to learn English." I don't really agree with that, since I think most adults would have more sense than that, but I can defintely see it occuring with children.

sounds like an isolated incident, not a trend or anything. I've seen insurance stuff translated into creole, it looks really strange in written form.
Important forms translated, is hardly bending ovver backwards. It isn't as if companies are spending lots of money paying for translators at all locations just to cater to people. That'd be excessive.

Pretty much, but most other Spanish speakers (hell, it also applies to the Vietnamese kids I know) said they either learned Spanish/Vietnamese first, before learning English (which anyone can tell has really screwed up the way they speak) or they learned english first and just were lucky enough to pick up the language. Funny that you've seen a creole form though, only thing I've ever seen written in that was a Bible, but then again I can't really tell written creole and french apart.



In this case I think it depends on the type of form. If a job application could be considered important, I wouldn't expect that to be in any language but English unless it was the employer's way of testing out someone's proficiency in a language they might be using in the position they're trying to get.

Yes, because it's so tempting to stay in your country where you can't drink the water because it makes you sick, and where a bottle of Coke at the same price as here with exchange rates costs an entire week's average wage, and most houses don't even have floors when there's a place right fucking there where being poor is like the upper middle class in the country you're in. GREAT idea.

Also, nice job using immigration as a thin vial for blatant racism. Are you saying that their culture is inferior to ours, and that anybody who moves here should abandon all ties to their culture and how they grew up and were raised? That's bullshit. If you move from Texas to New York, you're still likely to have a southern accent, speak in slang that's common in Texas, and dress in the style you were around in Texas. Even though New York is a different environment with differences in culture, you retain some assets of your former culture even when you move there. It would be much easier to adapt to New York's culture than to learn a new languag,a nd yet nobody says anything to these type of people.

Then make a damn effort to learn the language when you move, or you'll still be in shitty conditions due to not being able to communicate.

Ah, personal attacks. I love it.

Don't fucking put words into my mouth. I'm saying that if you move, you should try and integrate into the society. That's how America has always been, a big mish mash of cultures. We have enough racial strife that way, think if people stayed with "the old ways," there'd be blood in the streets. Not that there wasn't when immigrants first came and were doing that.

It is certainly possible that Mexican immigrants are still considered to be in that transitory phase between sticking to their previous culture and integrating it into American culture. I just think that they've had enough time to be a little more in American culture. Either way, printing things in Spanish and such certainly don't speed along the process. But as SEP said, there are far more important things to worry about right now. I'm just being a bit vocal having to deal with the whole immigration crap in California.

what do you consider american culture, you can still integrate into a society with keeping the integrity of your own culture. I don't really even see some definative 'American Culture' that people are just supposed to jump on the band wagon of. Is it some w.a.s.p. upper middle class shit we're all supposed to subscribe to? elivs and fake tits? What are you suggesting everyone try and integrate into their lives? I thought the whole 'American Ideal' WAS the mixing of cultures. Isn't that prevelnt in our cities? I think having people sustain some of their own culture just brings more to the table. We hardly have culture, we just have media. If watching reality T.V. and uploading my home vids to youtube is some elite culture, count me out. What do you really have to deal with in terms of th immigration in California? I mena how is it really affecting you?


Also to oroboros, Things like job applications probably don't need to be in spanish. I mean, a lot of restaurants they're going to want to hire mexicans for those jobs though. Not only cuz they're cheap and willing but god damn... ever been to mexico? Holy shit do they keep you taken care of in restaurants. As soon as you're drink is low or a plate is done, it is ken care of. They kind of get the reputation. However there are many little booklets and shit with english you need to get jobs or rent apartments. So you can figure stuff like that out. I wa slooking at them and its funny because they also add a spelling of how to pronounce the english word speaking with a spanish tongue, and it isn't always accurate. But what are you going to do? I like accents anyway. english sounds we've got a mouth full of tin.

Well besides being taxed for their children attending public schools, paying for their health care, increased population density, money being spent on border patrol and prevention than more important things, traffic increase and decrease in jobs for actual citizens, well nothing I suppose!

I actually don't have such a huge problem with illegal mexican immigrants in California as our agricultural economy would be rather fucked without them. I just think it's ignorant to believe that illegal immigration holds no visible ramifications at all.

I didn't mean that it iddnt' have ramifications, I was just wondeirn if its affected him in a more personal way that merits such anger.

You're right and wrong about their being no American Culture. Sure it isn't defined and it is a mixing of all cultures coming into one but English is a big part of the culture. English is what helps all the different types of people mix their culture into one. Without English we would not have a melting pot, we'd have a lot of countries/communities within.

Regardless of where you are immigrating or emigrating to/from it's pretty arrogant to not learn the language. If an English speaking American goes to France or Italy we're labeled rude assholes for expecting them to speak English, yet in our own country we can't do the same. Yay double standards.

I don't want to offend anyone but look at most Middle Easterners. They are immigrating here more frequently and a lot of them, hell most of them, speak English. Why should it matter what job you're trying to get? If you want to be a part of the country/community then learn it.

It's bull if you say they're losing their cultural identity. People CAN be bilingual you know. Speaking as a half Mexican my family still keeps a lot of traditions they've had for years. Probably more years than I've been around.

was your quinceañera nice

Very but that's a whole nother topic.

[quote name='SoyUnaNaranja' date='Mar 14 2007, 05:48 PM' post='50950']
How is wanting to hold on to your native language strange? it is about making sure an entire culture continues. Language is a huge part of that. I have no idea why you're arguing about whether or not things should be translated into spanish when they already are, and are readily available. Obviously the government already determined it as useful and necessary.


It's not strange, but the entire culture will continue regardless. For example, I'm Black. There's a shitload of stuff in black culture, but how many of us are still speaking a language from Africa? All we took were a few words. As for the second part of that argument, you imply that someone should not argue against a government decision. Oh, my God is that ignorant.


And expectig them to study english beforehand is incredibly impractical. Classes cost money, take time. Time you could be working, and have to be working to support your family.

Truth from an immigrant's point of view, but we're not immigrants (I think).


I want them to translate things into spansh(already done), because there is a large enough population of spanish speaking families that need it. What are you going to do otherwise? Send them away and say come back when you learn english? Thats ridiculous. Apparently the money to translate shit was less then the money they would lose in business if they could not provide spanish documents. Whats the big deal?


And so everyone should be able to go to another country and get what they need? God forbid a country have the option of not letting someone in. As for translation, it's mostly business who does it, and very rarely will the government step in unless it's for a driver's licence or Food Handler's card.

How can you expose your children to english before age 5, if you don't speak english yourself.


A program called "Head Start"

having things in spanish makign it so they never learn english is stupid anyways. What the hell kid of logic is that?

The more Spanish there is, the easier it is to get around in day-to-day life if Spanish is all you know. I live on the bad side of Phoenix, and many of my customers don't know English, yet have a nice car and thousands of dollars. We don't want it to get to the point where so many things are in Spanish that English doesn't need to be learned. That then puts us in the former position of an immigrant, except for that the average citizen in a bad neighboorhood (i.e. me when I was job hunting) loses out for not knowing the Spanish I am not required to learn. As a natural born citizen, I deserve priority. If you think otherwise, find out what Mexico does to those mojados from Guatemala.


A lot of people can speak english, but learning to read it is another thing. What are they supposed to do while they are learning? They need to know what this crap says, they cahn't just be forced into learnign to read it out of necessity. Have some empathy. We can't expect immigrants to become english scholars before considering moving.

Don't bullshit us. No one is asking that they master it, only that they know enough to not force everything to be bilingual. If they need to know what crap says, well too bad. They should know before crossing illegally. Trust me, LEGAL immigrants know a lot more English. No empathy required.




Yes, because it's so tempting to stay in your country where you can't drink the water because it makes you sick, and where a bottle of Coke at the same price as here with exchange rates costs an entire week's average wage, and most houses don't even have floors when there's a place right fucking there where being poor is like the upper middle class in the country you're in. GREAT idea.

There was once a time that America was a country that poor and fucked up. If your country sucks, then why fix it when you can sneak over to another one and have them cater to you? Immigration was cool a hundred years ago, but any fucking economist will tell you that economically, they bring us down, and you are lucky that this is not the topic. The topic is "Should you be expected to speak a country's language when you move to that country?" Seeing that I would be expected to speak Engish in the UK, French in France, and Japanese in Japan, it's only fair. We don't even want to be mean about it. We want results, and none of these bullshit excuses from people who are either part of/have family in the problem, or people who live in some rich-ass, all-white community where they never have to deal with it full force.

Anyone should be free to learn or not learn english as they please. And the restaurant has the right to serve or not serve whoever they please. If they want an easier time living, its smart to learn English, seems pretty clear cut.

The very rarely government stepping in hting is crap. Since I have a spanish last name, I get nearly everything sent to me in spanish and english. It isn't just illeagal immigrants who don't speak english before moving. My family is entirely legal, didn't speak any english. Obviously they will want to learn to speak a fair amount of english to better their options here. But they can't learn right away, and read it right away so I see no problem with spanish version documents. I think its weird pople are so opposed to the idea of a bilingual country.

Yeah you can still have some cultural identity without your mother tongue, but its a HUGE role. Case in point: native Americans. Their languages are mostly gone. Don't you find that sad? Even just because of the variety of different languages being beautiful.

All I'm relly trying to say here, is to be a little more patient. You can't 'expect' something that involved from people without considering what it takes to get there. It takes time to learn english, time being here, most immigrants try to learn english. But still need forms in their languages until they have a good grasp on english. This isn't impeding on english speakers. And the whole 'suck it up, take it like a man' mentality just doesn't suffice. TAKES TIME, human nature... how the brain works, blah blah blah.

I wasn't implying we shouldn't argue against a governement decision, it just seems futile to be arguing about something that hasalready been decided, and I agree with. So I don't think we should argue against a practical decision.

Your ideas of priority are bullshit in a country where we are all from other places. Yes you should have priority over a non-citizen, but any other immigrant citizen who wasn't born here but is now legally part of this country is equal to you. It sound sliek you're mad because you live in a community where it is favored for business to know spanish. Work in a different community. The majority are still english speaking. Also, that area used to be mexico so maybe they have more of a right to be there than you do. Idk, chew on that. This is just how things have developed overtime, you can be angry about it but thats wasted energy. all you can do is try and work wiht what we have now. They aren't even spaking their native languages for christsake, they're speakign the language of the country who dominated them, same as we are. How far will we take this crap. I don't want a universal language. How bland.

Yeah Black people aren't walking around speaking African languages. You ddin't exactly emmigrate here. Your languages were forced from you. You have white slave names. You've lost most of your original culture. I think thats terrible. Because I find many aspects of african culture very beautiful. You now have american black culture, and thats cool too. But it seems the black community especially since the 60's has been all for rediscovering their roots and getting some semblance of their culture back. Why? it must be valuable and viable part of your identity. And no majority should have the power to supress it and expect you to assimilate into the mainstream. I don't know maybe you should be more angry that you are now just seen as street, and your rich and vibrant cultural identity was never appreciated and kind of destroyed.

In school we were not allowed to speak spanish unless it was in spanish class... beuase the teachers couldn't understand us and we might be saying something naughty. FUCK THAT. This kind of stupid just learn english and be hardcore american, frget about where you came from mentality is fucking ignorant.

The same kind of crap happens with other races. We now have chicano culture instead of mexican. Sorry for wanting to sustain things I think add to the dynamics and beauty of this world. Besides english is a preety effin ugly language soundwise. American english mostly.

Oh dude, not to mention the fact that we do not speak proper english here. So all the talk about accents and crap is ridiculous. Get over it, you aren't even speaking the language correctly how can you expect everyone else to. Why are we trying to protect whats 'american' when we're supposed to be a nation of different colors. Thats okay, as long you feed in to our capitolist culture and dont cause the rest of us any inconvienience. This whole argument is absurd.

Comparing the U.S. to other countries with different languages is pretty futile seeing as we don't have a majority of our citizens originating from this land. Which is why we don't have an official language. Yeah you go to other countries and can expect that everything will be in their language. You can also expect that most people in that country will be the native people ofthat area. Not so here.

and dudes, I never suggested our whole country have 2 languages, and we instead be expected to speak spanish. to cater to a group of people moving here. Just necessary things, contracts and shit be available in other languages. Since we don't have english as an official language, it seems reasonable that we accomdate somewhat to immigrants. Instead of throwing shit at them as they get off the boat as seen in our history. The us against them crap has got to go. But just forcing everyone into english isn't goig to make us a unified people.

It's funny how you say we sound mad about Spanish because you sound mad about English.

I'd say my idea of how it should work would be as follows: You only have to speak English if you want to have a job. It doesn't have to be fluent, it is left up to the employer. It allows for the people who have jobs now to keep them and it puts an emphasis on learning it for the new people coming. We should let people speak their native language but there should also be some emphasis on English.

Funny that you say American English is wrong and disgusting sounding. I'm pretty sure French in Louisiana is different than French in Quebec and France. It's called different DIALECTS. I think Spanish is pretty disgusting sounding to be honest, it's all a matter of opinion.

The only way Native Americans could have kept their identity is if the American colonies never came about. As soon as the Spanish, French and English landed the Native Americans were done. So many died that what little there are left is just a conglomeration of what little was left of many tribes.

And I'm not so sure about African Americans losing their cultural identity. I saw a presentation about krump dancing (I think that's what it's called) in comparison to tribal African dancing and it was extremely similar. I'm not saying it is identical but it's strange when you see the similarities.

Also, it's pretty stupid your school doesn't let you speak Spanish. That's one thing I agree with. Although, I also agree on having contracts and what not in other languages not just Spanish. Why should we limit it to Spanish if we have so many different languages coming here?

"
I wasn't implying we shouldn't argue against a governement decision, it just seems futile to be arguing about something that hasalready been decided, and I agree with. So I don't think we should argue against a practical decision."

So it's practical because you agree with it?


"Your ideas of priority are bullshit in a country where we are all from other places."

Don't get me mixed up with my ancestors, half of which were slaves. I was born here in Arizona, that's about as 'from here' as I can get.

"Yes you should have priority over a non-citizen"

You just put the nail in your own coffin, seeing as most of the people causing the problem aren't citizens.

"but any other immigrant citizen who wasn't born here but is now legally part of this country is equal to you."

Is that why they can't be President?

"It sound sliek you're mad because you live in a community where it is favored for business to know spanish."

Actually, I'm not mad, and I do know enough Spanish to get by. I took two years of it. While I am the least fluent in Spanish at my current job, yet I've been the best at selling since I started working there.

"Work in a different community."

The one I DON'T live in? See your quote in red for more details.

"Also, that area used to be mexico so maybe they have more of a right to be there than you do. Idk, chew on that."


Sounds like the words of a 9th grade M.E.Ch.A. student. You first say that I have a priority over a non-citizen, then you say they have more of a right to be here than I do?

"This is just how things have developed overtime, you can be angry about it but thats wasted energy."

Not when Prop 300 passed.


"In school we were not allowed to speak spanish unless it was in spanish class... beuase the teachers couldn't understand us and we might be saying something naughty. FUCK THAT."

I just graduated from high school, and some teachers enforced that rule in their classrooms. Wouldn't have happened if some dumbasses hadn't made the teacher know what "puta" means.


Now that I'd done laughing at your argument, I believe that Spanish is a beautiful language, and I will continue to learn it until I am fluent. However, I also believe that when 95+ percent of the country speaks English, immigrants should just learn it for the sake of being able to fucking communicate with the majority. That's not giving up your culture. It's just common sense.

Been there, done that. German's not that hard (easier than English...), I'd have come up with a better random example, really.

I think it should be required to get a job (not manual labor, but a job that deals with people), but not in general.

Why should it be required for a job? If I want to run my business hiring people who can't communicate with the majority of the population, why are you saying I can't? I mean, it seems like a silly business decision to me, and I know *I* wouldn't hire someone who didn't speak English for a job that required communicating with people, but there's no reason for it to be a requirement. If you don't like that your local sub shop employees don't speak English, don't eat there.