No one wants to be thought illiterate, which is what it feels like when you can’t communicate fluently in a common language. My spouse’s grandparents came here from Germany when my FIL was 16. My FIL and his sisters learned the language and eventually his parents did, but they still speak with VERY thick accents and they have been here more than 40 years, legally.

Grandpa is Russian German and has never become a US citizen, although he is in the country legally. They both converse in German and Russian at home and with family, because it is what they are most comfortable with. I think we should not ASSUME that those coming here ‘won’t’ learn English, or ‘don’t want to’ learn English. When one works full time to support a family, it’s hard to find time to learn a new language and the older you are the more difficult it is. (I can attest to this personally) Based on what I see in local papers, on blogs (present company excepted, of course) and in other places….there are a good many of us who are English only speakers who need to learn to use the language before we can expect others to. 🙂

My father’s way of protesting the move to the U.S., and all the changes in his life, was to refuse to learn English. Only after his mother committed suicide when he was 13 and his father committed suicide three years to the day later, did my father, by then 16 years old, finally learn English.

Nonetheless, I recall as a teenager being told by my father that be believed everyone who lived in the U.S. had an obligation to learn English because that was the language of our country.

It is not racist to believe that people who want to live in the U.S. as citizens should have to learn English.

By the way, at Paul’s Market on S. Five Mile Road this evening, there was a sign announcing kindergarten enrollment. Information was provided in English, Spanish, Russian and Bosnian. If I recall correctly from a few years back, the Meridian School District had “English as a Second Language” students enrolled who represented about 50 different primary languages.

“10. American said:
If you live in America then speak and do business in english.

If you do not want to learn english and just speak and do business in spanish then move back to Mexico. Go home. Please.”

Well, I have some big news for American: If you live in Mexico, or Canada, or Ecuador or Brazil (where they speak Portugese) or Guatamala or Tierra del Fuego, you are still American.

That hadn’t dawned on me until one day years ago when I was driving across the border from Arizona to Sonora, a border guard stopped me and asked a question.

I was chatting with other people in the car, so didn’t really pay attention to what he asked. But because they routinely asked, “Where you from?” I replied, Tucson (or some other southern Arizona town), which had always been enough response to get waved through. Then he asked something (and I still wasn’t paying attention. I responded, “Downtown,” again the usual response to the usual second questions when there is one (Where you going?) to get waved through.

The guard leaned in the window and snapped: SENOR!!!
That got my attention, then he said, “Senor, I asked, what nationality are you?”
I responded, “Oh. I’m an American.”
He: “Senor, I am an American.”
I: “Hmm, Yep, that’s true. OK, I’m from the United States.”
He: “Senor, I am from the United States.”
I: “Hmm, yep, also true (the official name of the country is Los Estados Unidos Mejicanos — the Mexican United States — or Los Estados Unidos de Mejico — the United States of Mexico — depending on which documents you read).
So I said, “Well, I’m a Gringo; OK?”
He laughed and said, “OK, Gringo, c’mon in.,” and waved me through.

Yep, there a lot of American countries. And I had never before thought about the fact that we seem to be the only people in the world who have no name for our nationality, only an name for our continentality. How strange.

Anyway, American, study a bit of geography, eh?

I met and spoke with a gentleman from Denmark. In speaking with him, he informed me that in their country they are required to learn at least three different languages. Most learn more than that, but why are we so afraid of other languages? Many languages in a country are a good thing. I have been to many other countries in which I did not speak the “national” language and had a hard time getting along, but I was more than happy to see things printed in “American.” I think that if you have been other places in the world and seen how much a problem it really isn’t you would dismiss this whole subject completely and go onto bigger and better problems. Mi dispiace, parlo solo inglese.

EDITOR NOTE– You mention Canada where BOTH English and French are official languages.

Until the day he died he spoke with a thick accent, and was stubbornly proud that he could still speak, read and write in his “native” language – that he didn’t let it get spanked out of him.

But it wasn’t Spanish that he spoke – it was Norwegian. He was born in a rural Wisconsin village, and except for a fishing trip to Canada and a tourist-trip to Juarez he never traveled outside the country.

It seems that most of the resentment/vehemence that fuels such one-language pundits is pure xenophobia (for non-library types, that’s Greek for “fear of strangers”).

(That’s “What’s happ’nin, pumpkin?”)

If Español were my native language, and I came to the United States, frankly I would feel insulted that there is a debate about whether official business should be conducted in English and Español, or just English.

There doesn’t seem to be a groundswell for French, or German, or Japanese, or Hmong, or Mandarin Chinese, or any language besides Español. Now, that may be because the second-most-predominant language (but WAY below English) is Español, or it may be because people think we’re somehow incapable of learning English, like all those other folks are expected to do.

I agree it’s FANTASTIC to be multi-lingual, and having spent quite some time in South America, I speak fluent Español. (And a bit of Portugés.) It has blessed my life, and enabled my survival for many months when I didn’t speak any English whatsoever, because there was nobody around who understood English.

English speakers beware – Español is the official language in Argentina and Uruguay. You will be expected to speak Español to conduct business there, except perhaps with those who engage in the tourist trade.

(By the way – English is supposed to be one of the harder languages to master – Spanish, French, Italian, etc. – the “romantic” languages – are “cake” compared with English.)

Carne de cerdo is okay… my personal favorite is carne de vaca! Moooooooo!

Americans are at a major disadvantage in business negotiations with other countries, for example, because the others can talk among themselves right in front of the Americans, discussing prices, conditions, what they would be willing to yield in exchange for what, etc., and the Americans don’t know what the conclusions are.

But when the Americans discuss what deals they would cut, the others usually understand the talk.

I don’t know why Americans have so much difficulty learning languages. I’ve studied Spanish some, pero todvia no se muchas palabras. When I’ve visited Mexico, I could have some very basic talks with the residents, but with my limited vocabulary and confusion about tenses, we’d generally switch to English.

As for the immigrants: Yes, they should learn English, but that’s not something one does overnight. Some of the older people may never learn enough of it to converse, and younger ones may take anywhere from a few months to many years to learn enough to really talk with anyone on various subjects.

If I moved to Spain or Mexico, I’d sure try harder to learn the language, but I’d probably give the folks there a lot of laughs at my foul-ups for many years.

English is an extremely difficult language for others to learn (spelling is not phonetic; we have numerous homophones, hundreds or thousands of idiomatic expressions, etc.), but many people in other countries do quite well in it.

Personally, I’d be loath to try to tell the American Indians they couldn’t use their languages; they were here first. However, I wouldn’t mind requiring people from Louisianna, Texas, Arkansas, Brooklyn, Bronx, Boston etc. to learn to pronounce the language well enough that we from the rest of the nation could understand them.

All in all, the whole thing is a “so what?” argument. Passing a law isn’t going to magically make a newcomer able to read, write, speak and understand English.

As for documents: I’d rather a person who signs a lease or has to deal with a legal entanglement know what’s going on than to force him or her to try to deal with it in an unknown or even unfamiliar language.

How many of you who are native English (well, what we in the U.S. of A. call English) speakers can really read and understand all the income tax forms, court documents, etc.? Heck, we can’t even get lawyers and law-writers to use “our” language — let’s work on them first. And if we native-born speakers can’t understand them, how can a newcomer?

My, how I ramble on … but, see, I can use a whole lot of words in this here language. So what does that prove?