A Toad in a Tuxedo Is Still a Toad . . . 3
. . . and this is bigotry, no matter what fancy duds its supporters choose for it.
Sadly, I reckon there will never be a shortage of those who wish to build their political fortunes on fear and hatred.
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January 11, 2009 at 11:51 am
“The city government spends more than $100,000 on translation and related costs every year”
Is this fair? Why should an English speaking government spend that kind of money for people who choose to move to an Engligh speaking country, then prefer not to learn the language?
If I moved to a country where English wasn’t spoken, I couldn’t (shouldn’t) expect them to pay for an interpreter for me. I would have to learn the language.
How much money is taken from school budgets each year, in every city & state, to make sure kids who are raised in non-English speaking homes are taught in their own language?
I don’t care what color a person is. But it isn’t right anyone comes here & demands they not have to learn the language, that everyone else provide for them, in their foreign (to this country) language. I don’t think that’s bigotry, it’s common sense. And money management for entities that can ill afford waste.
January 11, 2009 at 7:10 pm
My ex’s great-grandmother came here from the Old Country (my ex’s grandmother was a two-year old who slept in the lower dresser drawer on the boat trip over here–I have seen the dresser).
Great grandmother (who I never met) never learned how to speak English. Till the day she died, she knew maybe two English words. I think one was “No” and the other was “Don’t.” And I am told she wore a babushka, even at the beach.
But she was white, not brown or yellow, she was from Europe, not from Asia or Central or South America. So it wasn’t a big deal.
Well, it was a big deal in 1900, because Italians were seen as a lesser people, but America ultimately outgrew that prejudice.
It has become a big deal now that those who don’t speaka da English are brown or yellow or black.
The money is smoke screen. The underlying reason is bigotry–hatred of anyone who is “not like us.”
Whoever the hell us is.
The fallacy, of course, is that everyone is like us. They live, they love, they hate, they fear, they die, just like us.
And they come here for a better life, just like our parents did, whether our parents came here 300 years ago or 30 years ago.
And those who would deny them a better life, who would exclude them from American society because they are a different color or speak a different language or look different betray the founding ideals of this country.
It has ever been the pattern of immigrants that the second generation, not the first, learns the language. Today is no different.
This is a made-up issue, one founded in bigotry and hatred and fear.
Everything else is window-dressing.
January 11, 2009 at 7:25 pm
I was raised in the “culterally diverse” areas in both Dallas & Ft Worth. Black, white, brown, little purple polka dots, makes no difference to me.
When I see school districts here allowing children of immigrants who don’t speak English attend pre-school & kindergarten all day long, for free, because they don’t speak English & it takes longer to teach them, but children who do speak it have TO PAY to go all day, then something is wrong.
My ancesters came here from Ireland & Germany. Somewhere down the line, they learned to speak English. Anyone who chooses to come here for whatever reasons, should.