RE: Bilingual ballots? (Full Version)

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caitlyn -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 6:47:15 AM)

Every group that has come here to America, has had a period where they tried to maintain the language and customs of their native land. Large numbers of people from Europe were brought over to fight in the American Civil War. My own family was brought over from Ireland to fight in Cobb's Georgia Legion. After the war, most of these groups settled in various places, speaking their native language, and with their own native customs. All over the United States, you could find areas where if you didn't speak German, you were out of luck ... or Italian ... or Dutch. If you were in a large city in the North East, you had basically no chance to be a policeman or fireman, if you weren't Irish.
 
Over time, and with the passing of several generations, these groups brought themselves under the umbrella of "American", to the point that their patriotism to their native land became flying an Irish flag on St. Pat's. The same thing will happen with hispanic people. I have lots of young hispanic friends, born here in America. The vast majority of them speak English, far better than Spanish.



slaveMastery -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 8:07:28 AM)

I truly enjoy the different tangents and aspects that this discussion is branching out into - but they are missing my original point.

I am far from supporting or calling for a cultural isolationism and anglo-based myopia. I am much for a free marketplace and tolerant, open-minded society that embraces the ethnic diversities in this Nation. To borrow from another post in this thread - it is precisely that ethnic and cultural diversity that enabled the stellar ascent of the U.S. amongst the most wealthy and influential nations in the world within a relatively short period of time. Catering to that ethnic diversity through multi-lingual marketing and advertising, government office and social assistance are great examples of that cultural and ethnic inclusion.

But then, if these multi-lingual and -cultural outreaches are geared towards a diverse demographic and this should be reflected in providing foreign-language instructions in our electoral process, why limit the election instructions to merely one group? Why then only Spanish and not address the other larger cultural/ethnic demographic groups like the Italians, Germans, French, Polish, Chinese, Russian, etc?



popeye1250 -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 8:13:28 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveMastery

I truly enjoy the different tangents and aspects that this discussion is branching out into - but they are missing my original point.

I am far from supporting or calling for a cultural isolationism and anglo-based myopia. I am much for a free marketplace and tolerant, open-minded society that embraces the ethnic diversities in this Nation. To borrow from another post in this thread - it is precisely that ethnic and cultural diversity that enabled the stellar ascent of the U.S. amongst the most wealthy and influential nations in the world within a relatively short period of time. Catering to that ethnic diversity through multi-lingual marketing and advertising, government office and social assistance are great examples of that cultural and ethnic inclusion.

But then, if these multi-lingual and -cultural outreaches are geared towards a diverse demographic and this should be reflected in providing foreign-language instructions in our electoral process, why limit the election instructions to merely one group? Why then only Spanish and not address the other larger cultural/ethnic demographic groups like the Italians, Germans, French, Polish, Chinese, Russian, etc?


Ethnic and cultural diversity create wealth?
This is the first time I've heard that.
They must have left that one out of all the economics classes I took in college.



slaveMastery -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 8:22:51 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveMastery
it is precisely that ethnic and cultural diversity that enabled the stellar ascent of the U.S. amongst the most wealthy and influential nations in the world within a relatively short period of time.


Ethnic and cultural diversity create wealth?
This is the first time I've heard that.
They must have left that one out of all the economics classes I took in college.


To paraphrase it in those terms would certainly be a gross simplification that you would not hear in any economics class. But to avoid narcolepsy attacks for readers of this thread, I was not planning to roll out a cultural/socio-demographic theory and model that would prove (or disprove) this point (but it sure would make one heck of an interesting thesis for an econ dissertation).

The point that I was alluding to is that this diversity enabled the ascent (as one of a number of factors) of the U.S. - not that the cultural and ethnic diversity itself actually created wealth.



popeye1250 -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 9:40:35 AM)

So you're saying that the wealth that we have (wouldn't) exist without those things?



slaveMastery -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 9:45:00 AM)

I am not sure where exactly you read that statement - it sure as heck wasn't in any of my posts.



philosophy -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 9:49:04 AM)

......cultural diversity also creates diverse markets, which in turn helps create wealth........i don't think anyone is claiming it's the only way to create wealth, just one of them. Countries with no cultural diversity tend to create less wealth than those that welcome different cultural viewpoints.



meatcleaver -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 9:50:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: slaveMastery

The point that I was alluding to is that this diversity enabled the ascent (as one of a number of factors) of the U.S. - not that the cultural and ethnic diversity itself actually created wealth.


The South Americas have cultural diversity and it didn't create wealth there. Surely one of the main reasons for the US success is that it inherited a political culture and elite from Britain just like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India did. It hurts to accept that I know.



CrazyC -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:00:59 AM)

Is it more wealth = many diffrent view points, diffrents customes, diffrents in arts, diffrents in religions, ect. + mix them into the large land of USA. No this has nothing to do with economics. It is more that with each new experience we grow, and we can't have that growth without a diversity of people.

I also want to point out that Blacks weren't even able to read, and yet we now feel it was unjust of us to not let them vote. And yes if you want a voting ballot in another language, i think you can actully request that as long as you are able to vote. It seems that there was something like that when i lived in Sacramento. They do special requests for blind also.




sophia37 -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:01:47 AM)

I believe we will continue to see the growing trend of spanish everywhere. Its based simply on the vast numbers of spanish speaking people in this country. We will have more and more spanish speaking law makers. We've got spanish everytime we call an automated system on the phone.

 To me, our future consists of spanish as the primary language and english as secondary. Emotionally, it makes me feel bad, as I can only speak english and have raised four english speaking children. I feel we/I, are at a disadvantage even with hiring practices. One language alone is not enough. I know as an anglo person, the majority rule is coming to an end. I'd be a minority in L:A already. Just my two cents.



CrazyC -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:04:37 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

The South Americas have cultural diversity and it didn't create wealth there. Surely one of the main reasons for the US success is that it inherited a political culture and elite from Britain just like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India did. It hurts to accept that I know.


I think this is more a point for globalization, and we are talking about voting.



CrazyC -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:07:46 AM)

Sophia, i was told that my 2100 the spanish population will have tripled where europeans would have stayed the same.



slaveMastery -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:18:14 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: meatcleaver

The South Americas have cultural diversity and it didn't create wealth there. Surely one of the main reasons for the US success is that it inherited a political culture and elite from Britain just like Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India did. It hurts to accept that I know.


The South Americas also inherited a political culture from Spain and Portugal - which at the time of their colonization were not just European, but global powerhouses.

I believe that you can attribute the differences in outcome between the North and South Americas, in part (not to be accused of absolute claims again), to 1) colonial structure: North America threw off the colonial vampirism of draining the land and people of their natural resources, whereas the South Americas suffered this drain for quite a bit longer; 2) social structure: the North Americas abolished slavery at a much early stage, which allowed for a more even and broad distribution of wealth across all people (well, a lot more than in the South Americas), whereas a feudal vs. slave social structure existed much longer in the South Americas, leading to a concentration of wealth in a very small percentage of the population.

So, even though the South Americas had a similar foundation of ethnic diversity, the outcome was much different.



sophia37 -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 10:37:21 AM)

CrazyC, I do find the whole phenomenon interesting. To me it goes as far as the rise and fall of civilizations.

 If you now go to Italy they have decling population. Germany UK Norway. All these areas have lower birth rates and zero poulation and even neagtive population growths.

 I do stand by my understadning that the largest population wins language wise, and I dont think in the US the Italians for instance have a larger spoken base. So we wont be seeing italian in the voting ballot soon. But I could be wrong. lol



popeye1250 -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 11:23:39 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: sophia37

I believe we will continue to see the growing trend of spanish everywhere. Its based simply on the vast numbers of spanish speaking people in this country. We will have more and more spanish speaking law makers. We've got spanish everytime we call an automated system on the phone.

To me, our future consists of spanish as the primary language and english as secondary. Emotionally, it makes me feel bad, as I can only speak english and have raised four english speaking children. I feel we/I, are at a disadvantage even with hiring practices. One language alone is not enough. I know as an anglo person, the majority rule is coming to an end. I'd be a minority in L:A already. Just my two cents.


sophia, correct and that will continue happening for as long as our govt. continues not enforcing our immigration laws.
Bush should be impeached for that alone.
I want to see prosecutions of the people in govt. who are refusing to enforce our laws for "economic" reasons.
We simply cannot have millions of illegal aliens remaining in the country.



slaveMastery -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 11:27:31 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: popeye1250

sophia, correct and that will continue happening for as long as our govt. continues not enforcing our immigration laws.
Bush should be impeached for that alone.
I want to see prosecutions of the people in govt. who are refusing to enforce our laws for "economic" reasons.
We simply cannot have millions of illegal aliens remaining in the country.


Amen to that!!



caitlyn -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 11:40:22 AM)

There will probably be a guest worker system put in place very soon, which should do much to ameliorate the problem.



philosophy -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 11:40:50 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: sophia37
CrazyC, I do find the whole phenomenon interesting. To me it goes as far as the rise and fall of civilizations.
If you now go to Italy they have decling population. Germany UK Norway. All these areas have lower birth rates and zero poulation and even neagtive population growths.


...true over most of the industrial world. Largely due to the interesting ways we change our environment with hormone or hormone-mimicing chemicals.



CrazyC -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 11:57:55 AM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: sophia37

I do stand by my understadning that the largest population wins language wise, and I dont think in the US the Italians for instance have a larger spoken base. So we wont be seeing italian in the voting ballot soon. But I could be wrong. lol



I never heard this, but my understanding of sociology is the dominant race isn't alway decided by numbers, but more on the ones who have power and economical power. The european/ white race of america is the dominant race and so language and other things will be based on that more then population.

side note....i love sociology since i get to talk and others talk about submissive and dominant. LMAO



CrazyC -> RE: Bilingual ballots? (11/22/2006 12:03:30 PM)

quote:

ORIGINAL: caitlyn

There will probably be a guest worker system put in place very soon, which should do much to ameliorate the problem.


I thought there already was. I thought it was how Washington got most of the immigrants to work in the apple fields.

But i agree something needs to be done with immigration, it has gone too far when we can't take care of our own citizens because most labor jobs are being shipped out to third world countries. Then have thousands come in search of a better life, and many actually find themselves in worse conditions and no way of going home.



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