Another
rant. I know, right?
Friday
I was out in the car and was listening to a show on Pacifica (the
local public radio station). The topic was Jeb Bush addressing a
latino community in gasp
Spanish. The caller didn't think that was appropriate...this
is America, these people need to learn English, these people aren't
even trying to learn English or assimilate into this country they
just want to take without giving back...on
and on he went. The show host eventually, through judicious
questioning, got him to admit that by 'these people', he meant
Spanish speakers. The show host rightly pointed out to him that this
country was built by foreign language speakers, that there is no
official language in the country (which the caller tried to dispute
by saying the Constitution was written in English), that many
presidential candidates in the past have addressed constituents in Italian,
Polish, German, etc...how else do you inform voters of your position
who don't yet have a good grasp of English? The caller sort of
brushed that aside as his focus was on Spanish and his opinion, one
completely devoid of facts to back it up, and he gave an example of
how disrespectful it is about going into a store and the
clerk/cashier he dealt with didn't speak English. This highly
offended him and he went and spoke to the manager about why he hired
people who couldn't speak English (uh, to help with customers who
don't speak English or speak it well?) and he was convinced that this
woman was an illegal even though he had no proof whatsoever and when
pressed on why he thought she was, all he could say over and over
was...I guarantee she was illegal.
Obviously,
English or no English, they managed to communicate well enough for
him to buy whatever it was he was buying so the non-English speaking clerk didn't really affect him in an adverse way. It makes me wonder
though, what his objection is really about, why he and people like
him are so intolerant of other people conversing in a language they
do not understand, as if they have some sort of inalienable right to
understand every word spoken within their hearing.
I
was recently pilloried on FB resulting in the unfriending of one
person and the blocking of his granddaughter and one of her friends
because I took issue with an 'English only' meme he shared which I
found to be petty, pointing out that, like it or not, this is a
multicultural and multilingual country, that this country was built
by people who did not speak English.
Wave
after wave of non-English speaking people have immigrated to this
country. It's why we have Chinatowns, Italian quarters, German
enclaves, Jewish and Muslim neighborhoods, Barrios, etc. First
generation immigrants do not usually assimilate. They may cling to
their language, their culture because being in a new place is
daunting and scary. They get comfort in familiarity but they are here
for the same reason all of us are here...they want better futures for
themselves and their children. They come here and they work hard.
If they have trouble learning English as an adult (and English is a
hard language to learn), so what? It is their children who
assimilate. While they may have a different cultural heritage, these
children and their children grow up fully assimilated. Assimilation
takes time and to proclaim that first generation immigrants don't
want to assimilate is absurd.
This
is a big country filled with great diversity and instead of accepting
that diversity as the strength it should be, too many people spend
far too much time being divisive with hate for and fear of their
fellow citizens who are different...in color, in heritage, in
culture, in religion, in sexuality, in language, the list goes on.
What they aren't seeing is that we are ALL equally Americans and I
don't understand why anyone would object to companies and
local/national government making information available in however
many languages it takes to insure that all citizens get the help and
info they need.
I
mean, really, how hard is it to press 1 for English?
Next
post I promise will be pretty pictures.
