California immigrants thrive where little English is spoken

fresnoBee.com State News ^ | September 2, 2002 | SANDRA MARQUEZ

[sweetliberty]

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ask Odalia Ramirez if she speaks English and the Guatemala-born housewife will tell you "un poquito," or a little bit. But that doesn't limit Ramirez, 40, from getting by in Pico-Union, a predominantly Central American neighborhood where you can eat steamed corn "pupusas" stuffed with meat and cheese, put a down payment on a dream retirement home in El Salvador while doing your grocery shopping and have your taxes prepared by a Spanish-speaking accountant.

[sweetliberty]

We'd better get after our legislators or soon we will all find ourselves living in a little Mexico. I guess some people are okay with that. I am not.

[SouthernFreebird]

15 years and she can barely understand english, talk about lazy.

[Tacis]

Hey, cut her some slack! She knows enough English to make several hundred bucks every election day, casting multiple votes for the democrats using the all the motor-voter registrations she is given by the local ward heeler.

[gubamyster]

ping

[glc1173@aol.com]

It's not that immigrants thrive in areas of Kalifornia where little English is spoken - it's that nobody else does!

With the acquiescence of Washington and Sacramento, the scenario Pat Buchanan wrote of - of huge regions of the U.S. where few if any speak English - is coming true, and in such regions, neither European-Americans nor blacks will likely succeed. It's the scenario which black talk-radio host Ken Hamblin described of native-born black kids in Lost Angeles having to be fluent in Spanish for burger-joint jobs. Wonder why the pattern documented by Univ. of Michigan demographer William Frey of both middle-class European-Americans and middle-class blacks fleeing the entire state of Kalifornia in huge numbers yearly?

Get the sticker!

[Dakmar]

I suspect cultural chauvanism is more to blame than laziness. They don't want to be like us stupid gringos, but will take all the prosperity and modern conveniences our society has managed to provide.

[jmax]

"Ramirez said she wanted to discuss the problem with a school administrator, but she had to wait until one of her older sons could request time off from work to translate for her. "I feel frustrated," she said. "

"I only be in this country a short distance." : )

[Illbay]

...nobody over 14 speaks English.

But most under 14 do, in fact.

The "problem" here is illusory; this is NO DIFFERENT than all the mass immigrations in this nation's past.

Illegal immigration--a real problem--aside, those who act like this is the end of the world are simply ignorant. One generation from now, this population will speak English primarily.

Two generations, and the vast majority of them won't even know Spanish anymore.

[sarcasm]

Does your illegal alien housekeeper speak English?

[Amerigomag]

Almost half of Californians were either born in another country or are the children of foreign-born parents.

This is no news to Californians but I hope it is an eye opener to those who don't understand the concerns raised by many on this forum.

More revealing is that when all generations of the children of aliens, who entered illegally since WWII, are counted they comprise a super-majority of California's residence.

This would translate to a substantial reduction in California's population had the nation not adopted the immigration philosophies which were contained in the landmark 1965 immigration act that enhanced LBJ's Great Society.

Since California relies extrodinarily disproportionately on the larger tax payer to finance it's government, reductions in a sector of the population that acconts for a majority of the state's educational and "social" expenses would have had a significant impact on California's current financial crsis.

Whether good or bad these are startling numbers. Numbers not approached by any other state. Not even Teaxs.

[sweetliberty]

"One generation from now, this population will speak English primarily. Two generations, and the vast majority of them won't even know Spanish anymore."

Oh, like Chinatown huh?

[FreedomFriend]

These statements say it all:

"Sometimes I understand them. Sometimes I don't," said Ramirez, speaking in Spanish, who moved to the United States with her welder husband 15 years ago.

According to Paz, most of the restaurant owners, auto mechanics and seamstresses who stop to gaze at the promotional videos flaunting lakeside haciendas in their homeland have lived in the United States between 10 and 20 years. Many of them don't speak English.

"Almost 90 percent speak only Spanish," she said. "We explain everything to them in Spanish. All the paperwork is in Spanish."

[FITZ]

She knows enough English to make several hundred bucks every election day

The Almighty American DOLLAR is the one thing they don't demand be printed in Spanish. That's why they come, they don't like America much otherwise.

[FITZ]

Numbers not approached by any other state. Not even Teaxs.

You should see parts of Texas. There are fast growing areas there English is not spoken by many people at all. Even is a city the size of El Paso, one third of the people don't speak English.

[FreedomFriend]

Is the northwestern quadrant of the El Paso metropolitan area the least effected? You know, around Sunland Park, NM and Anthony, TX/NM. Maybe the Sunland Park Mall area? The Montana Road area didn't look too bad, though the downtown area and southeastern sections looked to have more Spanish. I could be wrong. You tell me, you live near there.

[madfly]

ping

[raybbr]

But Martinez, who moved to California with her family from Nicaragua 19 years ago and speaks fluent English, said learning a second language is a key to the community's long-term success. "Otherwise, they will do the work that our Hispanic brothers traditionally do, working as house cleaners, cooks and gardeners," she said.

Okay, she consideres English a second language. Interesting!!!! Also, she sounds a bit racist assuming that her people are only good for menial labor, huh?

[BenLurkin]

"Two generations, and the vast majority of them won't even know Spanish anymore."

I wish I could share your optimism. Maybe that's been the experience in Texas but in L.A. the spanish speakers intend to make this state a culturally "spanish" state. They are not just lazy, they are adamant against assimiliating into the American culture.
I worked two blocks from Pico and Union back before the Rodney King riots. There was an appliance store in that building which did business entirely in Spanish. This is not just spanish in the home, it is all spanish all the time , everywhere. (BTW, the looting and arson around my office building was done not by blacks protesting the King beating but by hispanic men, women, and children looking for freebies.) That store now owns the entire building and the last time I drove by, everything is still in spanish.

"[T]his is [not] the end of the world ..."

No, of course this is not the end of the world. It is just the end of America culturally. America will go on with a new culture. History will look back and assign actions it takes to be "American" but it will bear little relation to what our nation was when it was founded, and instead will have transformed into a very different society.

[I_Love_My_Husband]

She's probably on OUR WELFARE!

GRRRRR.