Posted on 06/14/2007 8:22:57 AM PDT by SmithL
SAN JOSE -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told hundreds of Latino journalists Wednesday that immigrants who want to learn English more quickly should shun various forms of Spanish-language media.
"You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Schwarzenegger said at the 25th annual National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention, which included many who produce Spanish-language material.
"It's that simple. You've got to learn English," he said. "I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say and I'm going to get myself in trouble. But I know that when I came to this country, I very rarely spoke German to anyone."
The Republican governor, an Austrian immigrant, was responding to a question about how to improve Latino academic performance.
Schwarzenegger said tutoring and after-school programs are essential. But he emphasized that immigrants should avoid a diet of Spanish-language books, TV and newspapers in order to learn English, calling it a "drastic" but necessary step.
Schwarzenegger last year angered some Latino leaders by observing that Mexican immigrants have problems succeeding in the United States because "they try to stay Mexican." He hammered at the same point Wednesday in San Jose, saying that immigrants from Germany or France have an easier time learning English because they do not have many outlets to speak their native tongues.
"You're just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster," Schwarzenegger said. "It is much more difficult and much more challenging when you are ... let's say, Latino. Because you have so many Latinos, as I see at the Capitol in Sacramento, there are so many Latinos who speak Spanish all the time, they speak to each other in Spanish. So it makes it difficult to perfect...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
HATE SPEECH!!! Ah-nold’s askin’ fo trouble!!
/sarc
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
- Theodore Roosevelt 1907
That’s Arnie, always ready to call it like he sees it, no matter who may be bothered by it.
Bully!
This is seriously one of the smartest things I've heard Ahhnuld say in awhile.
Let the multi-culturalists and diversity-worshipers scream for awhile...LOL!
And by the way their wealthy counterparts in Latin America send their kids to private English schools!
And probably the only republican able to say this.
lol..!
I am done with “dialing 1” for English. Comcast can kiss it.
My grandfather came to the US speaking Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. And he listened to the radio as many hours as he could to learn English. He never spoke Spanish, his native language, outside of his home. And by the time we started school, he banned the speaking of Spanish all together. We were Americans. We would speak English.
Assimilate. That was the goal of the immigrants in my grandfather’s day.
I'm glad Arnold said this - no other Republican in the state would even be listened to.
Wetbacks? Any wetbacks in Arnie’s home state are visiting his wife.
Arnold is right.
</sarcasm>
MALDEF crying racism in 3...2...1...
Uh oh aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhnold, la raza ain’t gonna like this one little itty bitty bit................
A little aside...
My wife is a school teacher in a fairly heavily Hispanic district. She took an ESL (English as a Second Language) certification course in order to get a bonus at work and presumably communicate with her kids in Spanish. On the first day of class, and without any hint of irony, the teacher said “Today is the last day that we will speak to each other in English - from now on Spanish only. The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it.”
Public education at its finest.
Assimilate. That was the goal of the immigrants in my grandfather’s day.
My Great-grandmother spoke Armenian, Turkish, and Russian when they arrived here. The first neighborhood they moved into in NYC was a Jewish neighborhood, so she learned Yiddish next rather than demand that the locals pick of of her languages. She learned English, of course, and as East L.A. became more and more Mexican, she learned Spanish. She assimilated.
My Grandmother and her siblings all originally had Armenian names. A teacher at their school decided that they'd never succeed in the US with foreign names. She gave all of them new, English names. They assimilated. Today, MALDEF would be screaming if any teacher who did such a thing with a Spanish speaking student. CAIR would issue a fatwah if it were done with an Arabic speaking student!
Conan has spoken.
True. My grandparents came from Germany as adults, speaking no English. My father started first grade in 1915 speaking only German. He learned English because those at school spoke nothing else; my grandfather learned English on the job; and my grandmother learned English from both of them. They never spoke German outside the house because they wanted to be AMERICANS. And AMERICANS spoke English.
That is not an ESL class then...ESL classes are for instructing non-native English speakers to speak English. If that is the truth, then this instructor needs to be fired for teaching the wrong language...
I still recall going to tour the White House during the Kennedy administration. My grandparents were with us. We were all dressed in Sunday best, grampap with his tie and a hat, of course!
He wept as we walked through the White House. I was holding his hand. He told me what a great country this was, that a farmer born in another country could walk through the house of the leader of the Free World.
He’s in a position to address this issue, but like Bill Cosby will be shunned by those who need most to hear the message.
Nonetheless, wtg, Arnold.
Well, he’s right. After all, it’s not like there are a lot of Austrian TV stations here in the US (LANGUAGISM!!) and Arnie speaks English very well.
The broken clock is right twice a day...
The first generation to come here never assimilates entirely, I think. My grandparents spoke German at home, kept their German traditions and customs, and socialized primarily with their German-immigrant friends. But they insisted that their children become Americans all the way; they never allowed them to think of themselves as “German-Americans,” but solely as Americans because America was the dream. That’s why they came: so their children would have a better life as AMERICANS in this country than they would have had as Germans in the old country.
Now he stepped in it.
Never happen. As some illegal high school kid was quoted saying when asked about learning English: “We don’t want your lousy language!”
He became an American citizen, and eventually worked his way up to vice-president of Engineering at our company. He once told me that whenever he had to travel outside the United States, upon his return here his first impulse was to kiss the ground. This is what I call a great American.
Somebody needs to say it. And it might as well be Arnold someone else on the left.
“And it might as well be Arnold someone else on the left.”
What? He didn’t sneak into the country and protest in the streets flying the flag of China above an upside down American flag demanding entitlements and rights and worship and demanding that everyone learn Chinese instead of him speaking English???
Kewl. Kudos to your boss. :-)
Note how he had to go to Sacramento to see this. I guess once the maids leave at 3 pm, there is no Spanish in Brentwood? Too bad he doesn't go anywhere else in L.A., because he'd see that servicepeople and cashiers now routinely speak Spanish and only Spanish to their Hispanic customers and coworkers, only breaking into a few words of English if they absolutely have to.
My grandparents came here in their 40s. They would sit with another German-speaking immigrant couple in the evenings and play Scrabble in English, with a big dictionary on the card table, in order to improve their language skills. This is happening in HOW MANY Mexican homes here now?
We have got to learn that when some ridiculous celebrity turns politician and piles up piles and piles of pathetic verbal crappola in endless piles as if created by conveyor belt... We need not act so grateful on the rare occasion when something sorta rational slips past their lying lips!!!
Arnold is absolutely right on this, and I respect him for saying it. It’s an example of how a Republican governor can be valuable to conservatives even if he’s right on just a few issues — if he really does, or even just says, something strong and meaningful about them.
I just hope the guv doesn’t backtrack.
Because of Arnold’s personal history, I think this is something he really believes. We’ll see if he sticks with it under fire. Should be interesting.
"We have got to learn that when some ridiculous celebrity turns politician and piles up piles and piles of pathetic verbal crappola in endless piles as if created by conveyor belt... We need not act so grateful on the rare occasion when something sorta rational slips past their lying (liberal kissing) lips!!!"
Oh, no. I saw it the first time. I just thought it was a lousy contribution to the debate.
How about “go home”.
You must stop doing that while unsupervised!!!
It's obvious you haven't been properly trained to do that all on your own!!!
I assume Arnie’s first (only?) apology will be to his largest campaign donor, the head of Univision (largest Spanish-language TV network in the United States). Jerry Perenchio has given more than $10 Million in contributions to Arnie and his causes (and pretty much bought the CA GOP in the process).
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