Posted on 08/26/2006 9:30:40 AM PDT by Reagan Man
"My Grandma spoke Swedish at home until her death."
Of course, we all remember the great illegal invasion horde of Swedes.
Here's hoping you don't think you made a point.
You don't grasp the enormity where the flood of illegals is concerned ...it's estimated approximately one million illegals are infiltrating our southern border annually ... Ellis Island opened on January 1, 1892, and became the nation's first federal immigration station. In operation until 1954 (62 years), the station processed over 12 million (legal) immigrant steamship passengers.
Although every American and immigrant should be fluent in English--and should use it outside the house--even one and a half centuries ago many immigrants used their native language in the home. The second generation, however, should use English at home. Yet, today, German is the most common nonEnglish language in the United States although the bulk of German immigration was around a century ago.
However, immigrants today tend to be concentrated in a few countries; early waves were comparably about as large, but were divided among many nationalities: German, Swedish, French, Chinese, Greek, Japanese, Filipino, Italian, Irish, etc.
I'm guessing it's a rather distant second.
I applied for the LAPD back in 1996 and the reason I know that I was not hired is because I was North Carolina and really never dealt with people of other races or their languge. I knew limited spanish growing up in San Antonio where they taught it from Kindergarten but that was it.
I was turned down for a 5 1 Korean woman who wore a skirt that you could tell her religion instead of me.
Probably, but the ethnic group has been in the United States for some time. Many German immigrants moved to sparsely populated areas of the country, such as in the midwest and great plains, and continued their culture and language (in comparison to the Irish, who tended to stay in big cities, and still made some impact.
What people speak at home is their business, but not learning the host country's language is irresponsible. Police, firefighters and doctors, just to name a few, can do their jobs better when communication is as clear as possible.
My Italian told his family that they were in America and they would speak English only; the Italian work ethic was too strong to do otherwise, particularly during the Depression. Besides, with all the other nationalities around, the immigrants needed a common language to communicate with each other and English filled the bill for both social and non-social purposes.
The population of the U.S. today is estimated to be 298.5 million. The population of the U.S.leading up to WWI was estimated to be around 100 million.
Hispanics today out number blacks, who make up 14% of the population ... it's thought that their numbers (Hispanics) come in at around 18% ... a good portion of that growth occurring in the last 20 years. With a million Spanish speaking Hispanic types surging illegally across our borders annually ... it won't be long before their numbers will exceed first 20% then 25% of the U.S. population. Concentrating those numbers mostly in the Southwest U.S. the demographics will reflect a Hispanic majority in that region (easily) within the next 20 years. The illegal immigration faucet needs to be turned off now.
Also, Americans of European descent are predicted to remain over half the population until around 2050, and even then the people group will have the plurality in the United States.
Again, the main area of concern, in terms of demographics, is the Southwestern region of this country. Proportionally Hispanics, at the current level of illegal immigration ... will easily exceed 50% of the population in that area by 2050, probably sooner. To get some idea look at Miami and what has happened there ... not only Cubans arriving after Castro came to power in 1958 and since, but the influx of people from the islands in the greater Caribbean and from south and central America ... Miami's English speaking European extraction population has dwindled to definite minority status.
English is in no danger of being replaced or dying so long as it is use, and that means in written form and so dominant that it continues to flood the planet. Scientific papers are still written in German or French now and then, but English is preferred by far. Literature needs to be produced in English, and maybe there is some weakening in that area. There is some fine modern Spanish literature out there, especially from Latin America. I have no idea what literature is coming out of China, but it is hobbled no doubt by censorship.
It's a start. It shouldn't end with gradeschool, but unfortunately it often does. High school graduates have about a 20,000 word vocabulary and there it stays for many. College graduates are about 100,000, and it may tend to increase in career specializations. It should continue to increase over a lifetime, but few actually work at it. Opening a dictionary shouldn't be an annual event.
I hope you dont think you made a point either, the discussion is language not illegal immigration two seperate issues IMO.
"the discussion is language not illegal immigration two seperate issues IMO."
These two issues, in our time, are not separate at all. In terms of the current crisis of illegal immigration in this country, in fact, they are inseparable--especially when the article more than once points out how illegals gather in ghettoes and speak only their native tongue at home or in their neighborhoods, and have no interest in learning English. Your Swedish grandmother may indeed have spoken nothing but Swedish until her death, but her children and grandchildren were speaking English. I would also bet that she did not encourage her kids and grandkids to avoid English.
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