Thread: Ruben Navarrette: The right to speak Spanish

Originally Posted by reptile09

I am so sick of this traitorous idiot. Talking about how Hispanic children and granchildren are mostly speaking English after a few generations. Hell, my mother came here from Japan knowing hardly a word of English when I was a baby, and she learned English and had me not only speaking English, but reading and writing it as well before I entered kindergarten. And she never attended a single class, she did it all on her own as my father was shipped out over-seas in the navy for many months at a time. She never expected that I be taught bilingually in school, or demanded there be Japanese books in the library, or demanded I be taught Japanese culture, heritage or language. In fact, she would have argued against it if they ever tried. She told me stories about her original home and growing up there, but raised me to speak English and insisted that I live and learn American history and culture. And why was this? Because we chose to live in America.

She knew that this country was our home and that English was the language of this country and she made damn sure that I spoke it. In fact, other than a few words and phrases, I know no real Japanese, yet I don't feel culturally deprived or original heritage deprived at all. I am a proud American, not an Asian-American, not a Japanese-American, not a hyphenated anything. I was born in Japan and have a Japanese mother and of these facts I am proud, but as a citizen of this country I am an American, PERIOD.

Make no mistake, this clown Navarette has an agenda, the growing of a seperate Mexican, NOT Hispanic, NOT Latino, but a MEXICAN nation within our nation. And the way he attempts to achieve it is by creating and maintaining a seperate class of loyal Mexicans here in America, loyal to their language, their culture, their history, their everything and America has just got to accept it and adjust to their demands or we are to him the same as genocidal, ethnic cleansing, murdererous, Nazi-like racists.

Unless we stop this clown and all he stands for we will have a nation within a nation, a third world dump just like Mexico, with rich, arrogant bastards like him weilding power over the low-class peasants, just like it is in Mexico. The only difference is that he still wants us to stick around, after all who's going to pay for all these moochers? Certainly not him.

Is that not what we want. If their children and grandchildren are mostly speaking English isn't that a good thing? As the Hispanic family tree increases each generation, the adoption of English increases at an exponential rate.

yes that is stupid. The EEOC will definately lose this fight since employers such as Microsoft have used such policies to make sure that all of their workers could communicate effectively.

What is the opposite? My office building has a cleaning crew of two elderly korean folks (married). We need the carpets in a clients suite cleaned last night before we left so we could lock it and asked the janitorial manager (a hispanic fluent in spanish and very good in english) to tell them to vacuum. The problem is that the Korean couple do not speak very much english. The words "vacuum" "now" and "room" were lost on them.

The hispanic manager tried for about 10 minutes in english, my coworker tried sign language, and then the manager tried spanish (apparently the company is teaching them spanish so he can talk to them.. even though he knows english). None of this worked.

Finally the manager calls his boss, a korean man who speaks fluent english, and tells him the problem. The Korean man tells the elderly woman and you would think problem solved right? well no so much. Turns out his korean is rusty and she began working in the wrong room doing the wrong thing.

So the manager this time got her to stop and after a few minutes convinced her to call her daughter. There was no answer so we again tried english. I even walked her to the room and pointed at the floor and made a motion like I was vacuuming. She motioned back that she understood and that eventually they would get to it.

You see her husband vacuums the whole building and we were trying to find him to clean it for us. Just then the phone rings and it is her daughter. She hands the phone to the manager, but unfortunately while his english is good it is too broken to get the point across to the lady whose english is not so good.

The manager then hands the phone to my coworker who slows her speech down and calmly explains the situation. She then has the lady repeat it and after agreeing hands the cell phone to the elderly woman. After a few quick and loud Korean phrases the old lady takes off. A minute or two later she returns with her husband in tow.

He cleans the room for us and we get it locked. I am about to leave when I notice the older man following me vacuuming. I wave my hands at him and tell him to stop.... we still had people working. Our attempts to communicate began again as we tried to get the older man to leave and come back later. Finally after about 15 minutes he leaves... this morning none of the other floors were cleaned.....

whew... that was a lot and man was it frustrating. I spoke to the manager later who said he is trying to teach them spanish so he can talk with them better. They already understand 'pronto'. I asked him if the company had tried to teach them english and he said "oh at their age it's way too hard".

total time lost between me, coworker, manager, cleaning lady, cleaning guy: 6 and a half hours. Assuming $10/hr that's $65 for just one incident in one night. The company has multiple buildings and cleans 364 days per year. If this problem were to persist in 10 buildings at least once per week it is a total loss to clients and cleaners of $33,800 if it happens every day of the week in 10 buildings that lost productivity would cost $236,600

Cheap labor my #$$
not to mention the mental anguish.

WHY on earth is the manager trying to teach them SPANISH? Is he too lazy to help them learn English? Teaching them Spanish will get them nowhere!

Fantastic posts on this thread, especially the one here about the lost productivity. It's a no brainer .. .but tell that to libs who don't seem to car about the costs of anything it seems.

I've never even liked spanish as a language. French is wonderful . ..and I speak some german ...who who needs it -- it it irritating to listen to, personally. Sorry to all you spanish speakers .. I just don't like the language. Don't like german much either.

The English language is a beautiful and varied language, with infinite room for expression. It is absolutely the language of the educated and the prosperous.

Just so much like Rome . . .Latin was THE language of the day. And then Rome caved and it disappeared. Language IS a divider, and they know it.

Excellent post, reptile09!

Originally Posted by jjmm

Fantastic posts on this thread, especially the one here about the lost productivity. It's a no brainer .. .but tell that to libs who don't seem to car about the costs of anything it seems.

I've never even liked spanish as a language. French is wonderful . ..and I speak some german ...who who needs it -- it it irritating to listen to, personally. Sorry to all you spanish speakers .. I just don't like the language. Don't like german much either.

The English language is a beautiful and varied language, with infinite room for expression. It is absolutely the language of the educated and the prosperous.

Just so much like Rome . . .Latin was THE language of the day. And then Rome caved and it disappeared. Language IS a divider, and they know it.

jim. i have been saying this exact same thing for years. The german invaders given amnesty by the romans refused to speak latin. Then suddenly rome had a cesar of german decent and well... things didn't turn out to well. the parrells are uncanny, if we cannot learn from the mistakes of a civilization wiped out by this same phenomenom thousands of years ago then what good is our knowledge of it?

English MUST be made the official language of the USA. All employees SHOULD use english at work.




also. If the EEOC does win then I will sue several companies that refused to hire people because they do not speak spanish; based on the precedent .

NOT Hispanic, NOT Latino, but a MEXICAN

I have already spotted some cars with bumper sitckers
that say just that.

Kudos, reptile09! Your mother exemplifies a true American immigrant. No one is advocating the prohibition of foreign languages within the US. However, English is the language of this country, just as Spanish is the language of Mexico. Those choosing to become an "American" should also choose to embrace the language. After all, language is an essential component of the assimilation process.

Speaking a foreign language in the presence of those who do not understand is a glaring indication of a lack of couth. It is tantamount to whispering while others are present. Two women were speaking French a few feet behind me as we approached an elevator. However, upon entering the elevator, the women ceased speaking French, and began to speak English. They had class.

Is that not what we want. If their children and grandchildren are mostly speaking English isn't that a good thing? As the Hispanic family tree increases each generation, the adoption of English increases at an exponential rate.

My point is: Why does it have to take two or three generations for them to finally adopt the language, if they ever do? Most immigrants of every other part of the world learned English as soon as they came here, not after two or three generations. How many times do we hear about illegals and other Spanish speakers living here for 10 or 20 years and still do not speak a word of English? And if they refuse to learn English, how do they expect to properly prepare their kids for entering school? They thing is they don't, it is always up to the schools and ultimately the taxpayers to bring them up to the level of the other kids, costing us millions, if not billions of dollars in special bilingual, ESL or ELL type programs.

If those who chose to come here would take it upon themsleves to learn the language when they arrive and not wait for the next few generations to do it, we might not have such a huge problem with the school systems here, just look at CA. Once having some of the best schools in the country, they are now near or at the bottom, and all during the same period that millions of non-English speaking illegal alien and anchor baby kids entered the system. This is no coincidence if you ask me.

I was at a store one time. Two women were speaking German. As I was searching for my brand of bread next to them, they continued speaking German. I had no problem with it though. Just because I'm there right next to them, does not mean they have to automatically speak English. I'm not going to cry over that. BUT, B-U-T if they wanted to speak with me, then I would very much appreciate they do it in English, not German. If they spoke to me in German, I would gladly let them know that I don't understand it. I'm not going to be rude about it and yell in their faces, "ENGLISH ONLY YOU DIRTY IMMIGRANTS!"

Some people are just to sensitive.