Illegal and unethical to speak English in U.S.

Here is an article that shows a subject that really chaps my ass. English speaking owner of lawn service
I have no problem with legal immigration at all. However, the last time I checked, ENGLISH is the official language here in the U.S. I am really offended by having school corporations use tax dollars to have Spanish speaking classes. There is no way around that just flat being wrong. No way, no how, under no circumstances do I feel that our country needs to have everything bilingual.

If any of these Hispanic-American groups had half a brain they would recognize that by allowing these immigrants to not learn English, they are only assuring that these immigrants will never succeed here in the U.S. In other words, allowing them to speak only Spanish is guaranteeing their failure! Rather than insisting the bullshit of the school systems to teach in both languages, they ought to be demanding their people learn English so they will have ample opportunity here.

When will these people realize that the liberal left is only working to keep these Hispanic immigrants down? If the liberal left really wanted to help these people, they would require them to learn English. Then they would have opportunities other than being farm help, gardeners, and other minimum wage earners! Now for these morons to have issues with someone who has a lawn service that simply advertises that he does in fact speak English, and no interpreter is needed to hire him, is ludicrous! If the U.S. makes special consideration for Spanish speaking people, aren't they discriminating against people who only speak German, Mandarin, Arabic etc.?!

I actually speak broken Spanish from 3 years of study in college, but I will refuse to do so with someone trying to take my order at McDonalds. Worst yet, frickin' NorthWorst Airlines lost my airline tickets this last weekend because they saw fit to hire someone in reservations who does not speak English. For whatever reason, they had to send actual paper tickets rather than issue an "E Ticket". It didn't get here because the Spanish speaking person sent my tickets two states away because they did not speak English. I had all sorts of travel issues because of that. Grrrrrr! This political correctness crap has gone waaaaaaay to far with this bi-lingual crap! I think people of all other languages ought to sue the U.S. government for pandering to the Hispanic people and discriminating against them!

Dargo said:

Here is an article that shows a subject that really chaps my ass. English speaking owner of lawn service
I have no problem with legal immigration at all. However, the last time I checked, ENGLISH is the official language here in the U.S.

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I don't know where you checked, but to my knowledge, there is no "official" language in the US. There were legislative bills to cause that to become the official language that were introduced in the 1970's, but they failed because of political pressure. Seems that many of these groups feel that you are taking there heritage from them if you force them to speak English. Whenever I need to call for service and my call is diverted to India, and I get a person that speaks a different dialect of English, I keep telling them that I can't understand them until they forward the call back to the states. That is the reason that I have not bought a new Dell....

Brent, first let me say that Junkman is correct that there is no 'official' language in most of the US. Second let me say I agree with you. Third, it is not just bi-lingual, it is multi-lingual. Depending on where you live, you may see Spanish being taught in schools, but in other areas you may see Chinese or anything else. It is a local/regional issue and courts can basically force the schools to teach a specific language if the population warrents it.

You know, if our schools want to teach another language, it would be great if they taught youngsters to sign with the American Sign Language. It would be greeat if we all could "talk" to those less fortunate.

Want another language, offer it as an elective.

I couldnt agree more.. In fact thats one of the reasons I moved out of South Florida, I was looked at as the ass hole because I didnt speak the language ... Actually if I wanted to stay, I'd still be wrong, there are too many languages for me to choose from down there... Spanish is just one of many, all of the cultures have arrogance...

I find it discouaging that the fact Americans are only taught one language, I am not a liberal but am actually very conservative. I can speak 2 languages and don't have a problem conversing with my wife in her native language or god forbid English. I was 18 years old when I learned my wifes language and it was not out of need as my wife speaks fairly decent English but IMHO out of respect to my wife and my wife's family and if you don't get the point she can swear at you in 5 different languages. My wife speaks Tagalog (Philippine language X 4 different dialects), Mandarin Chinese, Japanese, Thai and English.


My wifes job before she retired at the first of the year was a court translator for the folks who could not speak English. I do know that I have unnerved several Filipino's who did not know I can speak, write and understand their language.

What really annoys the crap out me is the idiots who give you a dirty look at you when they don't like the fact that you are having a private discussion with someone in Tagalog and they have the mistaken impression that you should be speaking English. At work I only speak English and the Filipinos all know that I understand and speak Tagolog. I only do this so the idiots that do not speak a 2nd language know what is being said.

My kids in school all had the right to learn different languages. My youngest daughter has take latin and spanish. So it is not like it isn't available to them.

I believe you will find that the U.S. has never had to officially adopt the English language by decree as the "official language", but English de facto the official language spoken in the United States. It is used for all U.S. official pronouncements, executive orders, treaties, legislation, court rulings and regulations. The latest census findings report that only .8 percent of the U.S. residents do not speak English. Other than in extraordinary cases, they are at the very bottom of the socioeconomic scale with no opportunity to improve their position without speaking the language.

According to most widely accepted reports, it is a fact that English is the first language in Australia (Australian English), the Bahamas, Barbados (Caribbean English), Bermuda, Gibraltar, Guyana, Jamaica (Jamaican English), New Zealand (New Zealand English), Antigua, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Kingdom (British English) and the United States of America (American English).

English is also one of the primary languages of Belize (with Spanish), Canada (with French), Dominica, St. Lucia and Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (with French Creole), Ireland (with Irish), Singapore (with Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and other Asian languages) and South Africa (but Zulu, Xhosa, Afrikaans and Northern Sotho [combined?] are more spoken). It is the most commonly used unofficial language of Israel.

It is an official language, but not native, in Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, Hong Kong, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

But, we are not talking about where English is the first language, we are talking about how important it is for the residents of the U.S. to be able to speak and read English. In general, we are talking about immigrants. If you want to assure the failure of these people to integrate into our society, allow them to remain alienated and segregated from roughly 99% of the population. Pandering to these people and not encouraging them to learn the language of our country is simply a result of political strategy. These politicians act as if they are the friend of these people who only speak a foreign language to gain their vote. If they really cared about these people, they would enact legislation that would strongly encourage them to learn English. That would allow those immigrants to help themselves rather than rely on the government for handouts and take minimum wage jobs that do not require them to understand or speak English.

At best, it is misguided compassion and at worst it is horrible arrogance carefully designed to keep immigrants from being able to live the American Dream that caused them to immigrate here in the first place. This is along the same lines as politicians creating a lower standard for African Americans on academic tests than other ethnic groups. Creating a double standard for them would be a tragedy and an unforgivable inequity in the U.S. premise of all races being created equal. Unfortunately some of the black leaders such as Jesse Jackson are too stupid to help their fellow man. Or perhaps it is worse, and he is not stupid at all, but he feels that he would lose his current position of fame with wealth if members of his own race were to achieve the same test scores as the members of other races.

I'm sorry to say that the correspondence of expectations of success by the general mass is only brought about by the disappointment of expectations by some specific. All thought they are not all written, we have certain rules of conduct that either aid or abet the potential for individual and, therefore, group success. Rules of conduct that equally limit the freedom of each so as to assure the same freedom to all can merely make possible agreements for obtaining what is now possessed by others, and thereby channel the efforts for all towards seeking agreement with others. But, they cannot secure the success of these efforts, or determine the terms on which such agreements can be concluded. These efforts must be put forth by the individual themselves, not society as a whole.

The correspondence of expectations that makes it possible for all parties within a group to achieve what they are striving for is in fact brought about by a process of learning by trial and error which must involve a constant disappointment of some expectations, such as a country pandering to immigrants' native language. The process of adaptation operates, as do the adjustments of any self organizing system, by what cybernetics has taught us to call negative feedback; responses to the differences between the expected and the actual results of actions so that these differences will be reduced. This will produce an increased correspondence of expectations of the different groups so long as the current values placed on a goal lifestyle would be provide some indications of what future expected lifestyles of these groups and individuals will be.

It may appear topically to be paradoxical that in order to achieve the greatest potential for success and happiness for oneself and family, it is necessary to leave some wishes and expectations behind. To wish and desire that the country that adopts you change and become what you, as an individual from a particular immigrant group, left behind is counterproductive to you the individual, immigrant group and adopting country.

The kind of liberal do gooder nonsense that the article talks about might seem like a "nice" or "kind" thing to do on the surface but the reality of it is that it is ignorant and dangerous. Junkman is right - the US does not have an "official" language. I think a lot of the reason for this is because in the past it was sort of unwritten understanding among the citizens - and the incoming immigrants - that to become part of the country you learned the language. The Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, all publications, etc. are all published in English. To not recognize the fact that there is a common language that is spoken in this country is just being ignorant - or worse. Like rules of the road and building codes the use of one common language exists for good reasons. Like Dargo pointed out - it leads to real problems when somebody does not understand what you are trying to say. At the worst language barriers lead to divisions within the society - at the extreme it leads to violence and war. To learn somebody's language and speak their mother tongue when you are around them is common courtesy - to expect somebody to speak your mother tongue when you are in their home or country is arrogance.

I took a number of language classes in high school and frankly never retained any of it. I think mostly because I never had a chance to actually use it. I guess you could make the argument that if I lived in a more "multicultural" society I would have been exposed to more languages but my attitude is that I do live in a multicultural society - I live in a multicultural society where everybody speaks English so we can understand each other.

I think a lot of the people who try to push this bilingual thing down people's throats are just being ignorant. When I was just out of high school I took a trip to Quebec with a group of friends. What I found up there is that if you at least made the attempt to understand and speak the language pretty much all of the people I ran across would let you struggle for a bit and then they would respond to you in English. What they wanted to see was the effort to speak THEIR language not the arrogance to assume that they spoke MY language. From this experience I have always tried to go out of my way to help people who at least make the attempt to speak English. Sometimes I learn something in the process. I also wont give the time of day to somebody who doesnt make the attempt and arrogantly expects me to speak their language.

I think sooner or later there will be a backlash and people will start to pass laws designating English as the official language. It will probably take something really bad to happen but that will occur sooner or later if things keep progressing the way they have been going. The Dutch are already doing this because of all the Muslim immigrants and problems they have had - Rotterdam just passed a law saying you must speak Dutch in public places.

When I was in school, Spanish class' were a manditory elective(makes sense huh).. So, my natural reaction was "screw that" and I refused to apply myself any further than I had to, to get a passing grade.. Living in Miami in a time where the street signs were changing to spanish in Hialeah and other Cuban communities, in short it pissed me off... When I lived in Saudi Arabia, we had Arabic class' to teach us to fit in, we were expected to conform(rightly so)

Looking back, I'll probably get back into learning spanish allong with my son since I'm not being forced to do so it may be kinda fun..

jdwilson44 said:

.................... It will probably take something really bad to happen but that will occur sooner or later if things keep progressing the way they have been going. ..................

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Something real bad like this video clip??????

Junkman said:

Something real bad like this video clip??????

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Yeah - something like that might do it

I agree with Dargo 100%. I got an email saying, what if we went to Mexico and demanded they convert to English in everything they do and how to you think that would go over there. It brings up some excellent points along the same lines...I wish I could find it!

jdwilson44 said:

To learn somebody's language and speak their mother tongue when you are around them is common courtesy - to expect somebody to speak your mother tongue when you are in their home or country is arrogance.

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Are you talking about American tourists?

In Quebec, which is the french province in Canada, they have a "sign law" which requires all businesses to have a french sign on their storefront. If there is english or other languages on the sign, they must be at least half the size of the french lettering.

Go to Quebec City and speak your mother tongue and see how they embrace you!

beds said:

Are you talking about American tourists?

In Quebec, which is the french province in Canada, they have a "sign law" which requires all businesses to have a french sign on their storefront. If there is english or other languages on the sign, they must be at least half the size of the french lettering.

Go to Quebec City and speak your mother tongue and see how they embrace you!

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Yes - it was Quebec, maybe things have changed in 20 years but at the time I went there pretty much everythings was in French too. Being a bunch of 20 years olds none of us knew any better so we just tried to speak French to people as best we could. I found that in pretty much every case they would let us struggle a bit and then they would help us out - in English. I have heard numerous people say the Quebecois are arrogant but I don't remember sensing that when we were up there. I think what it boiled down to was we made the attempt to speak French - which if you don't know the language is all you can expect from somebody. I think there are a lot of arrogant and/or stupid people who don't even make the attempt. I figure if I have to struggle thru trying to speak French up in Quebec then everybody else should have to struggle thru trying to speak English when they are here. If I was going to go live up in Quebec I would fully expect to have to learn French - if people are going to come to the US then they are going to have to expect to learn English. Putting up signs in English in Quebec is mostly for the tourists - putting up signs and such in Spanish here in the US is mostly done from political pressure - the people who need the Spanish are not 'tourists'.

The biggest problem we ran into with the language barrier was one of the guys I was with got accosted by two rather good looking Quebec girls who wanted to know if he wanted to go "eat". He was one of those dark handsome type guys but a little bit slow upstairs - since we had just finished lunch he kept trying to tell the girls he wasn't hungry. It took a couple of the guys who were quicker on the uptake to figure out that they weren't talking about eating food.

jdwilson44 said:

I found that in pretty much every case they would let us struggle a bit and then they would help us out - in English.

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That is the same experience that I have had. When people say that Quebecois are arrogant, I think that they have visited and expected to be able to converse in English without even attempting French.

I am only fluent in English and am humbled to travel and encounter people who know at least their native tongue and English.

Ahhh, Quebec women! Coming soon to a strip club near me!

beds said:

Ahhh, Quebec women! Coming soon to a strip club near me!

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LOL Montreal rocks!