I was born in America but English was not my first Language... English was forced upon me

Originally posted by DaddyBare
No my parents were not Immigrants... the simple fact is I am Jicarilla Apache a Native American...
the word jicarilla comes from Mexican Spanish meaning "little basket." my people are noted for our basket making skills...At home we speak a broken mix of English Apache and Spanish with a little Zuni and Dine thrown in... the result of where we live in the world and how our close neighbours are....

I remember being in grade school, not that very long ago, the early 60's... I remember in second grade I sat between my two friends another Red Skin and a Mexican girl... we three only spoke broken English so when a concept or idea was lost due to this language gap we would whisper to each other, usually in Spanish and between the three of us might figure out 80% of each lesson... that is unless the the teacher caught us speaking anything other than proper English... I too remember the three of us having to hold the top edge of the desk to have our knuckles soundly rapped with her wooden yard stick... this happened quite often in my case... I remember once she asked me a direct question... I knew the answer just not how to say it in English... So I spoke up loud and proud in my own Native tongue... My teacher thought I called her a bad name... I was ushered off to the principal's office where despite my objections and innocence... was soundly paddled on my backside.... that single lesson taught me one single thing... never to open my mouth in class again....

On paper my grades were good, not great but okay....Many of my future teachers thought I might be a bit slow because I never did a class presentation or spoke up... never volunteered... but there were other's like me who gathered and whispered away from everyone else...It wasn't until; I reached High School that I was allowed a little expression... I took Spanish classes... of course I excelled ... but it wasn't until college I was allowed to speak my own tongue..... that only because a few grad students were recording various tribal languages to preserve them....

I a Native born American, never knew more than a few words of English until I went to school... My own Language was beaten out of me, punished because I did not inherently understand English words...

thank god times have changed because there are still places in the States where hardly a word of true English is spoken... Not just the Natives but you hear German up in the far north of this country Cajun down south and out west they still speak a dialect of Castillo brought here by the early Spanish explores... No not everyone in the states speaks English and I'm glad... otherwise we'll all be cookie cutter copies of each other, then where would be the fun in learning something truly new and wonderful about each other

edit on 18-6-2011 by DaddyBare because: (no reason given)

That was your parents fault, not America's. When in an english speaking country... it's custumary that whatever nation you live in...to learn the language. It's expected, if you were born there. How you percieved something doesn't mean that's the case. Everyone else in your class had to speak english as well, you just felt you were being prosecuted because you had to translate from one language to another hence more work. You parents should have saw to it that you learned english. If I moved to Mexico, do you think they would let me get away with living there my whole life and not speaking any spanish....could I even accomplish school? That would be a big no. The way I see it, you know at least 2 languages because of all this and that is a skill that even most Americans don't have. Seems to me that you are spitting in the face of a blessing....everything that is a good thing takes hard work to accomplish. In summation, America is an English country and you are expected to know the language....your parents ahould have prepared you better. America is a country and a name..not a person you can blame. Your parents knew when they came to America things were going to be different and they knew what language was spoken. Just because there is an influx of sanish speaking people into our country doesn't mean we have to change OUR ways for you. If I have a party at my house and have a lot of people come into MY house......do I then just give all of those people my house, simply because they outnumber me? Nope. Still my house....just with an influx of people,....who if they can't behave..must then leave. You sound like a whiner who doesn't want to work for what he gets.

Daddybare, thank you for sharing this part of yourself. I see a lot of misunderstanding in some of the replies that have been posted. It's disheartening, but I suppose it is human nature to react as if no history existed and only address what is perceived from the immediate standpoint.

People can react with fear to what they do not understand. How someone reacts when hearing a language they don''t understand reveals the prejudice that person feels towards the speaker. Your experience of the teacher thinking you called her a name perfectly exemplifies this. In all honesty, what a child speaks to a classmate (or an adult to a friend) does not matter as long as English is spoken when it is required (lessons, work, etc.) Unfortunately, this is something that is still not in practice today. I live in Florida and work with the public. Too often I hear people say "If you live here, learn the language." We have many immigrants who arrive speaking Spanish, Creole, and various other languages. English is a difficult language to master. Ideally, people should learn the language before they move to their chosen country. This is not always an option. From my experience, the people I have dealt with make an attempt to speak English. I have even had some who would rather try to use the English they know rather than me add an interpreter on the line. I applaud their attempts, but in matters of life and death I am going to make sure there are no miscommunications.

That is a different situation than what Native Americans have dealt with however. Our ancestors did not move to England and then struggle with their native language being wiped out. We are a conquered people. The first reaction was not assimilation but annihilation. Battles, genocide, removal, broken treaties...these are the precursors to the experiences of Native children in the American school systems. In researching my ancestry, I came across references to Black Irish and Black Dutch. These were code words for Native Americans. It allowed them to have rights and own land, but it also eliminated the Native identity. Too many of my ancestry entries listed two names, the given name in Cherokee and the English name assigned. It was common practice for teachers to rename the "heathen children" with a "proper Christian" name. Can you imagine someone telling you that from this point on you are no longer who you have always been but are from this point on known as something that they find more acceptable.

The violence towards Native Americans may have ceased, but the ways of eradication still exist. They have simply become more civilized. My features reveal my Cherokee heritage just as my skin nods to the Irish. I have attended gatherings where strangers walked up to me and asked which nation I was from or even which band or clan. I literally wear my ancestry. While the people of my grandmother consider me to be Cherokee, the BIA says I am not. According to them, I do not have enough blood to call myself Cherokee. To my knowledge, the Native Americans are the only ones who have this limitation dictated.

When someone asks what my heritage is, I list Cherokee first. That is how I identify myself. This does not however mean that I consider my status as American any less. My family members were put on the Trail, placed in concentration camps, or retreated to the mountains almost 200 years ago. I am American, and proudly so. I have family members who have served this country and some who died for it. Still, it would have been nice for my grandmother to have been able to pass down the language of her people. Many Native American histories were oral histories. When the languages were prevented from being spoken, much of that history was lost. The history of the Native Americans is part of the American history. Sadly, there are many whose understanding of that history comes from watching westerns. A media who aside from being fiction (or highly fictionalized versions of history) found it easier to cast Italians in the role of "Indians" because they were much easier to find even then.

Originally posted by davespanners
reply to post by Kali74

 

None of you use the proper Queens English any way.

You wouldn't adam and eve the amount of times I'll be out with one of my old china plates and some septic will come up to me asking for Anneka Rice cos they are all Kate Mossed.
Then I tell them the way and they look all sixes and sevens at me

Brilliant. Purely brilliant.

/TOA

reply to post by Observer99


Wow. "get over the past." you say that as if you think I'm Native American. I didn't say anything about race, and I didn't even mention the word "white." But since you want to take it there, yes. White people did steal, rape, and ravage this land after they attempted to murder the native inhabitants. So there you go, it was a horrible crime that will never be erased by a simple "get over it, it was a long time ago." And definitely saying "someone else would have done it" doesn't excuse a damn thing either. I didn't mention anything about white people when I responded to the OP, but i guess in the back of your mind you know who's responsible therefore you feel the need to make personal attacks.

And then there are the urban areas where ebonics is the primary language....it too has Native English words and phrases but is nothing near its root language and is allowed in schools....in fact,Oakland sought extra federal dollars to teach ebonics as a second language

reply to post by DaddyBare


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Namaste.

I don't feel sorry that people can't get jobs because they can't speak Spanish or a second language that is commonly spoken by the residents in their area. It's normal that businesses as well as government would cater to these populations. Businesses don't want to lose out on them and the government doesn't either. It's not like we're changing the name of Cornflakes, but that doesn't mean Cornflakes won't be advertised in Spanish. Cornflakes was patented in 1896 in the United States, btw.
If people feel so threatened by it they should try to get English to become an official language in their state.
I'm bilingual and I will use it to my complete advantage. I'm still American whether you bigots like it or not. If you can't accept change...you will be left behind. It's that simple.
That natives had to adapt to inevitable changes brought on by foreign settlers in order to survive...And now that is has come full circle...Who are the whiners now?
Food for thought.

reply to post by ThirdEyeofHorus


Don't ya just love it when people attempt to put words in your mouth? I basically said "im sorry for what happened, it was messed up." Your interpretation for some reason sounded a lot like "I hate European people. They are criminals. Native Americans should get their land back." (and they should get their land back). Anyway, why is it so hard for so many members here to simply admit that there was a horrible crime committed?

All of this exploration and fighting for domination did occur in times past. I cannot help what happened to Native Indians, but I see no reason why I should have to capitulate to some crazy reconquista plan of Mexico because Mexicans don't accept the consequences of the Spanish-American war in the past.

So you believe that when two countries go to war, the invading country (if they win) has the right to displace, murder, and relocate the native inhabitants? I guess this is the case just as long as you can give the people that got #ed over a casino. Oh and no one should say a thing about it because "it happened a long time ago" or "someone else would have done it." This is an incredibly backwards way of thinking (although i do agree with the points that you made about soros. The globalist agenda is moving at a swift pace due in large part to him.)

reply to post by DaddyBare


now days the teacher would try to have sex with you.

reply to post by laiguana


I vote that we all have one language (yes everyone keep and know the language of their ancestors if they need that to honor them) but why don't we all have one language the world over and call it the language of humanity?

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TPTB are dumbing us down, distracting us and dividing us.

United we stand, divided we fall.

The world is my country, all mankind are my brethren, and to do good is my religion. - Thomas Paine US patriot & political philosopher (1737 - 1809)

I have worked with people who came to America from other countries.

They were not allowed to speak anything other than english in their home so that they could learn the language. They took pride in becoming an American citizen.

America is a country. Before the early settlers came here it was NOT a country. It was just land that was inhabited by many different tribes, cultures, languages, etc. It was fractured and broken up.

America IS a melting pot from many different countries. My relatives were originally from England, Scotland, Poland, and Germany. I do not consider myself "euro-american". I do not fly a flag from some other country outside of my house. I am not into the whole, yuppy "it's fashionable to flaunt my heritage" crap. I am an American. I used to take pride in that before the government went down the toilet, but that is a different subject.

There is nothing wrong with the citizens of a country having and feeling a commonality between each other. Nothing "cookie-cutter" about it. It gives people a national identity. If you want to maintain the national identity of another country, go back there and suck their financial system dry.

Hyphenated-americanism is destroying this country. If that is what people want, they are about to get it. They will also no longer get government hand-outs, bail-outs, unemployment, etc.

When this country collapses, which it will, it will take the rest of the world with it. The rest of the world is too dependent on the U.S. to survive by itself.

Battle loser always whine about their land being taken.....remember the Alamo and Goliad....

Originally posted by odyseusz
...
In India for example there are 16 official language with English as main to all country. In China there are 3 official languages. It's not a big deal. In USA probably over 50 million people use Spanish language. This is not a small number which government could ignore.

edit on 19-6-2011 by odyseusz because: (no reason given)

In China there are actually at least 17 different dialects. In Brazil there are two main groups of dialects of Portuguese, the northern and the southern group, and each one has several dialects. Likewise MANY other nations have their populations speak different dialects and even different languages and such countries haven't split over this.

Spanish is a disgusting language anyways, you ever listens to a group of Mexicans talking? It sounds like chipmunks rattling away. You should thank that teacher for all those times she beat some civilization into you. If she had'nt who knows you would probably be living in a cave.

reply to post by lokdog


we're denying ignorance, are we not?

reply to post by lokdog


Now if they would only do that in inner city schools....Ebonics is a gutter abomination

Originally posted by Kali74
On a more serious note though, I find it ironic that most people on ATS are paranoid of globalization yet want everyone to speak english.

We do not give enough credit to human intelligence or our capacity to learn. We are fully capable of speaking several languages fluently. In a nation (US) of immigrants is it really just hippie idealism to think we should at least all be able to speak spanish in addition to english?

Hah! Tunisians still speak French after they kicked them out. Tunisia was concquered by Romans, Phoenicians, Arabs, and French, not necessarily in that order. In addition, You will hear a heady mix of French and the Berber dialect all in the same sentence.
My father could speak Russian fluently, and also German while serving in WWII, French, some Italian, a bit of Spanish, and was learning Greek.
I took French in HS and know just a few of the Tunisian words. Some day I will study more. I think it's great to have more than one language. (that's really for the guy who was griping that white people on this thread are too ignorant and racist to learn another language).

I can't really believe my eyes reading some of the vile mean-spirited anti-Native propaganda posted in this thread about the Indigenous peoples of the Americas!

It reminds me of similar tactics and the same vile propaganda which is being used against another people in the Middle East.

And some of you even say that the Native Americans are not native at all - are you all nuts?

I thought it was a well known fact and from genetic evidence that the modern man (Homo Sapien) around 200.000 years ago and the migration en masse into the continents from Africa to the Middle East took place approximately 100.000 years ago.

From there the modern man migrated to India and further to Asia 70.000 years ago and Europe 40.000 years ago - And then from Asia people migrated via Beringia, a land bridge which connected the two continents across what is now the Bering Strait, to settle the Americas.

Of course, during that migration of people there were always forerunners before the greater masses of people came en masse to settle down both in Europe, Asia and lastly in the Americas - but most of the Indigenous peoples in the Americas are connected through DNA showing that they're descended from a minimal genetic founding female population.

Genetic history of indigenous peoples of the Americas

When studying Human mitochondrial DNA haplogroups the results indicate that Indigenous Amerindian haplogroups, including Haplogroup X (mtDNA), are part of a single founding east Asian population. [51]

It also indicates that the distribution of Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) haplogroups and the levels of sequence divergence among linguistically similar groups, were the result of proceeding multiple migrations from Bering Straits populations.

All Indigenous Amerindians mtDNA can be traced back to five haplogroups types A, B, C, D and X.[53] More specifically, Indigenous Amerindians mtDNA belongs to sub-haplogroups that are unique to the Americas and not found in Asia or Europe: A2, B2, C1, D1, and X2a (with minor groups C4c, D2, D3, and D4h3).[52]

This suggests that 95% of Indigenous Amerindians mtDNAs are descended from a minimal genetic founding female population, comprising sub-haplogroups A2, B2, C1b, C1c, C1d, and D1. The remaining 5% is composed of the X2a, D2, D3, C4, and D4h3 sub-haplogroups.

en.wikipedia.org...

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And again, genetic evidence speaking against the so called: Solutrean theory

One of the most recent theories with extensive coverage in popular media outlets[34] is known as the Solutrean theory. The theory suggests that early European people (or peoples) may have been among the earliest settlers of the Americas.[35][36]

Citing evidence that the Solutrean culture of prehistoric Europe may have provided the basis for the tool-making of the Clovis culture in the Americas, the theory suggests that Ice Age Europeans migrated to North America by using skills similar to those possessed by the modern Inuit peoples and followed the edge of the ice sheet that spanned the Atlantic.

The hypothesis rests upon particular similarities in Solutrean and Clovis technology that have no known counterparts in Eastern Asia, Siberia or Beringia, areas from which, or through which, early Americans are known to have migrated.

The theory is largely discounted by most professionals for a variety of reasons, including the fact that the differences between the two tool making traditions far outweigh the similarities, the several thousand miles of the Atlantic Ocean and the 5000 year span that separate the two different cultures.[37][38]

Genetic studies of Native American populations have also shown the Solutrean theory to be unlikely, showing instead that the 5 main mtDNA haplogroups found in the Americas were all part of one gene pool migration from Asia.[39]

en.wikipedia.org...

Recent genetic research

An article in the American Journal of Human Genetics by researchers in Brazil argued against the Solutrean hypothesis. "Our results strongly support the hypothesis that haplogroup X, together with the other four main mtDNA haplogroups, was part of the gene pool of a single Native American founding population; therefore they do not support models that propose haplogroup-independent migrations, such as the migration from Europe posed by the Solutrean hypothesis."

en.wikipedia.org...

Mitochondrial Population Genomics Supports a Single Pre-Clovis Origin with a Coastal Route for the Peopling of the Americas

Article AJHG

The American Journal of Human Genetics

In this study, we analyze 86 mtDNA genomes (58 of them new) belonging to all five major Native American haplogroups (A2, B2, C1, D1, and X2a) to provide a better understanding of the timing and mode of the peopling of the New World. Our analysis suggests a complex scenario for this migration, in which the founding population underwent a moderate bottleneck during the LGM to expand along the continent toward the end of the LGM, around 18 kya, probably via a Pacific coastal route. Furthermore, we support a model in which all mtDNA haplogroups were present in this expansion, thus refuting multiple-migration scenarios such as the Solutrean hypothesis.

www.sciencedirect.com...

Originally posted by Common Scarecrow
I have worked with people who came to America from other countries.

They were not allowed to speak anything other than english in their home so that they could learn the language. They took pride in becoming an American citizen.

That is the ideal scenario, but it's not always reality.

America is a country. Before the early settlers came here it was NOT a country. It was just land that was inhabited by many different tribes, cultures, languages, etc. It was fractured and broken up.

It wasn't a 'country' going on how Europeans defined it as, but it was settled by indigenous populations who had variations of cultures and languages. They did a lot of trading, nonetheless and they did so by speaking common dialects or learning the other language, whatever it may be. There were many similarities between their known languages, especially by region.

...I do not fly a flag from some other country outside of my house. I am not into the whole, yuppy "it's fashionable to flaunt my heritage" crap....

Hm...I don't have a foreign flag outside of my house either. I don't care to mention my heritage unless it is brought up by someone else and it often is. Stop being pretentious.

When this country collapses, which it will, it will take the rest of the world with it. The rest of the world is too dependent on the U.S. to survive by itself.

The US had its peak...most empires do. No empire lasts forever. Get over it.

Well isn't this a fine kettle of fish?

We are all in this boat together, we can't change the past, but we can mold the future,

My grandmother spoke seven languages fluently, I was raised in a home that English wasn't our first language,I am having problems with just one,

www.cogsci.indiana.edu...