Ich verstehe heute die Mehrheit Amerikanisch Einwanderer spricht Spanisch. Es bedeute

The BBQ Pit
1

This is not anti-immigrant, nor anti-anyone. This is about making an effort to not expect the workd to bow to your wishes.

What the fuck is going on?!? I don’t expect the pussies depending on a voter base to do anything meaningful, and that’s a big part of this problem.

What I’m talking about is the segment of the American population that just doesn’t give a shit about learning the English language after immigrating here. They just don’t fucking understand that part of emmigrating to another country includes ASSIMILATING!!!

The largest part of assimilation is language. It’s how we fucking communicate and interact. Now, many groups of immigrants that come to the US are fleeing absolute shithole homes in countries that value dirt more than human life. We’ve seen stories of families that fled places like China, Cambodia, Sudan. Especially the Darfur region. Most of these people risk everything they own, including their lives, to come to America for a fresh chance at a dignified life and freedom from unspeakable oppression.

These people, often leaving behind family to get established here, work harder at “fitting in” than any of us will ever work at anything in our lives. Period. They are to be accepted, admired and welcomed. Would you have the courage to move to a foreign land and dedicate every second of your life to adapting? These are the people, in case anyone thinks I’m racist or exclusionary, that are the exact people that made this country what it is. They knew what the language was, they knew they were expected to work and be an asset to their host country.

Post-Civil War my maternal ancestors came here speaking only German and Russian. (Germans from Russia, shout-out). They worked at jobs that required muscle, not communication. Not a single one of them ever dreamt of trying to get their employers to learn German or Russian. Not their market-owners, nor the banks, nor the government agencies. They knew they were limited in opportunity until they spoke English.

My great-great-grandmother sent her daughter to 1st grade when she was 14 to sit in class to learn the language. And learn it she did. My great-grandmother spoke only English, broken as it was, for the rest of her life. She used to use German if it was vital to communicate with her mom, otherwise it was English so her mother could further immerse herself in English. Difficult, but they wanted to be accepted as Americans. And it was language that helped make them so.

The German, and especially Irish ancestors had to work hard to distance themselves from their birth countries to be accepted. It wasn’t about race, or class, or social staus. It was about leaving behind the country they sailed from, and become American. They did a damn fine job looking at what they’ve accomplished.

BTW, those ancestors came here post-Civil War. Nobody in my family ever owned a slave or benefitted from slavery. They had their own obstacles to overcome. Like signs in windows stating “Irish-Catholic Need Not Apply”. Nothing to worry about here, move along.

Now we have a debate that’s been going on for the past few years over declaring English the official language. The biggest opposition is those declaring it’s “unfair” to certain immigrants. (Legal and illegal.)

Look, fucknuggets. English, though not an “official” language (the US doesn’t have any official language) is the standard language in the US. It pisses me off that the established poplulation of immigrants that accept the fact English is the dominant language are now being shit on by those that demand Spanish be adopted as well. Just because a group doesn’t think they should learn it. They think Americans should adapt to them.

Fine, but here’s the rub. Every day we hear from some pinhead about how the US is trying to change the world to suit us. Meanwhile, those deriding the US for “hegemony” are bashing us for not letting go of the expectation for immigrants to learn English. We’re lobbied to accept the immigrant group of the day’s language and make this a dual language country.

This is a country that has always been based on English. Germans, Italians, Russians, Japanese, Chinese, all stripes of Africans, etc, seem to accept the fact that to assimilate they need to learn English. Can anyone find, in the past 50 years, any movements to make anything other than Spanish an official language? Didn’t think so.

And it gets worse. now American citizens and naturalized aliens are at risk of losing jobs. Why? Because some people refuse to learn English and expect their host country to adapt to their language.

Often, they will call a support center and immediately ask for a Spanish speaker. Being America, with a majority of citizens speaking English (not English at work and Spanish the rest of the time, but actually “assimilating”) some are at risk of losing a carreer due to the refusal to learn English.

Based on a certain development, there will be many (I beleive) changes coming to some industries. Instead of people joining the workforce and adapting to their new countries, they will be the cause of business adapting to them at the expense of English-speaking citizens.
If you don’t adapt and learn Spanish, your job is on the line when they find Spanish speakers are needed. There is no expectation for those wishing to be Americans to learn English. You are expected to learn Spanish to accomidate them.
Oh, the best part? At my company I suggested 5 months ago a Berlitz-style training forum for volunteers to learn Spanish. I’m sure it would cost a bit, but they demonstrated the common sense they always do.

They opened a whole new call center in another state, leased the office space, spent the money to set up the networking harware, and sent the English speaking people to go train them. And then waited 6 months (and counting) to make it operational in the sense it was formed.

So, in short, the company appears to be accomadating those that refuse to learn the language. At the expense of those of us that have a baseline EKG that registers on a machine.

Never thought I’d see the day when my job would be in jeopardy because I speak English while working for an American company.

It isn’t my responsibility to adapt to immigrants. Like my ancestors, the onus is on the immigrant to adapt to the country’s culture.

All I can say is*

Alle meine Anmerkungen sind auf Deutsch.

  • All my notes will be in German.
    They will have to adapt.
2

Crap. Tittle should have been:

Ich verstehe heute die Mehrheit Amerikanisch Einwanderer spricht Spanisch. Es bedeutet nicht, dass Sie Englisch nicht lernen müssen.

Ah well.

3

duffer, unless there’s money involved, it’s pretty much impossible to get folks to behave in ways that they don’t want to behave in.

And when business is willing to accomodate folks like this, it’s probably because there’s a buck (or more) to be made by doing so. And money to be lost by not doing so.

Which pretty much sums up (IMHO) why assimilation may be slower, and why businesses are willing to accomodate this.

4

Weren’t there, you know, native americans?

5

Why do you care what language they speak? If you don’t want non-english speaking employees, don’t hire them. If you don’t want to interact with non-english speaking people, don’t. What’s the big deal?

6

The OP’s such a great rant it’s a shame to expose it to facts. But the actual evidence is that current Spanish speaking immigrants, both legal and illegal, are learning English at a much quicker rate than previous immigrant groups did. Granted, that’s probably mostly due to television.

But I’ll admit that the Mexicans in the US haven’t fully assilimated yet. They still haven’t achieved that hallmark that shows a person has become a full American - they haven’t started complaining about immigrants yet.

7

The immigrants may not learn the new language well (or at all), but their children almost always do, and very rapidly.

BTW, Chicago is often cited as having the most Polish people in a city after Warsaw itself. And yes, there is a call for having Polish translators in many hospitals and in various businesses in the major Polish neighborhood here. (Other Eastern European immigration is only increasing here and those ethnicities are moving into the “traditional” day laborer-type jobs that one would typically see Mexican immigrants in, as well.) So no, it’s not just those Spanish-speaking folks that hold out - but again, it seems like it’s in the adult immigrants where that happens.

8

While I am sure that there are isolated incidents such as those in the OP, the general evidence indicates that there is no such trend. The Census Bureau has found that people coming into this country who speak Spanish are more likely to learn English than to fail to learn English. The number of Spanish speakers who also speak English very well or well exceeds 71% and the number who speak no English is fewer than 9% (which is about what one would expect with the large numbers of recent arriavals who may not yet have had time to learn the language).

This, of course, is in contrast to the immigrants of the 19th century who settled enclaves of Germans and Poles and Russian/Polish Jews and Italians and others who often maintained their native languages to the exclusion of English for a generation or more.

So, here we get a stupid decision made by a good American company turned around to be a bit of anger directed at people who cannot control corporate policy. Interesting.

9

Gibt es eine “Regel des Gaudere”?

10

OK, how is opening a new call center (their idea, at company expense) “accomadating”, but training volunteers to speak Spanish (your idea, at company expense) not “accomadating”?

Maybe you should check your EEG!

CMC fnord!

11

du hast mich gefragt
und ich hab nichts gesagt

12

No entiendo. En espanol, duffer. Por favor, en espanol!

You know, I have stories about my recent ancestors on one side of my family coming from Europe in the early 20th century and how hard they worked to learn English. BFD. It might be a bit easier for the folks coming in now, but you know what? Everything is easier these days. Everything.

The world is changing. People are moving around a lot more. You need to get over it.

13

Yeah, I know. Nobody realizes that we should all learn native languages. I’m talking about today, not 200 years ago. Get your political rant out somewhere else, I’m talking about the reality of current US society. Apologies for not living in the past. I’m just working with is called the Present.

As mentioned in the OP, Nobody in my family was here when what you’re talking about happened. The guilt you’re feeling or trying to impart is irrelevant and baseless.

200 years ago the fastest way to travel was by horse. Unless every Native American travels to work on horseback, learn that people ADAPT. Otherwise, start lobbying for the interstate system to allow horseriders to gallop down the highways.

And you can throw out that old chestnut. It has nothing to do with people actively, legally and illegally, trying to live in the US. No matter the country, in case you missed that part, most of the people in the world that desire US citizenship realize that they have to work hard to assimilate.

There aren’t many Icelanders, Chinese, Kenyans or Russians that expect the entire country to adapt to all those languages. Most understand that learning English, above even education, is the epitome to making it in the US.

Sorry to seem cold, as I’m sure I do to some, but learning the dominant language of the country you choose to emmigrate to, is vital to your success.

I would never dream of moving to Mexico, Denmark or Norway unless I had a working knowledge of the language. And I sure as shit wouldn’t move there expecting my “adopted” country’s citizens to learn English to allow me to succeed. It isn’t their responsibility to accomadate me. It’s my responsibility to adapt and assimilate to the culture, language and customs of said county.

I still don’t understand why this is such a difficult concept. If I choose to emmigrate, I realize the onus is on me to fit in with the country I move to. It isn’t my right to expect a foreign country to learn English, understand my customs, accept them, and bend to my will.

Maybe I’m just an anomaly. I expect to adapt to new environs, I don’t expect an entire nation to adapt to me. That’s why I don’t have a desire to emmigrate. I’m comfortable where I am, and realize other’s are comfortable not sharing my language and culture. Therefore I don’t go to those places and expect them to become what I want them to be. I’ll visit, but leave me out of any major cultural shift. I’ll either move there and assimilate, or I’ll get on the plane after 2 weeks and head home.

I like what I have here in the US. I might entertain thoughts of moving to Jamaica, but I’d never do so expecting Jamaica to become a mini-America. I realize it’s a seperate country, seperate culture, language differences. They have adapted to American tourists, but it’s still a different deal when you go there.

Cancun is kinda cool. Catering to a lot of American’s obviously. But I’d never get pissed if I get there and someone doesn’t speak English. Nor would I get pissed if I couldn’t get a job based on my citizenship in Mexico. I’m in a country where Spanish is the dominant language. If I can’t communicate for lack of knowledge of Spanish, that’s on me. I don’t expect them to learn English simply because I decide to move there and can’t be arsed to learn Spanish.

But somehow I seem to be the bad guy for expecting the same. Racist, intolerant, forgetful of events 2 or 3 centuries ago. Heard 'em all.

Maybe what bugs me is that there is no set rules about what is expected in basic communication. I’m a bad person for expecting to be able to speak to a fellow countryman, and if I can’t, it’s because I’m the bad guy. I didn’t work harder to accept a foreigner that comes here to make a life. In that instance, mind you, I’m also expected to learn Swahili, Persian, Arabic, French, Dutch, Japanese, Cantonese, Mandarin, Russian, Czech, Polish and Vietnamese. On top of that, according to some, Cherokee, Sioux, Ute, Navajo, Chippewa and Mohican.

When do we realize language makes us a society? When do we finally give up on a society and just forego communicating with each other?

14

Huh. Neither have I. I specifically pointed out how important immigrants have been and are to the US. Maybe you missed it?

This has nothing to do with immigration. It has to do with immigrants assimilating, rather than trying to alter something as basic as the common language.

If you want to knee-jerk anything mentioning immigration, have at it in another thread. You’re slinging some shit that isn’t applicable here.

15

Isn’t learning Spanish and a business concern catering to its customers needs or wants a form of adaptation?

16

You know, I took… I think it was eight years of Spanish classes, from about 2nd grade through my sophmore year in high school. Plus my dad and his two brothers, one aunt, and my two cousins on that side of the family are all fluent Spanish speakers, and would speak it regularly around me.

And today I can barely speak a word of it. Now, that’s mostly my fault: I was an awful student. But language acquisition isn’t instant, and, especially as you get older, it isn’t easy. I think the number of immigrants who come here and make no effort to learn the language is so small as to be almost non-exsistent. The number of immigrants who come here and are in the process of learning it is quite large, and there’s a sizeable portion of those who are simply never going to get that good at it. I don’t hold that against them, and I don’t see the problem with business catering to them, or to people who can speak perfectly good English, but can speak even better Spanish, and would be more comfortable in that.

17

Accommodate

Em igrate

Please make a note of them.

18

I think that your company is doing this. They are joining society and communicating. And you have objections to it.

19

Accommodate

Emigrate

Please make a note of them.

20

Und Keine Eier!