Obama wrong on his views concerning “English only”
Posted by Mike Sylvester - 7/9/08 @ 8:46 pm - Filed Under 2008 National Elections, Featured, National Politics
You really should take the time to follow this link and learn more about Barrack Obama’s views on whether or whether or not we should pass “English-only” laws and his views concerning bilingualism.
One part of his speech is dead wrong.
He states and I quote “Now, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that. But understand this. Instead of worrying about whether immigrants can learn English — they’ll learn English — you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish. You should be thinking about, how can your child become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language.”
The part that is wrong is when he says that “they’ll learn English.”
Many immigrants are not learning English anymore because they do not have to. Most products now have instructions in Spanish and English. Most parts of the US have many Spanish speaking radio stations. We have Spanish speaking TV stations.
A few years ago I worked at a factory near Hamilton, Indiana. A large percentage of our workforce was from Mexico. We had to have at least one interpreter on each shift so that we could communicate with the Mexican workers we had that spoke no English.
We desperately need “English-only” laws in the US. English is the language that holds us together and binds us as a nation. The US Government should do all business in “English-only.”
From a political standpoint Barrack Obama should pay attention to The Rasmussen Reports.
Per Rasmussen Reports: Eighty-three percent (83%) place a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language. Just 13% take the opposite view and say it is more important for Americans to learn other languages.
It is frightening that only 83% of those polled think that we should have a higher priority on encouraging immigrants to speak English as their primary language.
There are parts of what Barrack Obama said that I agree with. We should emphasize foreign languages more in our schools and I do wish more Americans spoke more than one language.
Mike Sylvester
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15 Responses to “Obama wrong on his views concerning “English only””
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What’s his point? Is he supposed to be addressing educational challenges four our country? Or is he just free-form, brainstorming to a crowd? He’s all over the place with his thoughts…almost rambling (and it embarasses me).
He’s naive if he thinks that the hispanic population will just “learn English”. That shows just how out of touch he is with what it takes for any person to learn a second language.
gosh - I meant ‘for’ - I wish this thing gave you an option to edit after publishing…
I think Obama made an interesting observation, albeit an accidental one. He did, however, get the cart a little ahead of the horse. I can actually use a personal story to illustrate, if I may:
Several years ago I was installing some data cable in a friend’s warehouse to add some computer terminals for inventory and shipping purposes. He had a handful of hispanic employees working in a product refurbishing and repacking station who were regularly chatting among themselves in spanish. As I was pulling the wires to a station adjacent to their work area, I eavesdropped a little (they had no idea that this particular pasty white kid was fluent in Mexican spanish and tha I was even relatively knowledgable in EuroSpanish). How would they? Hehehe.
Let’s just say, they were basically sitting there badmouthing me, my friend (their boss), and laughing about how easy their jobs were and how it was basically “dinero libre” (free money). I let them continue for a little bit, but once I heard another wisecrack about me, I let loose. The look of horror on their faces was priceless. I wish I had a picture as I sat there and told them (in their native tongue, of course) that I didn’t care what they thought of me, but they needed to pick up the pace and shut the f*** up if they didn’t want me to repeat their conversation to the boss and get both of their butts shipped back to Mexico D.F.
It would absolutely amaze all of you if you could have been watching for the remainder of my work in the facility (and every subsequent visit). The Spanish stopped as soon as I walked in the door, and the English started (as did the increased productivity).
You see, the novelty of an alternative language quickly fades when everyone around you knows it too. It’s like pig latin in front of your annoying little brother (he’ll figure it out, then you’ll stop using it), or spelling the names of birthday presents in front of kids (P-I-N-K B-I-C-Y-C-L-E), it only works for so long. Of course, with Americans, many among us are too lazy and too Xenophobic to just learn some Spanish (it’s really not very hard, it’s Latin based, just like English).
Studies indicate that Latin American immigrants are becoming completely fluent in English within two generations whereas in the past Italian, Polish, and other European immigrants became fluent within 3 to 5.
This argument always feels like a waste of time. New immigrants will learn English or they won’t, but their children always do. It’s happened time and time again in American history, with immigrants from all over the globe, and I don’t think bilingual signage and radio stations has a thing to do with it.
When I lived in Fort Wayne, I met a man from Berne. He said he’d been shy as a child, because he didn’t speak English until he started school and it took him a while to feel comfortable with it. His was probably the fourth generation born in this country, but they still spoke “Swiss” at home, as do the Amish to this day.
Mike,
Should Puerto Rico be expelled from the US on the grounds that most of its population speaks Spanish?
Nothing wrong with being bi-lingual or how-every-many lingual. But I sure dislike the “push one for english” announcments. I notice the Chinese that do so much business with the U.S. now conduct their negotiations in english. Heck, they even print the washing instruction on most of the clothing we wear now in english.
I can’t wait to have my drivers license printed so anyone can read it. It’ll weigh 10 pounds!
Kristina,
I agree with you 100%.
Andrew,
Funny and somewhat sad story.
Craig,
Your statistics are quite interesting and I would like to see more about them.
Nance,
The difference is that if we start catering to them and allow them to do even more business in Spanish then they will not need to learn English.
Robert,
First of all Puerto Rico is not entirely part of the US; it is a US Territory. So it is kind of part of the US.
I see no reason to force those living in a US Territory to leanr English as their primary language.
That being said I have been to Puerto Rico three times and many people there speak both Spanish and English.
Mike Sylvester
Americans need to be bi-lingual. When I lived in Germany in the mid-’60s (my husband was in the Army), we couldn’t speak a lick of German.
I learned a few words, but our German friends didn’t care. They spoke fluent English, and they wanted to know more and more about us and the United States.
Our society is ethnocentric, and we tend to believe that the whole world should speak English. We really don’t care about where countries are located or what other cultures are like.
I couldn’t even begin to count the number of people I knew who after 9/11 couldn’t tell you where Afghanistan was located. I will lay you odds that most Americans still can’t identify the countries in the Middle East on a map.
And besides, who settled the west and the southwest before we were there? It was the Spanish. All you have to do is travel throughout the southwest and the west and it is pretty evident by names of towns, cities, etc. who had a great influence in the region.
How is it possible to stamp out a culture that was present before we ever got there? Americans may have succeeded decimating the Native Americans, but they aren’t going to be able to do it to the Spanish influence.
Andrew, that is a great story.
I agree with Nancy. Immigrants come to this country for the opportunity at a better life for themselves and their family.
Once arriving they will figure out in short order that learning English is a requirement to meet their goals. And even if they don’t take up English right away their children certainly will…
Charlotte,
I agree Americans should strive to be bilingual; however, I disagree that it is more important to teach kids Spanish rather than English.
Our first priority should be to ensure all Americans can speak English.
Mike Sylvester
From Fort Wayne history you will learn that a many German’s who came to the US and settled here never learned English back in the 1800’s. There was a number of local newspapers written in German. These people where shunned during WWI in ways we would just not stand for today.
There are tens of thousands of Fort Wayne residents who can trace their history back to such families. Today few of them can speak German but do well with english.
Just some food for thought.
Discrimination is the fire under the melting pot. Turn off the fire, and you don’t have a melting pot any more. You have, as my friend Keith Cumtwa would probably agree, a pot of stuff that isn’t melting.
I don’t mean that we should encourage racial or ethnic discrimination. But history teaches us that immigrants are most likely to become excellent Americans when it’s at least a little uncomfortable for them to pretend like they still live in their country of origin. I say this as the child of a (legal) immigrant, who, due at least in part to discriminatory pressured in the 1970s, learned English, learned American customs, and achieved significant success here.
I think that putting more emphasize on foreign languages is mandatory in this day and age. It’s absolutely ridiculous to think that everyone in the U.S. will speak English. We as American’s are arrogant and think that we don’t need to learn any other languages, that’s the botton line.