To me it sounds like nativist BS. Anyone who wants to get ahead in the US learns English and learns it well, it's as simple as that.
In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
I want to vote up the last part of your comment (importance of culture and recognizing how awful forcing people to be monolingual is) and not vote on the top part.
I know someone who lives in Colorado who said there is a town there where only Spanish is spoken. He went into the McDonalds where the menu was in Spanish and they were doing a promotion for the Mexican world cup team. A swiss friend of mine also tried to ask for direction from a police officer in Miami. The officer only spoke Spanish so he had to call English speaking backup to even figure out what my friend wanted.
The US has no official language, so this doesn't bother me but your comment about learning English is simply not true for ever growing parts of the US.
There have been places where German or French or Spanish or Italian or Vietnamese or Chinese or whatever have been used exclusively in the US for pretty much as long as the US has existed.
And you know what? It's not really a problem. People who want to do more than live in their little corner of their little town will learn English. Some others won't and their opportunities, as a consequence, will likely be limited.
Again, I just don't agree with this. I think non-English speaking groups are expanding enough that there is plenty of opportunity out there without knowing English. No, you wont get to be an officer in an English speaking US company but the Latino community is having big success in all aspects of American life. It's just a matter of time until there is a Latino facebook/google/whatever and then you'll have that opportunity too.
Personally I think it's great since I view the fact so many Americans never have to learn or even really be exposed to any other language is a big disadvantage.
If you look at Facebook and Google's popularity throughout the world, I think it's obvious that language isn't really a barrier to their spread and popularity, outside of some Asian countries where politics are also a factor.
I guess I'm just not scared of there being people speaking Spanish in the US. Over time, they'll integrate, just like everyone else has in the past.
> To me it sounds like nativist BS. Anyone who wants to get ahead in the US learns English and learns it well, it's as simple as that.
On the contrary, many among these communities have been here 20 years, working as adults, and have no English at all. Are they getting ahead? They send money "back home" (they still call it home), so they feel they are ahead. But they want nothing to do with the melting pot culture. They subscribe to ethnic TV, shop in ethnic groceries, put kids in ethnic (native language) preschools. I regularly see grade school age children born in the United States who struggle with an English sentence, but speak fluent Russian or Spanish.
> In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Hanging on to something is wonderful. That's the melting pot ethos -- a marvelous blend of the things worth hanging onto. Holidays, cooking, customs, cultural fairy tales -- I was raised with these almost to a fault. I think you see this approach to blending among Scandinavians in Minnesota, for example, and I applaud it.
> Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
On several of these points, you cite the opposite concept to an extreme, to more easily shoot that down. Well certainly, raising your kids monolingual would be a travesty -- and that's exactly what I'm decrying as well. If you moved to America then raise your kids to speak only your native tongue at the expense of any English, it's a problem.
I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures. We'd listen to, and be spoken to, in the native languages of our grandparents. As a child, I understood several, improving my grasp of the mechanics of English. I'm also thankful to have lived my teens in Europe and Africa, with my folks putting us in local language schools instead of English language schools.
In short, I am not remotely "nativist". I encourage emigration and immigration alike, and do not believe immigrants "cannot be assimilated". That said, I believe if you move to a place, whether Denmark or America, "to make a better life" for yourself, it bears thinking that there's something about the way that place is that appeals to you more than the place you left, and it might be a good idea to be less hostile to adopting and adapting to a new way of life.
It seems to me the melting pot idea is: come to a country not to forget your roots or forgo your heritage (right of blood), but to make your new country your home (right of soil).
You sounded like you were extolling the virtue of immigrants who fit in by not speaking their native language around their children, apologies if I misunderstood your argument.
> (they still call it home)
Of course they do, because it is and always will be home, just as Oregon will always be "home" to me in some sense even though I wouldn't wish to live there, and indeed live on the other side of the world. I doubt it's "home" to their US born children in the same way, though.
> I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures.
Is that a Freudian slip? :-) It actually sounds like you were raised amidst a fairly large variety of languages and cultures, rather than a 'smattering'.
As to 'hostility' at adapting, that's a very long and complex discussion, but suffice it to say it takes time and probably several generations for families to adapt completely.
I guess I just have a fairly laissez faire attitude about the whole thing. People who are rigid and don't adapt will have fewer opportunities than those who do. Their children will likely adapt in any case, whether they want it or not. I mean, English is the dominant global language right now, if people want to plug into that, they'll do so, if not, their loss.
"[citation needed]" is a pretty useless comment (not to mention passive aggressive and hypocritical if you then go onto make a statement which could also use a citation).
He made an extremely broad, categoric statement with zero supporting evidence. "It is no longer true", whereas I did three things:
I stated that you need to speak English to get ahead in the US. How many people that run large companies or are in the Senate or House of representatives have a poor command of English? Very few, and probably not too different from 100 or 50 years ago.
I recounted an anecdote of people who felt a sense of loss at having been deprived of the opportunity to learn their ancestors' language.
And I asserted that not teaching children a language so that they can 'fit in' is a very tragic thing to do, because you are making a choice for them to deprive them of something they'll never really attain on their own later in life. This is, of course, my own opinion, and needs no citation.
The point of all this is that ranting about "them" not wanting to "fit in", is exactly what leads to kicking people like Gus out.
> And I asserted that not teaching children a language so that they can 'fit in' is a very tragic thing to do
Like, say, not teaching them English, when you also said "you need to speak English to get ahead in the US".
The emergence of (taxpayer funded) schools where English is not the primary language, supposedly so the kids can at least get an education even though they don't know English, is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say "it's no longer true":
I am a Swiss born, now US Citizen; in my Country of birth I had to learn 3 languages (Italian, German, French) plus latin (this was optional) and English; later I learned Spanish and Portuguese.
My wife is Latin American, we live in Florida, at home we speak spanish, english and a little italian.
When we moved to the US my children did not talk a word in english, but we would never accepted them not to learn the mother tongue of this Country.
I belive that is importat the children keep talking the language of their parents, but they need to perfectly manage first the language of the Country they live in.
Spanish is a very important language and I agree, support and encourage theaching it in every school but this as a second language.
In my personal experience learning a new language or improving one you already manage, not only helps you communicate with others, but opens your cultural horizons and help understanding and tolerance among populations.
I think that English ought to be taught in all schools in order to give everyone an opportunity to get ahead.
That said, I can see there being a case to take some kids and teach them in another language for a limited period of time in order to make sure they don't fall so far behind because of their lack of English that they fall off the treadmill. If that happens, they will have both not learned English and will also likely drop out of school, with a corresponding lack of future prospects, increase in crime potential, and so on.
Comments
> It is no longer true.
[citation needed]
To me it sounds like nativist BS. Anyone who wants to get ahead in the US learns English and learns it well, it's as simple as that.
In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
I want to vote up the last part of your comment (importance of culture and recognizing how awful forcing people to be monolingual is) and not vote on the top part.
I know someone who lives in Colorado who said there is a town there where only Spanish is spoken. He went into the McDonalds where the menu was in Spanish and they were doing a promotion for the Mexican world cup team. A swiss friend of mine also tried to ask for direction from a police officer in Miami. The officer only spoke Spanish so he had to call English speaking backup to even figure out what my friend wanted.
The US has no official language, so this doesn't bother me but your comment about learning English is simply not true for ever growing parts of the US.
There have been places where German or French or Spanish or Italian or Vietnamese or Chinese or whatever have been used exclusively in the US for pretty much as long as the US has existed.
And you know what? It's not really a problem. People who want to do more than live in their little corner of their little town will learn English. Some others won't and their opportunities, as a consequence, will likely be limited.
Again, I just don't agree with this. I think non-English speaking groups are expanding enough that there is plenty of opportunity out there without knowing English. No, you wont get to be an officer in an English speaking US company but the Latino community is having big success in all aspects of American life. It's just a matter of time until there is a Latino facebook/google/whatever and then you'll have that opportunity too.
Personally I think it's great since I view the fact so many Americans never have to learn or even really be exposed to any other language is a big disadvantage.
If you look at Facebook and Google's popularity throughout the world, I think it's obvious that language isn't really a barrier to their spread and popularity, outside of some Asian countries where politics are also a factor.
I guess I'm just not scared of there being people speaking Spanish in the US. Over time, they'll integrate, just like everyone else has in the past.
> To me it sounds like nativist BS. Anyone who wants to get ahead in the US learns English and learns it well, it's as simple as that.
On the contrary, many among these communities have been here 20 years, working as adults, and have no English at all. Are they getting ahead? They send money "back home" (they still call it home), so they feel they are ahead. But they want nothing to do with the melting pot culture. They subscribe to ethnic TV, shop in ethnic groceries, put kids in ethnic (native language) preschools. I regularly see grade school age children born in the United States who struggle with an English sentence, but speak fluent Russian or Spanish.
> In any case, I think it's good that people hang on to something. Interacting with various Italian groups in the past, when I was in the US, I'd meet middle aged people who spoke little or no Italian because their Italian parents or grandparents had not taught them. Many of them were sad that they'd never learned the language.
Hanging on to something is wonderful. That's the melting pot ethos -- a marvelous blend of the things worth hanging onto. Holidays, cooking, customs, cultural fairy tales -- I was raised with these almost to a fault. I think you see this approach to blending among Scandinavians in Minnesota, for example, and I applaud it.
> Forcing your kids to be monolingual is a travesty and something they can never get back as adults: only as a child will you really learn to speak several languages well.
On several of these points, you cite the opposite concept to an extreme, to more easily shoot that down. Well certainly, raising your kids monolingual would be a travesty -- and that's exactly what I'm decrying as well. If you moved to America then raise your kids to speak only your native tongue at the expense of any English, it's a problem.
I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures. We'd listen to, and be spoken to, in the native languages of our grandparents. As a child, I understood several, improving my grasp of the mechanics of English. I'm also thankful to have lived my teens in Europe and Africa, with my folks putting us in local language schools instead of English language schools.
In short, I am not remotely "nativist". I encourage emigration and immigration alike, and do not believe immigrants "cannot be assimilated". That said, I believe if you move to a place, whether Denmark or America, "to make a better life" for yourself, it bears thinking that there's something about the way that place is that appeals to you more than the place you left, and it might be a good idea to be less hostile to adopting and adapting to a new way of life.
It seems to me the melting pot idea is: come to a country not to forget your roots or forgo your heritage (right of blood), but to make your new country your home (right of soil).
You sounded like you were extolling the virtue of immigrants who fit in by not speaking their native language around their children, apologies if I misunderstood your argument.
> (they still call it home)
Of course they do, because it is and always will be home, just as Oregon will always be "home" to me in some sense even though I wouldn't wish to live there, and indeed live on the other side of the world. I doubt it's "home" to their US born children in the same way, though.
> I'm thrilled to have been raised among a smattering of languages and cultures.
Is that a Freudian slip? :-) It actually sounds like you were raised amidst a fairly large variety of languages and cultures, rather than a 'smattering'.
As to 'hostility' at adapting, that's a very long and complex discussion, but suffice it to say it takes time and probably several generations for families to adapt completely.
I guess I just have a fairly laissez faire attitude about the whole thing. People who are rigid and don't adapt will have fewer opportunities than those who do. Their children will likely adapt in any case, whether they want it or not. I mean, English is the dominant global language right now, if people want to plug into that, they'll do so, if not, their loss.
"[citation needed]" is a pretty useless comment (not to mention passive aggressive and hypocritical if you then go onto make a statement which could also use a citation).
He made an extremely broad, categoric statement with zero supporting evidence. "It is no longer true", whereas I did three things:
I stated that you need to speak English to get ahead in the US. How many people that run large companies or are in the Senate or House of representatives have a poor command of English? Very few, and probably not too different from 100 or 50 years ago.
I recounted an anecdote of people who felt a sense of loss at having been deprived of the opportunity to learn their ancestors' language.
And I asserted that not teaching children a language so that they can 'fit in' is a very tragic thing to do, because you are making a choice for them to deprive them of something they'll never really attain on their own later in life. This is, of course, my own opinion, and needs no citation.
The point of all this is that ranting about "them" not wanting to "fit in", is exactly what leads to kicking people like Gus out.
> And I asserted that not teaching children a language so that they can 'fit in' is a very tragic thing to do
Like, say, not teaching them English, when you also said "you need to speak English to get ahead in the US".
The emergence of (taxpayer funded) schools where English is not the primary language, supposedly so the kids can at least get an education even though they don't know English, is the sort of thing I'm talking about when I say "it's no longer true":
http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/200...
I loved this comment:
I am a Swiss born, now US Citizen; in my Country of birth I had to learn 3 languages (Italian, German, French) plus latin (this was optional) and English; later I learned Spanish and Portuguese.
My wife is Latin American, we live in Florida, at home we speak spanish, english and a little italian.
When we moved to the US my children did not talk a word in english, but we would never accepted them not to learn the mother tongue of this Country.
I belive that is importat the children keep talking the language of their parents, but they need to perfectly manage first the language of the Country they live in.
Spanish is a very important language and I agree, support and encourage theaching it in every school but this as a second language.
In my personal experience learning a new language or improving one you already manage, not only helps you communicate with others, but opens your cultural horizons and help understanding and tolerance among populations.
Is that comment "nativist"?
The school question is a complex one.
I think that English ought to be taught in all schools in order to give everyone an opportunity to get ahead.
That said, I can see there being a case to take some kids and teach them in another language for a limited period of time in order to make sure they don't fall so far behind because of their lack of English that they fall off the treadmill. If that happens, they will have both not learned English and will also likely drop out of school, with a corresponding lack of future prospects, increase in crime potential, and so on.