“Because at the time they immigrated, or their ancestors immigrated,
there was an expectation of melting into our pot,
not making us comply with their culture and language.
Been to a home depot lately?
Does yours have the Spanish first or second on the sign?”
My grandfather immigrated here from Cuba over 80 years ago. My father married a black woman (who is part black, cherokee, and white). I married a Vietnamese (who speaks no Vietnamese and I never learned spanish), my brother married an ethnic German (both of them speak fluent German). We each (my brother and I) have two children and they are hard to peg. I would say we “melted into the pot.”
No one in our immediate or distant family agrees with a mandatory bilingual America.
In Michigan we still speak English in Home Depots.
Cruz is my last name.
LOL - Cheers!
The evidence I’ve seen suggests that your story is not that unusual and that in about three generations, Hispanic people assimilate. It’s why some Hispanics have to take Spanish classes to learn Spanish. And one can look at the show Dora the Explorer two ways. Yes, it has a Hispanic lead with overtly brown eyes and they use some Spanish words and have some characters that speak Spanish but the reality is that most of the show is in English, Dora speaks unaccented English, and she’s essentially assimilated.