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Went to Social Security office in Texas and didn't hear English spoken for 30 minutes

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posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 03:43 PM
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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'.



I disagree with your point. In order to immigrate to many countries in the world one must demonstrate proficiency in the native language. With all the complaining of immigration rules in the US, we are actually one of the more lax countries.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 03:45 PM
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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


Makes me wonder just how many of the people in the office were legal immigrants and make me think we need to change immigration rules to deny social services to anyone but a citizen.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 03:47 PM
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reply to post 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?


Me.

Just for the record...

I am an honorary Guatemalan, El Salvadorean and Mexican.

I help ESL students crush ENG101 every semester.

And I mean crush to death.

And in SPCH101 too, I send them back as forces to be reckoned with by taking the uniqueness of their verb conjugation and helping them to make it their strong point. It makes their syntax more visceral.

If everyone grabbed an oar then we would all be paddling together.

This could be a great Christmas.



P.S. I only add this because I once did take offense. I am just posting this stuff because I am hoping that we can all learn to participate without anyone feeling as though how they feel has been made invalid.

maybe if everyone just got to complain and get it off their chests, they could hear how they sound and then we could all just move forward.

If we could possibly handle these problems ourselves, we would be taking a great deal of power from those that would have us at one another's throats.

There is too much fun to be had what with all the food and music.

# The Man, let's party.

!
edit on 6-12-2012 by Xoanon because:




posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 03:58 PM
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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?


Are you saying the reason what happened in the OP occured was because none of the people in that area could find an ESL teacher?

I don't think the problem is a lack of ESL teachers.
They aren't in short supply.

Anyone who wants to learn English can do so. Especially Spanish speaking citizens. Much easier for them.
Even the INS will help immigrants/potential citizens locate someone to provide English classes.



Ah, but, it's so much easier to hate and criticize than it is to help, isn't it?


It's not hate...it's a legitimate gripe.

Lets be honest.

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.

It's either you learn their language or you don't communicate properly.

I personally think this sort of behavior can alienate you from the larger community, but if this is what they choose, so be it. It's a shame because there are people that you would really like to get to know but the cultural barriers remain defensively up. It's a country within a country.

I went door to door the other day with a Latina woman here in D.C. trying to find the home of a dog that followed me for some reason and kept running into the streets. We both were worried for it. She had an idea of where the dog owner lived and although she tried to communicate more information she didn't speak a word of English and I only know a handful of words in Spanish.

Awesome woman, but the language barrier had us both a bit mixed up.
We did find the owners of the dog (named Chauncey) eventually.

Chauncey is my brothers name. Ha!

- Lee
edit on 6-12-2012 by lee anoma because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:11 PM
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reply to post by Cornczech
 


I am trying to understand why this bothers you??? I know english and spanish well and unlike many texans I do not mix the languages.

When I lived in El Paso and Austin I hardly used English. It just comes with living in the area. If I worked there I would speak spanish too unless I had an English speaker. When I moved to the midwest I began to use english and i only use spanish if i ever go into a store where they just speak spanish.

What do you have against other languages other than prejudice. So it is wrong to speak another language on the job?? Chances are those people know english or enough to communicate with the people who go there.


Eres una persona con una mente muy cerada. Me da tristesa que tienes tanto odio y rencor contra la gente que habla espanol.


edit on 6-12-2012 by votan because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:13 PM
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Lee Anoma


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.


To All:
I was once married to a girl who's family had come from Germany. All family gatherings from her side may as well have taken place in Germany; only German was spoken, if I came around someone would invariably say aloud, "In English", and the whole group would sort of snap in to English till I split.

I lived in the barracks for many years, like any soldier, During the time I was in we changed barracks many times, effectively setting up 'house' on each occasion. 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'. I am from California, and that gives me a bit of Carte Blanche, but even so, I was raised on the Northern ideal promulgated in shows like The Rifleman, so I am effectively seen as a Northern white.

My question to the thread is...

Why can we not discuss this obvious artifact of our multicultural society without anyone going all 'you're-a-racist' on everybody?

?

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?

?
edit on 6-12-2012 by Xoanon because: /



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:22 PM
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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.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:26 PM
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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)


I actually have taught English as a second language. Currently I am teaching my wife english since she only knows russian.

I am not offended by this at all. I think what we really need here are teachers to teach one language speakers to learn how to cope with other languages in their community.

Its just a reality that other languages will exist unless you want to outlaw other languages in the USA.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:28 PM
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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.


Just because you speak spanish in public it does not mean you do not know English.. This is such an ignorant misconception. OMG THEY ARE NOT SPEAKING ENGLISH THEY ARE ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS.

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.
edit on 6-12-2012 by votan because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:35 PM
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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'.


Native citizens from the same areas of a country will gravitate to others who live in a specific area of that same country because they feel they have will have more in common with them.

That I understand. It's like to those people they grew up on the same block.
It's not just in the U.S. You will find the same in other Countries as well. Including Mexico.

The difference of course being that if you needed to communicate with each other, there would obviously be less of a challenge as opposed to someone who didn't speak the language you all did. So in spite of the fact that there was a geographic segregation based on the States you all chose to live in, those States were inside the same English speaking society.

The issue here is someone from a non-English speaking society moving into one and refusing to learn the primary language of that society, and that society over-accommodating this fact by having a government run facility unofficially (I assume) speaking the language of the immigrant at the expense of the citizens who speak English and expect it to be spoken.


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?


I understand your point, but not why you are presenting it to me.

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.

- Lee



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:41 PM
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Many people came to this country and worked hard and jumped through all the hoops.

No one would deny that they were immigrants to this country. That would be silly.

Like FissionSurplus's inlaws, my German inlaws also spoke perfect English, but they nevertheless circulated socially only amongst other Germans.

I think that the experience must have varied a bit for everyone.

But I think that the sore point is that there are a lot of people that describe their parents going through exactly what FissionSurplus describes, that there was an emphasis on conforming and becoming 'Americans' and a great deal of hard work was put in to that. It changed family ethics, traditions and customs.

A great price was paid, in other words, and many, many American family legacies consist of these stories of hard work and struggle.

And the children of those parents did not get to enjoy this land of bounty that their parents worked so hard to build for 10 minutes before the gates were seemingly opened and hoards of 'foreigners' with no apparent real interest in becoming American flooded in and started treating our country like a smorgasbord.

There is a great deal of insidious truth to that.

Why can it not be discussed?

?

This is how many, many Americans feel, calling them racist and attempting to ignore them is compounding the problem. It is a prime source of constipation.

Yuck.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:42 PM
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What the heck is going on in America? There is even a MOSQUE in EL PASO!!! I NEVER would have imagined this....


OMG... the horror. A mosque (in other words, an Islamic church) - in Texas. 'Murica the Intolerant is no place to be building churches - amiright?


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....


You 'only speak English'? Sure could have fooled me by that sentence above - ya'll.

OP reads like a made-up story, just to fan the flames of intolerance.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:44 PM
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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.


You certainly are. it was bad formatting on my part. I fixed it.

I meant no offense at all and really meant to be supportive.


edit on 6-12-2012 by Xoanon because: .



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:47 PM
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reply to post by mblahnikluver
 


I took two years of spanish in high school,that was 40 years ago.
I remember enough spanish to get an idea of what is being said.
I know enough to get myself into trouble.
I think that english should be the PRIMARY language of our country.
I think ENGLISH should be posted first on products we buy in the stores.
I get so tired of having to search items over for the english instructions
or ingredients.
My son just got married on December 1,2012 in mexico! I now have
a new mexican daughter-in-law and I have to brush up on my spanish.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 04:55 PM
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Originally posted by votan
Sometimes to mess with people I pretend not to know english to see how people react.


I know people that do this.

A guy from College did the same thing while working a job in a Spanish speaking community.
They spoke a lot about him being a silly Gringo while making jokes about him for weeks, then one day he responded to a question in perfect Spanish.

Their jaws dropped open.

I guess it could be funny to see how people talk about you when they don't think you can understand them but it's also a bit self-indulgent and at times rude. Especially when someone is generally tried to communicate with you, but you instead choose to be obtuse on purpose.

That's not funny.


It is funny and sad at the same time to watch them right away assume I am illegal.


How do you know they assumed that? Did they tell you they thought you were illegal?

Maybe they thought you were just a foreign visitor to Americans living here and on some sort of Visa.

It's either that or you somehow managed to pass the English and Civics tests (which include reading, writing, and speaking) to become a citizen without knowing how to speak or read in English.


That however seems very unlikely doesn't it?

There aren't that many reasons for why you'd be here and not speak the language, but being illegal is certainly one of them.

- Lee
edit on 6-12-2012 by lee anoma because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 05:12 PM
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reply to post by Cornczech
 


You seem to forget that the Spanish were there first lol.

And its not as bad as in some parts of London.... You go to a Hospital or NHS and you will be baffled for a long time... you have about 50 different languages all going off at the same time!



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 05:27 PM
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The best part is when they give you the forms and under "ethnicity" there's two choices: Check either...

1)Hispanic/Latino

2)Other.

Hilarious.



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 05:31 PM
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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!


Well aware of that, dude. That was my point. We escaped a nation and died to gain independence from it yet we want to hold to their language because...?

Laziness? Convenience? Any pretense of thinking that "English" is "American" is absolutely ironic.
edit on 6-12-2012 by Cuervo because: (no reason given)



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 05:54 PM
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Yea people. Lets whine about lazy entitled children while you're all "so tired of having to flip a page to get to the English instructions" or bother having to learn even a little bit of a 2nd language (while bragging how smart you are) when the American way is now cheap Mexican labor. gimme a break


easily the most entertaining thread on ATS in months. smart phones can translate for you, by the way. protest it by holding your phone up to the speaker.. lol



posted on Dec, 6 2012 @ 06:01 PM
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reply to post by Cuervo
 


Ah, but as was pointed out, we don't speak real english but a bastardized form. For all intents and purposes, I would say we speak american.

---------------------------
To others in this thread

Culture
America doesn't have a culture of it's own? That's weird, I could swear we do. Sucks to be us I guess.


Half of my family immigrated to this country from various places in Europe. The other half was here when Europeans arrived. As others have stated in this thread, they gave up quite a lot including their native languages and various holidays and other traditions to become Americans, to integrate into the society. Is it really too much to ask that others integrate as well?
Why is it that hispanics (whether from mexico or any other spanish speaking country) seem to get a free pass when it comes to societal integration? Be proud of your heritage! But you're a damn American first, act like it. That's what I tell people who refuse to integrate.




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