Ay, por favor-esta mierda otra vez? These people are never happy, are they? Speaking a 2nd language when doing business, dealing with tourists, or just for the hell of it is not a big deal-if it were, learning programs like Babble, Rosetta Stone, etc wouldn’t sell enough to stay in business...
Where I’m from-West/Southwest Texas ranch country close to the border-nearly everyone speaks Spanish as a 2nd language, no matter what their ethnicity is-small trucking/hauling businesses carry livestock and freight in both directions, after all. As a ranch kid and a Latina, I learned Spanish in early childhood at home from parents like siblings and cousins did.The rural area I live in now is a tourist destination for Mexicans on vaca from Northern Mexico from Easter weekend into the fall-nearly all of us who deal with tourists in our businesses speak Norteno Spanish-during the Obama non-economy, those Mexicans were the only people around who could afford a real vacation anyway...
Also, when I was a child, speaking/reading/writing a 2nd language was a mark of a good education-MrT5’s family lived mostly in Quebec, but he was from Seattle-everyone in that family spoke Quebecois as a 2nd language whether in Canada or Washington...
Mexicans on cows?? (Sorry! ;-)
When traveling abroad years ago, you couldn't count on as much English spoken to accommodate visitors as nowadays… It was also considered good manners on the part of tourists to try to learn the language of the places you were visiting — even if you were bad at it, the natives really appreciated the effort. And as you said, learning other languages was considered a plus in your education, especially in Technical specialties; I learned German in high school & college because of that, almost fluently where I could host German tourists during the summers in my hometown. I recall my grandparents from Eastern Europe were insistent that my folks learn English and invest into the "American dream".
Now it seems like the "guests" want to have their hosts conform to them……