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Originally posted by Druscilla
Originally posted by wingsfan
Originally posted by Druscilla
Adapt. Learn. Evolve.
Become better.
Tell that to the immigrants, the onus is NOT on us to accommodate them!
Oh the agony.
I wonder how much you travel abroad?
Would you expect anyone to accommodate your English bias in Russia, Sweden, France, China, anywhere else around the globe?
Quick; December 21 is about to happen and you may be forced to immigrate to a non-English speaking country to survive. How many languages do you speak?
What's the poorest country you've ever visited?
What's the richest country you've ever visited?
Be thankful for what you DO have as due some accident of birth, you just happen to have been born in a country where through some warped sense superiority and entitlement you feel it necessary to impose your values on anyone and everyone you consider as 'lesser'.
Originally posted by PollyPeptide
Living in El Paso and complaining about Spanish seems silly to me. But I don't think the OP is racist, just opinionated. I see her point, but it makes me wonder what the real issue is. I would think that the problem isn't how the OP reacted but how the staff were behaving. If it's a government office and everyone is speaking Spanish it must mean that the majority of people in need of Social Assistance in El Paso are Hispanic. It makes me think the gov't is racist, not the OP. Think about it, that office has made the assumtion that everyone who comes through that door is Hispanic. It's as though they think only Hispanics are unemployed... Seems racist to me.
On the other hand, the people in the office probably used to speak english all the time, but they were probably getting yelled at by the Spanish speaking crowd for not speaking Spanish! So they start speaking in Spanish, and now the English speaking crowd are up in arms!
I'm in Canada and when I go to Service Canada for whatever reason, they speak to me in English and in French. I don't understand why any gov't service in any part of the world wouldn't be similar... Poorly managed I guess...
Robb
To those of you that are taking offense to all this, how many of you are taking time out of your free time to go TEACH English?
Originally posted by Druscilla
To those of you that are taking offense to all this, how many of you are taking time out of your free time to go TEACH English?
Ah, but, it's so much easier to hate and criticize than it is to help, isn't it?
A lot of immigrant communities in certain countries huddle together in groups and CHOOSE to speak their native language because it is easier and more comfortable for them. They want to come to another country for the better lifestyle but become culturally locked into their own world. Some won't even bother learning English at all. It's a form of self-segregation.
Originally posted by Druscilla
To those of you that are taking offense to all this, how many of you are taking time out of your free time to go TEACH English?
If it means so much to you, the world needs teachers, and you can go teach English as a second language classes. Someone has to do it.
Ah, but, it's so much easier to hate and criticize than it is to help, isn't it?
edit on 6-12-2012 by Druscilla because: (no reason given)
Originally posted by FissionSurplus
I gotta agree with the OP on this one.
I am a first-generation American. My dad only spoke German, my mom only spoke Spanish.
They were expected, from the get-go, to adapt to American ways, and learn English. Which they did, very well, too.
We four kids were all raised in an English-only household. We didn't celebrate any holidays from my parent's home country, it was America all the way: St. Patrick's Day, Fourth of July, Thanksgiving, even Christmas on the 25th (although in my mom's culture, it isn't celebrated until January, and boxes of straw were put under the bed, and in the morning, gifts are found).
To go to a new country, with established language and customs, and demand that the people and the governemt conform to YOU is just damned rude. Unheard of when my folks immigrated in the 50s.
My mom, who is still fluent in Spanish, will get nasty with anybody in the states who works with the public and speaks only Spanish. She will tell them in Spanish to "Learn English, you moron." Last time she did that, there was almost a brawl, because she was in the Cuban section of Miami, lol!
Beyond that, I think there is a reason our government is so accomodating to those who come up from the south (whether legal or illegal). It is insidious, it is planned, and it is only going to get worse. The reason, I don't want to say on this post. Don't feel like getting into it with a bunch of posters who'll tell me that America is a melting pot and to get used to it.
Originally posted by Xoanon
Despite the fact that we were all Americans, I was always blown away by the fact that everyone would sort of 'auto-segregate' in to the usual factions.
And I mean, it was very pronounced, even the 'Southern whites' gravitated in to groups of 'Southern whites'.
This is what I mean by everyone getting to share without their feelings and thoughts being invalidated by people that don't have the language skills in any language to articulate the complexity of this issue.
get me?
What the heck is going on in America? There is even a MOSQUE in EL PASO!!! I NEVER would have imagined this....
SO...what are ya'll's opinions on the destruction of our culture...and what are ya'll's opinions on how "political correctness" has destroyed our American culture.....
Or am I really a "racist" because I resent that I couldn't even understand what was being said inside an American government facility because I only speak ENGLISH....
I never invalidated anyone's opinion in this thread and I wouldn't describe my language skills as 'lacking'. I am fully capable of expressing myself and my point in a concise manner.
Originally posted by votan
Sometimes to mess with people I pretend not to know english to see how people react.
It is funny and sad at the same time to watch them right away assume I am illegal.
Originally posted by timetothink
reply to post by Cuervo
So you don't know history enough to know our founders were English?
The USA was founded by English ex-pats! Surprise!