[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.

[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!

[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.

[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.

[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."

[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?

[kstewskis]

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.

Sadly, California is already there.

[Fiddlstix]

Bump

[Amerigomag]

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.

The implication is that her lack of proficiency in English interfered with her communication with school personell. This just didn't happen. It's simply not true.

All, repeat all, California schools were minorities are substanative must employ some bilingial staff within their counciling or administrative structures.

[ikka]

You can't become an American citizen without speaking English. So what is she doing here?

Solution: deportation.

[Greeklawyer]

Canada MANDATES all recent immigrants take french classes. (I do not know if that is just quebec) At home speak what you want but to live and work here in the usa you must speak english like all past immigrants.

[thathamiltonwoman]

So much for assimilating. I've pretty much come to conclusion that nothing will be done about immigration, legal or otherwise.

[hattend]

In Los Angeles, Ramirez, the Guatemalan housewife, said she sometimes has a hard time keeping up with her four children, ages 13 to 24, who speak mostly English. "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.

Fifteen years in the US with "mostly" English speaking kids and she only speaks "un pocito englais".

She noticed the language gap last week when her youngest son refused to go to high school on his second day after gang members threatened to beat him up if he didn't dress and style his hair like they did, she said.

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.

Then learn English lady. It'll ease the frutration.

Here's the reason why there will never be a sucessful "English Only" legislation in the border states (The liberal mindset is to blame elsewhere)

[Mamzelle]

To add: Spanish is not always just Spanish. Some dialects are difficult for other Spanish speakers to understand. Not only are communities isolating themselves from English, but from other forms of spoken Spanish.

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.

[MissAmericanPie]

Whadda ya mean "soon"?

[Cacique]

Tghis phenomenon is rather new to the technology since the advent of televison but accelerated in the lst twenty years when the FCC allowed for the broadcast of television channels that broadcast strictly in a foreign language. In particular if you are hispanic you can get all your news and culture from telemundo or another spanish network.

One of the first things arabs and chinese do when they come here is cable television so they can watch their own tv channels. I have enetered a number of arab shops here in brooklyn and there on the tv screen is a channel strictly in that foreign language. These people need not be exposed to american programing or views or language.

The result is that these people set up an environment that is separate and apart from the rest of us. They are not being assimilated and when they venture outside of those confines they are merely "visitng" the rest of us. Modern technology has been a boon, but at the same time it has played a major part in facilitating the separatness of people who come from cultures that are raduically different from us. If they are not exposed to our language, our programs, our movies and our culture in general they will never become "americans". This same phenomenon is true in Europe.

My solution would be to mandate that all transmition of television and radio channels whether it be by air or by cable must be in English.

Unless we integrate these people into our culture and way of life we will find one day that they will demand their own country within our borders.

The immigrants that preceeded us did not have such luxuries. They were forced into english in order to survive. They had no hungarian or italian tv. No bi-lingual education. they eventually became "americans".