Posted on 09/02/2002 8:14:25 AM PDT by sweetliberty
Edited on 04/12/2004 2:10:06 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
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.
(Excerpt) Read more at fresnobee.com ...
So that 100% of those entering our country will be illegal aliens?
The borders must be closed, illegals deported, and legal Immigrants encouraged required to assimilate.
You're referring to the Mexican bigots who refuse to learn to speak English, right?
I work for a company that takes people's depositions. It is not at all unusual for us to take the deposition of someone who came here from Mexico 30 years ago or longer, and they still need an interpreter because they don't know any English.
All the more reason that there should be stiff penalties for employers who hire illegals. Not only are they cheating Americans out of jobs, but they are lowering the standards for the entire nation.
Slacker legal immigrants don't work longer and harder than American slackers. Hard working immigrants work about as well as hard working Americans. Some immigrants are okay but many should be returned to their homelands which usually are good reflections of the cultures they bring with them.
The so-called immigrants that have inundated California who are predominantly ILLEGAL." Sorry if I didn't make myself clear.
Don't know about where you live, but here in Houston we have LOTS AND LOTS of Chinese. Only a tiny number of them speak no English.
Second-gen Hispanics no longer speak the elegant and easily understood Spanish of their Mexican parents (and these parents speak a very pretty Spanish), but a rather ugly and coarse "pidgin" that they couldn't begin to write or spell. I recall from my teaching days being told that I spoke Spanish like a "hota"--this adolescent spelled the word this way when I was confused at what he meant--took me a while to figure out that the word was "joto" (homosexual). Apparently my command of his language struck this teen as effeminate. He spoke his parent's language like a thug.
Spanish is a very easy language to learn compared to the complex spelling and vocabularly-rich English. This is because English is an amalgam of German(ic) langauges, Norman French, and bits and pieces of everything else. We have many more words to learn, many different shades of meaning to master, because English is simply richer and wider. That also means that learning to spell it is much more difficult.
I said nothing about "Canada" or "the Balkans."
I'm talking about the AMERICAN experience. We're in America.
Understand now?
I suppose if there was a moratorium on immigration and they jumped the borders in disregard of our laws, then yes.
Many of them smuggled in to engage in prostitution do it voluntarily to get into the country, but the government treats them as victims anyway. Ashcroft set up special T-visas just for these cases. Same thing with China and the one child policy.
Our hospitality is being taken advantage of and the government does nothing but encourage more of it.
Yes, there are some who are not inclined to learn--I have known a few.
They are the "losers." Those who wish to take advantage of the American dream--and there are many--quickly learn English.
They're here to mow the lawns of rich folks because those rich folks don't want to pay an American wage to get the job done. And those folks don't care a whole lot that the costs come out of our hides and pocketbooks.
Maybe you use "theta" instead of "ceta".
There will probably be more and more of them over the next several decades.
But most of the ones that care a diddle about their own and their family's prosperity learn English.
I know quite a few Hispanic immigrants, who range from skilled laborers to professionals. They all speak English.
Yes ---I'm very well aware of that ---too well aware --they want to give us a huge tax increase for the local county hospital that is only used by them. We pay in all ways for their health care especially the high rates of TB and hepatitis B and C they're bringing in because health screens aren't required. I meant the few healthy illegals who aren't bringing their entire families in who work and are trying to support their families back home but are at least working for what they take. For those I'd rather see a temporary worker program.
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