Workers fighting English-only rules

The Denver Post ^ | 11-18-04 | Jeremy Meyer

[united1000]

Luz Ornelas and Guadelupe Coronado say they were humiliated and degraded when their boss forbade them from speaking their native Spanish while working at a Family Dollar store on East Colfax Avenue.

[MineralMan]

I wonder how many of the customers of this Family Dollar store are Spanish-speakers. There are sure a lot of Spanish-speaking customers in the Dollar stores here in St. Paul, Minnesota.

In fact, bilingual clerks often get a little pay boost here.

[goldstategop]

If they don't like speaking our lingua nativa they can high-tail their asses back to Mexico where "humiliation" will be the least of their worries. If they want to live and work in this country, they should learn and speak English. Its not up to us to accomodate them.

[benjaminjjones]

This makes me think of those operations the police run to snag fugitive criminals, but instead of throwing a party or giving aways prizes, just deport all the illegals that sign up for the lawsuit.

[XJarhead]

I'm not anti-immigrant. I think immigration provides a stream of new blood that prevents us from getting stale, as long as those immigrants assimilate. Europe's problem is that their immigrants don't assimilate.

Federal employment law should be amended to permit English-only rules. Speaking English is the best way to push assimilation.

[Sthitch]

Does this mean that if I feel humiliated by two of my coworkers who speak Spanish, which I do not, I can sue? For all I know they could be talking about me, and establishing a hostile work place.

[MineralMan]

"Federal employment law should be amended to permit English-only rules. Speaking English is the best way to push assimilation."

While that's true, of course, it often takes some time for new immigrants to learn English. In the meantime, they need to work.

I'm not talking about illegals. But, take for example the Hmong immigrants in the US. They came here by invitation of our government. It takes them, particularly the older immigrants, quite a while to learn the language. They still have to work, though.

[Bikers4Bush]

The only travesty that I find in the whole article is the following.

"Federal rules forbid blanket English-only policies in workplaces."

[Vor Lady]

This is America, learn the language! My family managed to learn English with no government programs or accomadation. Expert linguists agree, the fastest way to learn a language, especially if one wants to, is by immersion. Learn the language or leave....

[GOP_1900AD]

Were they replaced by people who only KNEW HOW TO speak English, or, were they replaced by people WHO HAD THE GOOD SENSE TO SPEAK ONLY ENGLISH IN THE MIDST OF MAINSTREAM SOCIETY? A critical distinction. I bet it was the latter.

[GOP_1900AD]

Well,even here at FR, there is a crowd who will declare that any call to assimilate is "racist." Who are they? They are the pan Slavic crowd. Good thing we don't have a pan Latin crowd. Pan movements, the scourge of Europe and one of the root causes of WW2, are now getting a dangerous foothold here in the US and nothing is being done to stop them.

[united1000]

I'm not anti-immigrant. I think immigration provides a stream of new blood that prevents us from getting stale, as long as those immigrants assimilate. Europe's problem is that their immigrants don't assimilate.

 

Federal employment law should be amended to permit English-only rules. Speaking English is the best way to push assimilation.

 

I agree with you. Accommodations for non english speaking immigrants are on the rise to the point where we will end up in the same position as Europe.  Our firefighters here are passed up for promotion if they don't learn to speak spanish etc.. 

 

I agree with:

"These (cases) are going to continue to grow until we have a commitment to have everyone speak English," said Tim Schultz, spokesman and staff counsel for U.S. English Inc., a Washington, D.C., group dedicated to preserving English in the United States.

"Businesses should have a right to have their employees speak English," he said. "The solution is a bigger-picture solution: Make sure immigrants are learning English."

[Doogle]

...at one time it was consider bad manners to speak a foreign language in front of someone who didn't if you could speak english.

we've gone a long way in the PC wrong direction

from I usually use bad manners daily to I feel humiliated.

great example of how political correctness can damage a society.

Doogle

(I wonder if I can sue my local 7-11 because I felt humiliated in front of the clerks because I couldn't understand them?)

[bahblahbah]

Can you at least require them to know how to speak English and speak English to customers?

[tnlibertarian]

Luz Ornelas and Guadelupe Coronado say they were humiliated and degraded when their boss forbade them from speaking their native Spanish while working at a Family Dollar store on East Colfax Avenue.

"At least that's what we think they were saying. We really couldn't understand them."

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT

[todd1]

I don't see what the big deal is about them wanting to speak spanish... When I visit my girlfriends moms small town in Mexico for a couple of weeks, I love to speak english with an other american I might run into there...

[Bikers4Bush]

The key portion to your question is also your answer.

"When I visit..."

They are not visiting, they are working here.

[united1000]

I wonder if I can sue my local 7-11 because I felt humiliated in front of the clerks because I couldn't understand them?

 

I used to feel bad when I have to ask someone to repeat what they said over and over again until I could understand what they are saying, certainly not anymore. This problem comes from our own too. They speak some fractured English without any diction.....

[snowman1]

DO YOU THINK THAT IF YOU WENT TO MEXICO CITY THAT THEY WOULD MAKE SPECIAL DEALS BECAUSE YOU CAN ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH, HELL NO, YOU WOULD STARVE TO DEATH BECAUSE YOU COULDN'T WORK. THIS IS AMERICA WE SPEAK ENGLISH AND ALL WHO COME HERE SHOULD REALIZE THAT AND ADJUST TO IT NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. WE ARE THE ON;Y COUNTRY IN THE WORLD THAT BENDS OVER BACKWARDS TO BE ACCOMODATING.