My grandfather, who speaks no English despite being born here (he went back to Poland when he was 8, then came back as an adult) managed to thrive and succeed within the Polish community in Chicago.
My parents, who were both born in Poland, moved here and learned English over the course of 10-15 years and still speak with a heavy accent, and have low literacy abilities, yet manage to thrive in blue-collar industry, and currently own two properties. My father served in Vietnam before he even learned the language. He was a freakin’ Sergeant who barely spoke English. Fuck, our government didn’t seem to have problems with his lack of English then.
I have grown up in a neighborhood and live in a neighborhood where perhaps 25% of the people speak very little English, yet manage to do well enough for themselves. The offspring of these people, of course, learn the language. The language gap, as I have observed, really only works for one generation.
I don’t see any reason why legislation needs to be brought in, or why these people need to be disenfranchised from the system, as they do contribute to it, pay their taxes, and pull their own weight economically, so to speak. I don’t see what the fear is in not declaring English our “official language.” There’s no threat that I could see.
Near as I can tell, the central issue here is not about her needing to learn the language for her sake or for the sake of the community. The central issue is that she’s needlessly endangering her child because of her inability to speak English, and that child deserves better than to be left vulnerable to preventable and potentially fatal diseases.
Being able to thrive solely within an ethnic community doesn’t really do you much good when there isn’t an ethnic community to thrive in. Pulykamell’s granddad, despite his success within Chicago’s Polish community, would have been seriously up the creek if he’d wound up, say, here in Greensboro, NC. He would have severe difficulties transacting fairly basic business like going to the doctor, getting his driver’s license, ordering dinner at a restaurant. Hell, if he can’t understand numbers in English, the poor man wouldn’t even be able to pop into the average corner store for a candy bar and a soda on his own. (Most of those don’t have the visual display of your total, you get it orally from the cashier.)
And that seems to be the situation of the woman in the linked article. She doesn’t have an ethnic community to thrive within, so she’s stuck muddling along in the dark within the English-speaking community.
Actually, to become a naturalized U.S. citizen, you do have to demostrate at least a rudimentary command of English. Now, I was born in England, so when I was going through the process, they may have made it a bit easier because (British) English is my native language, but I did have to write a simple sentence in English. I don’t know what the tests are like for non-native speakers of English.
English is not an easy language to learn. It has far too many exceptions to far too many rules and, of the 7 languages I’ve studied, it’s the most variable in terms of grammar and pronunciation. Throw in regional variations (“pop” vs. “soda”, for example), and you’ve got a real mess.
On the other hand, every other ethnic group which has moved to America has had to learn to speak reasonable English from the Germans who arrived before the Revolutionary War to the Poles and Slovaks from the turn of the last century to today’s Koreans and Vietnamese. I don’t think it’s all that unreasonable to expect Hispanics to learn English, considering other ethnic groups have.
As for this case, I haven’t been able to link to the article which doesn’t require registration, so I don’t think I’m qualified to comment. Requiring her to learn English or lose custody of her child does seem a bit extreme though. Isn’t there someone in her community who can translate the papers for her, maybe a friend, college kid, or high school kid?
By not requiring her to speak English–aren’t we in fact limiting her to low wage, manual work?
Where is the family for this woman? I cannot link to the article (in a hurry-on way to work and no SDMB at work!)–why is she so isolated? Usually Hispanics have a wide network of support of one kind or another.
Speaking as a nurse in Chicago–we have people in all the time who cannot speak English-including Norwegians off of Lake Michigan ships. We have pages of translators listed in our directory.
It irks my liberal ass no end when I find out the Mrs. So and So has been in this country for 30+ years and speaks not one word of English .
Yo-the days of Ellis Island and “little Italy/Serbia/Poland/China” are waaaaay over.
IMO, she is endangering this child–IF there is not support system for her and the child.
I also feel that everyone here SHOULD learn a second language, if only for the indirect benefit of really learning English grammar via learning another language’s grammar, but also for the cultural broadening it provides. My kids are learning French; I took German for 5 years.
The whole push to make things into Spanish and English chaps my ass. If it is bigoted to expect that people here have SOME ability to communicate in the common tongue, than so be it.
Yes, but in all those cases, it took one or two generations, which is exactly what it happening now with hispanic immigrants. I teach in Dallas, and I see this same pattern over and over and over again: first generation rarely gets past the most basic English; second generation is blingual, third generation can understand their grandparents but not really talk to them about anything complex. Fourth generatoin is irritated at all these immigrants who can’t learn English.
Of course she SHOULD learn to speak the language, but to put her child in foster care?! Nowhere in the article does it mention that her child was unclothed or unfed or mistreated, just that his shots weren’t up to date and that she missed appointments. Well, the same thing could be said of a lot of other 18 year old mothers born & bred here, and that’s not grounds for terminating their parental rights.
My wife’s mother and grandmother live here as immigrants from Honduras. Her grandmother speaks very little English. Her mother speaks very good English, with a heavy accent. My wife is 100% bilingual (however, interestingly, she has a Mexican accent when she speaks Spanish, even though her mom is Honduran/Cuban and her dad was Puerto Rican).
My 8-yo daughter is, exactly like you said. She can understand Spanish, but she can’t speak about complex topics, and they can easily exclude her from conversations by speeding up the Spanish, and using more complex syntax. I really, really want my daughter to be as bi-lingual as my wife, and her first words were mostly in Spanish, but I can see her losing it day by day, and I don’t like that.
sigh but, my wife married a gringo who speaks no better than High-School Spanish 3, so speaking English around the children is just so much easier.
I think it’s important for immigrants, 2nd and 3rd generation especially, to learn to fit into American society. But I find it so beautiful that my wife, a typical American girl, also fits in easily, and fluidly in the Hispanic culture so easily, and can move back and forth at will. I will always envy her for that.
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Really? Isn’t it more like “the days of a single immigration entry point are over?” Because I’m not seeing any fewer immigrants these days and, if you drive down Devon, Little Poland may be smaller but Little India and Little Korea are thriving.
When I was a kid there were still church services in German in my suburb. Now they are in Spanish or Vietnamese. This is a nation of immigrants and it is a fact of human brain construction that people who did not learn a second language before they were seven will have great difficulty learning one as adults.
Well…it’s an easy language to learn to speak badly and still be understood. Of all the languages I’ve encountered, English seems to be the most forgiving with mangled syntax and pronunciation (probably because many urban English speakers are used to hearing a wide variety of English.)
And who says Hispanics aren’t learning English in the way that Poles, Slovaks, and Koreans (per your example) have been? Do you have any evidence to back that up?
No shit, no one is disputing that. What we’re disputing is where in the hell a judge gets off with demanding somone learn English or have their children taken away.
I read the LA Times article, and I can find absolutely zero evidence that her non-ability to speak English was the reason for the alleged neglect.
Maybe you can do what my aunt and uncle are doing. She only knows English, while he’s bilingual in Italian and English*. They’ll speak to each other in English, obviously, but their two daughters (now 3 and 1) have one language for each parent. My aunt speaks to them in English, and 98% of the time, my uncle speaks to them only in Italian. They’re picking up both naturally, although lagging a bit in Italian since they’re surrounded by English speakers. Hell, the 3 year old corrected my uncle’s grammar awhile ago.
*Interestingly enough, he’s fluent in English, Italian, Spanish, French and German. Yet he’s 100% American, of 100% Polish descent.
And that’s fine - in fact, Chicago has many ethnic enclaves that provide excellent support for those who never learn English.
The problem is, the woman in question is in Tennessee. My in-laws are from Tennessee, so I’m down there quite frequently. There are no ethnic enclaves in the area mentioned in the article. If you do not speak English, you do not communicate. It’s that simple.
In fact, the US has never declared an official language - English is the customary language of government and business, but that is because of tradition, not due to any official law.
Part of the problem is that Tennesse is not Chicago. Yes, Tennessee has some urban areas where, I am sure, there are adequate support systems for the non-English-speaking Latina who needs assistance. However, rural Tennessee lacks support systems even for those who were born here and speak English as their native tongue, much less someone from abroad. Where my in-laws live, you couldn’t get a translator - you’d have to get someone out of Knoxville, which is at least a couple hours away.
I also think you have to consider just some good, old-fashioned bigotry is at work here. Not just against foreigners, non-English speakers, and the like but also prejudice against an ummarried 18 year old with a child who is “fatherless” (obviously, there’s a sperm donor out there somewhere, but apparently he’s not involved). And, if she’s Catholic, there’s that anti-Catholic bias a good number (though by no means all) of Baptists in the region have. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if the underlying issue isn’t so much her lack of English (albeit a serious handicap that might be in the region) but the perception of her as a fallen woman living in sin, and that the child needs to be “rescued” and brought up in a “proper Christian home” i.e. married parents who speak English and go to a Baptist church, just like “everyone else” in the reigion. That sort of narrow-mindedness does exist in various pockets in the US, unfortunately.
Beats me. The column doesn’t have any quotes from the mother or the judge detailing the case - it’s mostly a bunch of organizations talking in broad terms about the situation.
I’m seeing that pattern first hand.