Posted on 05/29/2008 6:49:48 AM PDT by Altura Ct.
Melissa Green's mother spoke Spanish, but she never learned - her father forbid it. Today, that's a frequent problem in this city where the English-speaking population is outnumbered.
The 49-year-old flower shop owner and Miami native said her inability to speak "espanol" makes it difficult to conduct business, seek help at stores and even ask directions. She finds it "frustrating."
"It makes it hard for some people to find a job because they don't speak Spanish, and I don't think that it is right," said Green, who sometimes calls a Spanish-speaking friend to translate for customers who don't speak English.
"Sometimes I think they should learn it," she said.
In many areas of Miami, Spanish has become the predominant language, replacing English in everyday life. Anyone from Latin America could feel at home on the streets, without having to pronounce a single word in English.
In stores, shopkeepers wait on their clients in Spanish. Universities offer programs for Spanish speakers. And in supermarkets, banks, restaurants - even at the post office and government offices - information is given and assistance is offered in Spanish. In Miami, doctors and nurses speak Spanish with their patients and a large portion of advertising is in Spanish. Daily newspapers and radio and television stations cater to the Hispanic public.
But this situation, so pleasing to Latin American immigrants, makes some English speakers feel marginalized. In the 1950s, it's estimated that more than 80 percent of Miami-Dade County residents were non-Hispanic whites. But in 2006, the Census Bureau estimates that number was only 18.5 percent, and in 2015 it is forecast to be 14 percent. Hispanics now make up about 60 percent.
"The Anglo population is leaving," said Juan Clark, a sociology professor at Miami Dade College. "One of the reactions is to emigrate toward the north. They resent the fact that (an American) has to learn Spanish in order to have advantages to work. If one doesn't speak Spanish, it's a disadvantage."
According to the Census, 58.5 percent of the county's 2.4 million residents speak Spanish - and half of those say they don't speak English well. English-only speakers make up 27.2 percent of the county's residents.
In the mainly Cuban city of Hialeah and in the Miami neighborhood of Little Havana, 94 percent of residents identified themselves as Hispanic.
Andrew Lynch, an expert on linguistics and bilingualism at the University of Miami, said that the presence of Spanish-speakers first became an issue in Miami-Dade County in the 1960s and '70s with the arrival of Cuban immigrants and intensified in the '80s with immigrants from not just Cuba, but Argentina, Venezuela and elsewhere in Latin America. The exodus of English speakers soon followed.
James McCleary, his wife and two children left Miami in 1987 for Vermont, where he is now a farmer. McCleary, 58, said his inability to speak Spanish made it difficult for him to find work - it once took seven months to get hired as a cook.
"The job market was very tough. It was very, very difficult," he said.
His wife, Lauren, was born and raised in Miami and they visit at least twice a year, but she feels that it's no longer her hometown.
"I don't like being there anymore. It is very, very different," she said. "I cannot live there anymore, I can't speak their language."
Nevertheless, she likes the diversity of the population of South Florida and regrets not learning Spanish in school.
Librarian Martha Phillips, 61, believes those who speak Spanish will continue to have more opportunities and she doesn't think that's necessarily fair. Phillips said she is sorry to see non-Spanish-speakers abandoning Miami, and said she's concerned that the area "will be like a branch of Latin America."
"I do resent the fact that people seem to expect that the people who live here adjust to their ways, rather than learning English and making adjustments," she said. "Obviously I don't expect an older person to learn to speak English, but younger people come in and they don't seem to make much of an effort to learn to adapt to this country and they expect us to adapt to them."
Some Spanish speakers say they have their own trouble with those who only speak English.
Mary Bravo, a 37-year-old Venezuelan business owner, moved to Miami nine years ago. She understands English but only speaks a little.
"This land is theirs. We should try to speak English," she said, "but they don't even try to understand us."
MAKE ENGLISH THE NATIONAL LANGUAGE.
You can’t get a job in Miami unless you speak Spanish. I saw CUT off that part of the state and push it towards Cuba.
saw=say
M
Push "6" for English, "7" for Korean, "8" for Vietnamese... where does it end?
i doubt there’s anything that can be done about it.
here in northern mexico get this:
occasionally when i’m standing at a checkout counter and the
clerk is doing my order a mexican will walk up, interrupt,
start speaking spanish to the cherk and she’ll stop and converse with the intruder.
si.
Becoming??
“This land is theirs. We should try to speak English,” she said, “but they don't even try to understand us.”<<
Why yes, Mary, that's right. It's not our job to “understand” you. You understand America? Either melt or go back, Mary!
That's right. I don't try to understand you. Why should I?
Beat me by 4 seconds!
I remember Spring Breaking in Fort Lauderdale in 1989, and a buddy and I deciding to go to the horse track in Hialeah one afternoon. Not surprisingly, we got a little lost coming off of I-95 into Hialeah, and all of a sudden, we found ourselves in Cuba. Well, it might as well have been...not a WORD of English anywhere in sight or sound, except for two 22-year-old white boys in a nice late-model Toyota with Virginia plates looking really, really, really out of place. Even the road signs were in Spanish!
We found the track eventually. It was closed.
}:-)4
For all of the bashing that President Bush gets (much of it deserved these days), he was definitely a man ahead of his time - I remember back in ‘99 or 2000, he was campaigning in that part of Florida and spoke a bit of Spanish at some of the campaign stops. It wasn’t the best Spanish, but he was trying pretty hard.
If you live in Florida, you want to puke when you hear somebody speaking spanish. They’ve become arrogant, often hostile and they’re stealing our national, state and local wealth. South Florida’s been taken over by latinos who refuse to buy into the ‘melting pot’. It’s fine they’re working and paying taxes (sometimes) but our infrastructure has taken billions of taxpayer dollars and human sweat to build. Let’s keep it for our children.
Shouldn't that be: "... her father forbade it"?
Language, borders, culture.
You guys do know that if it weren’t for the vast majority of these spanish speakers..Florida would be a BLUE state..right?
Cubans voted in 80%+ numbers for Bush in 00’ and 04’.
Florida is the only state int he union, where Republican registration outpaces Democrat registration among hispanics.
Here in Dallas/FT Worth, I have noticed our traditional English-speaking TV stations are siring commercials in spanish. Thanks George...
This is one of those recycled stories.
siring=airing
Well, I don’t know how I feel about that. I don’t think anyone in the United States should HAVE to learn Spanish, but at the same time, if knowing Spanish gives you a business advantage, then it just seems like an ordinary part of capitalism that American teenagers want to learn Spanish in school to get ahead. I don’t care what illegals want but the Cubans are here legally, and a lot of tourists go to Florida too. If I was traveling in Europe I’d stay in hotels where they spoke English. I guess it’s just good business sense.
ping
I spent 3 days in Miami in 1980 visiting some friends from Argentina. I didn’t speak English the whole time I was there... not hotel, restaurant, car rental or friends house.
just do a big beer fart...solved
Maybe I misunderstand what you are saying. This is NOT about learning a second or even third language. This is about what unites us as Americans. Do I understand you correctly that as long as money can be made then you support it? Balkanization is a high price to pay for “profitability”. To me that is part of the problem. As long as money can be made who cares how it effects anything else. It is the same position the Chamber of Commerce takes with regards to illegals. Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should.
All America’s ills can be traced back to Liberals. IMO, Liberals are as much America’s enemy as Al Qaeda. In fact, wasn’t Osama Hussein Obama endorsed by Al Qaeda??? Not looking good for your children and grandchildren’s futures for the Liberal’s candidate to be endorsed by our enemies.
They cannot do thing right. They want to take over health care and now Maxince Waters slips up and tells how they are going to socialize the oil industry.
I just found this thread too.
The Cubans vote “R” because they now full well about the horrors of modern day leftwing politics. In other words, they hate commies just like we do.
“i doubt there’s anything that can be done about it.
here in northern mexico get this:
occasionally when i’m standing at a checkout counter and the
clerk is doing my order a mexican will walk up, interrupt,
start speaking spanish to the cherk and she’ll stop and converse with the intruder.”
Rude store help is endemic to English speaking areas also. I’s happened to me before.
So now in addition to L.A., the country has lost Miami. I’m sure Phoenix and San Antonio are about to fall.
You're right, forbid is an irregular verb and forbade is past simple. You get an A+! :)
“Do I understand you correctly that as long as money can be made then you support it? Balkanization is a high price to pay for “profitability””
FOLLOW THE $$$$$....it always comes down to that.
BTW: Remember, Miami has 1. three Republican representatives and 2. many of the Latins in Miami are white collar and educated. Brownsville, TX it aint.
Sure...if you intend to own a string of car washes....other than that there is no use for it in America....and English is the language of business around the world....
Tanc was right about Miami.
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