If an immigrant can't or won't speak English, how does that hurt YOU personally?

Question

....Other than extra cost to print Government Documents in other languages. That one I understand. I agree these should be printed exclusively in English. My question is this: how does using another language in someone's PRIVATE life negatively affect me?

So you have to press an extra button on a telephone? Folks, you'll need to give me more than THAT.

Homeless_in_Phoenix - Good point, but why doesn't Europe (where they routinely have to speak 5 or 6 different languages to each other) have this problem then?

dumbuster - do you have to talk to others to participate meaningfully in society?

cdub - either answer the question or remove your answer

Yo! - well argued

susi - I really would like to understand what it is that is upsetting you. These are presumably people's private conversations, no?

Bob L - I "might" understand that if you took a few more words to explain that.

squawk_squawk_chickenhawk - It's not a hard question. Care to answer it?

Crazybird - you raise some good points

DJ C - You're certainly getting a lot of support!

R G - Why doesn't Europe seem to have this problem then? In fact the opposite seems to be happening there -- Countries with different languages and cultures are becoming CLOSER

usajustice101 - nice, well articulated 1000 word response that completely and totally DID NOT ANSWER THE QUESTION

squawk_squawk_chickenhawk - the way it works here is I asked a question, you answer it.

OK, I will bend the rules a little and answer your question.....ummm first you need to be so kind as to tell me what that IS!

usajustice101 - once again, you have put words in people's mouths (you seem to have a remarkable talent for this). Show me where ANY respondent to this question said being bilingual MEANT speaking English and Spanish. They are using it as an example, that is all. Fair enough that you have a point that you don't want a society supporting ALL languages. But calling using that as an example Racist???????

squawk_squaw_chickenhawk - no i do NOT understand, that is the reason i am asking he question. You can either choose to better explain your position or continue to engage in personal attacks. I'm not holding my breath to see which one you'll pick........

squawk_squawk_chickenhawk - A refresher of how thinks are "supposed" to work around here are in order.

I posted a question. You choose whether or not to post an answer TO MY QUESTION. ** MY ** actual question, not the one you wanted to answer and not the one "you think I had in mind".

You do not ask questions in response. If you want to ask a question, you post YOUR own question, which I may or may not decide to respond to within the same guidelines.

Why I should be EXPECTED to bend those rules particularly when your courtesy is shall we say "a little lacking", escapes me.

No, I would not. That's just me of course, I'm sure there are Americans abroad that do this. As I will not deny there are immigrants here that do.

That wasn't MY question. MY question was how it affects YOU, squawk_squawk_chickenhawk, personally.

I suppose spending extra time in a checkout line is a reasonable answer to the question, although I don't see how that is so "highly damaging" to society.

squawk_squawk_chickenhawk - Annoying and hurtful to people? Yes, I see that. Do they have the right to be upset over it? Of course they do.

Something that is about to bring America to it's knees as 99% of Y!A would have you believe? No, I STILL am NOT seeing that.

Answer 1

As long as he is happy to remain an immigrant forever, there is no problem. He is equivalent to a tourist and, last I heard, English was not one of the requirements for that. And, as long as he is working legally, there is no problem legally, and as long as he is happy with a subsistence income everyone is happy. There may be problems for him, but not for anyone else.

As soon as he wants to become a participating member of society, there is a huge difference. Without English he (or maybe she) will be ill-informed (or uninformed) about issues --- making intelligent voting impossible --- he will be unable to assimilate or understand the core values of this country which are essential to anyone who aspires to citizenship and to the rest of us who have worked to establish it. He will be a permanent member of an "underclass" which does not contribute to the welfare of the country and of which we have too many already --- do we need to import more? And, you have to ask yourself why someone would refuse to speak, or not expend the time necessary to learn English if he wanted to become a citizen. What does citizenship mean to such a person if they will not expend any effort to support it? Best stay a "tourist". For him and for the rest of us.

Citizenship is not only working --- it is helping to preserve a system --- and to sacrifice for it from time to time. If you don't understand the system, or care about it, how can you preserve or even change it? And why do we need or want someone like that in the first place? Better give the spot to someone who cares.

Answer 2

I'm no longer claiming to grasp the reply to the immigration crisis reason I definately do not. But I am continually surprised on account that we're a country of immigrants, A LOT of whom the primary new release didn't talk English, are so down on immigrants. I'm simply curious why? I have italian in my history so I recognise that after my high-quality-high-quality some thing- grandma and grandpa came to visit on a ship the did not talk English. I consider so much Americans might uncover the identical in the event that they seem again a ways adequate. Well no less than part besides.

Answer 3

At my job it slows down a lot of our processes as we have to wait for the bilingual employees (like myself) to translate or finish what we were doing and complete the transaction myself. Then we here complaints on how we seem to help the English speakers faster than the Spanish only speakers.

And why can't the immigrant be bilingual? There is an old stereotype that Americans go everywhere in the world expecting the people to speak English but not in our own country?

Answer 4

Your question was about private lives. I personally don't care what people speak in their homes or standing around having a conversation with each other.
Even at work if people want to chat in Spanish, that's fine as long as it's not work related. If it's work related, then everyone should be speaking English.
And even though I am attempting to learn Spanish, it's not my JOB to learn it. It's the responsibility of people moving to and living in the U.S. to learn English because that is our common language.
If someone desires to live in the USA, why would it be a bad thing to learn English?

Answer 5

Yea DJ C is correct people can still communicate even though they dont speak that language, for the person who wanted to warn someone about the beam falling Even in english you would probably not react fast enough and for the person who made all those scenarios about the people dying or getting hurt, I think someone on that ride would have spoken english and said something and there would be screams of panic coming and they wouldnt hire a bartender if he didnt know how to read. You are making all of that up. Great Question!!! Best answer DJ C!

Answer 6

Kids who learn in their native tounge do not develop self esteem issues. The ones who learn in english only develop self esteem issues because they dont get it while everyone is moving along. Imagine going to school where noone spoke english and how that would feel. Now imagine going to school where you were learning in a different language but someone was there to help you when you didnt get it. Thats how those kids are. They get the help they need and they succeed and if they dont they fail. Do you really think that if someone tells you something in korean 100 times and you memorize it you will be able to understand what it means? Of course not! Thats why the kids need the language support. DJ C has a point!

Answer 7

I have a great example of how it could affect many people. I am a traveling nurse. I have worked at some facilities where none of the employee spoke english. During the night shift in an alzhiemer's unit, none of the residents had arm bandages to tell who they were. Since they were in bed I thought the nurse aids could help me identify who these people were. At around 3 am I got up to check my patients, and the aids had started waking the residents up for the day. 3 hours too early. These people were almost all up. They were scattered everywhere. i asked them why they were getting up so early. She smiled at me then shrugged, shaking her head, as if to say i don't know what you are asking. I asked the other one who was ms.jones, She just looked at me shaking her head no and spoke something in her language. No one recieved the care they needed. The diabetics didn't get the blood sugar checked or the insulin needed. None got their medication. All because they could not communicate. I don't mind people speaking their native tounge, but they must speak english in order to work.

Answer 8

it does affect all of us...for one in order to accommodate those who choose not to learn or wont speak English we will have to make legal documents in their language...where will the money come for these prints and how many languages should we do it in...Spanish, Hmong, Chinese, Japanese, Portuguese, different dialects of Africa, Swedish, Dutch, German, etc etc etc...where does it end...there are currently 6,912 living languages...the money to do this comes from my pocket...personally i don't feel i should have to pay taxes in order to accommodate someone who moves here and refuses to learn the language of the land...another way is it takes valuable time on a job site trying to explain or get a job done when the people doing it cant or wont speak English...my husband is running into this on a daily basis...this is very frustrating to him and usually stuff that needs to get done on a job site either doesn't get done or its done a** backwards ie having to redo it which cost more money...so yes the fact that they wont or cant learn English hurts my bottom line...and sense my husband and i are both bullheaded Americans we refuse to learn their language.. they are in AMERICA and in AMERICA our language is English not any other and there for we will not take one for the team and accommodate anyone who refuses to become part of this society...if they want to live here and be AMERICANS than they should at least make an attempt to be apart of this society and learn the language and the customs...and one other thing what if it was your social security number that was stollen and sold so that an illegal could work, buy a house, get a liscense, and pretty much live under your name and take your credit rating and flush it down the tubes, or heaven forbid you got picked up for a crime you did not commit but because someone has used your info and commited a crime and now you pay for it...

Answer 9

I pretty much felt the same way you do until I started coming to this board and reading the posts. We have our own less educated people, with a high school diploma or maybe a year of college, or less. For illegal immigrants educated in our system with the same level of education, they come out of our schools bilingual. Our schools don't offer that to our less educated English speakers.

Now move to what happens out of school. The less skilled jobs are now filled in large part by non-English speaking people. If an English only high school graduate goes to a meat packing plant or Wal-Mart or McDonald's to work, they may get a job. However, when it comes to picking a supervisor or manager, the meat packing plant and Wal-Mart and McDonald want a bilingual person to have the job, to speak with Spanish speaking workers being managed.

That means that because our people only speak the only language they know, they have little upwards mobility, whereas illegals educated for the same number of years do have that mobility.

I have read of this happening over and over. I don't know how common it is, but I can see where it could cause resentment.

My biggest problem personally is that when they don't teach their children to speak English before they get to school, it dramatically slows the class and limits what can be accomplished by the class in a school year. In addition, addressing that problem means a disproportionate percentage of funds is spent on ESL students, at the expense of programs cut for our own children. When the ESL students wouldn't even be here if their parent's hadn't come illegally, it is absolutely unacceptable, particularly since most are too poor to pay their share of education costs in taxes, so we are paying for their children's education, as well.

Answer 10

I live in Miami and more often than not I am unable to be waited on in stores and such, because I do not speak Spanish. I fear this is the future of this country
P>S> please do not tell me I should learn Spanish if I want to live in my own country this brings us back to how this hurts me personally.
A word to Bear: I think that in the early days of this country there was a vote in either the house or senate and English won by a few votes