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Zonie63 -> RE: Should she be allowed to run? (2/1/2012 9:42:21 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
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ORIGINAL: kalikshama
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ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam
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ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub
WTF doesn't know the language of the country they were born in?
Go to miami sometime and meet a couple of hundred thousand of them.
While in my time in FL I did meet many people who had been in the country for decades yet had not mastered English, I never met anyone born and schooled here who hadn't.
I lived there for 18 years. Until around 1990, private schools were allowed by the state of FL to teach their curriculum entirely in spanish from K-12. I met people who were second generation who had exactly zero proficiency in English.
I can see it happening in some cases, though. My grandparents (third-generation Americans) were born in insular Dutch farming communities in the 19th century, and their schooling was somewhat limited, so they grew up speaking only Dutch. The local schools were in Dutch, too, and they really didn't see or speak with very many other people. But by the time my dad's generation was born in the 1920s and 30s, they were already speaking English at home. But then again, they really didn't have any political problems with learning English or accepting the fact that America is a predominantly English-speaking nation. Whatever political problems they had, they were with the "old country," while they deeply loved America and became very patriotic. Learning English was just part of the deal, but it was never really much of a necessity until they moved closer to the city.
But in this case, it seems that there's a underlying political component to this issue. Back in the old days, schools in Arizona were pretty rigid on being English-only, even to the point where kids were spanked for speaking any Spanish on school grounds. The civil rights movement likely inspired a great deal of cultural pride which encouraged embracing their own culture, as the previous tactics of assimilation left them with a bitter taste in their mouth. Then there are also those who believe that this territory rightfully belongs to Mexico anyway, so that also enters into the issue as well. It's not that they can't learn English, but rather, they won't learn English, since that might be seen as capitulating to "the Man."
On the other side of the issue, there are more than a few Anglos who feel that their refusal to speak English and assimilate to the predominant culture is a giant "Fuck You" to America, so they get riled up and demand "English only" legislation - among other things. Sometimes, it can get kind of ugly and tends to give a bad reputation to Arizona. We get made fun of a lot in the national media, but I just take it in stride.
Another angle to this is that we have quite a number of local residents of Middle Eastern and South Asian extraction some of whom, in terms of outward appearance, might be mistaken for Latino. I've seen them try to strike up conversations in Spanish, and when they realize they can't speak Spanish, some of them get angry. I saw this happen to a clerk in a 7-11 who was of Iranian extraction. The assumption is that, just because they're darker-complected, they should speak Spanish.
By the same token, there's the assumption that just because someone is white, that makes them Anglos who can't speak Spanish. I knew a Puerto Rican couple whose outward appearance made them look like they came from Scandinavia, but they were Spanish and native speakers of that language. They were at a baseball game once and heard this group behind them badmouthing them in Spanish, thinking that this couple couldn't understand what they were saying. They let this go on for several innings until one of them got up, turned around, and told them off in perfect Spanish.
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