| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 10:13:17 AM | Barbe1963, do you know any immigrants new to America?
""""An immigrant coming in to a new country should be expected to learn the common language for quicker and easier transition to his new home. I believe it's unifying and creates less divisiveness"""
I do. I dated a woman from Russia and I dont think you have ANY appreciation at ALL for how hard it is to speak English coming from another country, how difficult it is to find work without it, how much of an idiot you appear to native speakers and how much you are treated like an idiot each and every day .......do you actually think people would like to just wake up some morning and speak perfect English or that they somehow speak other languages "on purpose" to just "spite us" all or something? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 10:48:35 AM | ^^ I live in Southern California, one hour from Mexico, and yes I interract with people who have immigrated on a regular basis. Not only that but I have many Fillipino friends who immigrated, and learned English once they got here. I don't for a minute downplay how heartbreakingly difficult it would be to learn a new language, especially english, however I still believe that it will lead to an easier transition over all and help them find a better job and assimilate more quickly in to the community.
By the way, my son who will be a sophmore this year is taking his third year of Spanish, and he will continue until he graduates because I do agree that being multi lingual is a good thing. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 5:51:06 PM |
assimilate more quickly in to the community.
... resistance is futile....you will be assimilated......
you know, that sounds like the plans devised by politicians to eradicate the native american community, which they implemented.....there aren't too many natives that are super happy about this as many cultures were lost, along with different ways of thinking and relating to the planet....
i like my rainbow with lots of colors....
my grandmother didn't speak a word of english despite being in this country for 30 years and watching soap operas, and i never had a hard time understanding her love for me..... | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:06:10 PM | | Great Idea! And then perhaps we can take it farther and really do a clean up, revoking citizenship from all Americans who can't use English properly, can't prove basic reading comprehension skills, and can't write a complete sentence in their native language. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:14:03 PM | | ^^^ uhhh but you didn't "have to" as there were no laws forcing you to do it, you chose to do it... so why would you want to make a law to make people do it? are those forces that were there that made you feel like you "had to" learn it gone? why make more laws when people do it without having laws that force them? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:20:08 PM | crash1967, these are just jingoistic yahoos who hate people of color and want to harrass them, insecure white people who feel threatened and barely master 5th grade spelling as it is.
There is no point to their posts.
Dont sweat the petty stuff and dont pet the sweaty stuff, man......... | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:26:45 PM | | right thats it we are all just racists,so what is your reason for people not to learn English exactly? You seriously don't think it makes sense to have a common language? So no immigrant should have to learn English, coming from many different countries should all government and business services be conducted in every language? Doesn't make much sense to me to not have a common language.Other than your paranoia in regards to the alleged racism involved in having a National Language what is another valid reason not to? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:45:43 PM |
Other than your paranoia in regards to the alleged racism involved in having a National Language what is another valid reason not to?
You don't need a valid reason not to--since we don't as it is and the country hasn't imploded in on itself yet. If you want to create a new law the point is to have a valid reason to do it, not to not do it. Most immigrants learn English because it makes life easier....and second generation residents learn it as a matter of course. Your question about conducting all things in every language is silly--we haven't done that to this point without a national language, so why would we start now? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 6:50:18 PM | | actually a decision does need to be made one way or another as we have a new immigrant population that refuses to learn English this is causing difficulties for businesses,schools and governmental institutions...why should we as a nation be forced to become bilingual when we are made up of so many different immigrant groups with different languages?catering to every group is not feasible therefore a Natiaonal language is the only fair alternative... | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 8:05:06 PM | | Crash, I fail to see how learning english is going to rob an immigrant of their own heritage. Just because you learn a new language does not mean you leave your own language, customs and heritage behind. Taking the time to learn the language of a country where you want to be a citizen does not seem to me to be a bad thing. I would imagine that if I were to relocate to another country where I did not speak the language that I would find it to my advantage to learn it. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 8:17:04 PM |
Great Idea! And then perhaps we can take it farther and really do a clean up, revoking citizenship from all Americans who can't use English properly, can't prove basic reading comprehension skills, and can't write a complete sentence in their native language.
Nomadic, that was priceless!
Peace.
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 8:55:23 PM | barb... honey....it was the way you worded things that reminded me of stories i hear from my elders here on the rez (i'm not native but have many native friends and i'm a traditional tanner so i deal with natives elders all the time, plus being jewish we sort of relate having had recent experiences with genocide in our histories) and how they were beaten for speaking their native tongue which has resulted in the loss of their culture in MANY ways....
on a recent call the cultural coordinator for a tribe that lost half of its populace, thus half of their cultural memory, i was struck that the person i was talking to knew very little about traditional tanning.... the tribes cultural coordinator......
part of a persons heritage is based on what is handed down both in memory and the memory of the language, if you will. my mother often tries to tell me things that her father used to say which i'm sure makes perfect sense in spanish but come out something like "there are no squirrels in a spiders web" because it just doesn't translate out. the affect that language or lack of a language has on a culture is hard to measure.
the loss of a persons language will result in diminished cultural memory and its inevitable that given enough generations the language will be lost already, why FORCE people to learn a language? isn't making money enough of an incentive? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/25/2008 9:32:24 PM | A person's heritage is a beautiful thing, and should not be denied nor left behind, and I'm sorry if anything I said made you think that I felt otherwise. My sister is married to a native American and I grew up going to school at a mission school surrounded by native Americans so I'm very aware of the importance that they place on their culture. I agree with you that money should be enough, but as it doesn't seem to be, I don't see that by tying citizenship to basic english speaking would perhaps be an extra incentive.
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 9:40:16 AM | There was a push back in the 80's for the official language to be "American."
I have a friend who's mother came to this country from France back in the 1950's. Her mother took community college classes to learn proper english. She was so proud to be an American that she embraced ALL the American customs including the language.
The immigrants of today don't seem to be proud of being American. They seem to act like it's an entitlement and America owes them. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 10:19:45 AM | we have a new immigrant population that refuses to learn English this is causing difficulties for businesses,schools and governmental institutions... Such as?
Such as public schools having to hire bilingual teachers or translators, such as every government agency in the country having to have a staff of translators on-call for scores of different languages (walk into any gvmnt office and look around, there's a sign on the wall somewhere showing all the languages...) such as hospitals needing to hire translators because a person you can't communicate with can't tell you what's wrong with them and you may be held liable monetarily by some leftist attorney if you don't get them proper care... | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 10:59:33 AM |
Such as public schools having to hire bilingual teachers or translators, such as every government agency in the country having to have a staff of translators on-call for scores of different languages (walk into any gvmnt office and look around, there's a sign on the wall somewhere showing all the languages...) such as hospitals needing to hire translators because a person you can't communicate with can't tell you what's wrong with them and you may be held liable monetarily by some leftist attorney if you don't get them proper care...
I guess I don't see these as serious difficulties. And even if I did, making English an "official" language would not make them go away. The solution as presented will not solve the problem.
If, on the other hand, you want to make fluency in English a requirement for coming to the US at all....hmmm....well I guess you had better take down the Statue of Liberty first.
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 11:49:51 AM |
on the other hand, you want to make fluency in English a requirement for coming to the US at all....hmmm....well I guess you had better take down the Statue of Liberty first.
I don't think anyone else but you is making that leap. Most likely most of the posters in this thread have immigrants in their family history. I know I do, and I think it is one of the things that America is known for.
But as Ms. Fly has kindly pointed out, it's in the requirement for citizenship, so it's really a mute point.
Play through! | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 1:50:50 PM |
I guess I don't see these as serious difficulties. And even if I did, making English an "official" language would not make them go away. The solution as presented will not solve the problem.
I see them as problems in that they are funded by MY tax money, so I have a problem with it. Why the hell should I have to pay for these services extended to people who aren't even citizens of this country and thus likely don't pay into the system themselves?
I agree that making English the "official" language won't make the problem go away. Refusing to force me to pay for these services by not extending them to non-citizens is a start, though I think an exception should be made in the case of hospitals and medical care.
If, on the other hand, you want to make fluency in English a requirement for coming to the US at all....hmmm....well I guess you had better take down the Statue of Liberty first.
I think learning English should be a requirement for obtaining the same taxpayer-funded benefits that taxpaying citizens have. If you want to come here and NOT become part of the system and the culture why should the rest of us have to pay your way? | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 5:34:03 PM |
I think learning English should be a requirement for obtaining the same taxpayer-funded benefits that taxpaying citizens have. If you want to come here and NOT become part of the system and the culture why should the rest of us have to pay your way?
That's one way of looking at it I suppose, but then you get into questions like what constitutes American "culture." For me one of the things that makes American culture worth preserving in the first place is an ethos of inclusion and charity (inherent to our American past AND, btw, to Christian principles, for all those out there who identify themselves that way), INCLUDING towards immigrants. But more importantly, what you are talking about is not necessarily just exluding people from services because they DECIDE not to speak English. Do you make an exception for their CHILDREN, who have no decision making power and who depend on things like education in order to BECOME part of the "system and culture"? Because to educate people you have to be able to communicate with them....thus the need for bilingual teachers, as an example. Second generation immigrants don't become English speakers by being left at home day in and day out with their non-English speaking parents. Would you REALLY exclude them from public education?
Perhaps we should develop a valuing of bilingualism as a part of OUR culture. But in the mean time (since that's not likely to happen any time soon), there is so much waste and underspending in public services like education as it is....that IMO some relatively limited spending that actually BENEFITS children is hardly the thing that people should get up in arms about. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 5:37:37 PM | That's one way of looking at it I suppose, but then you get into questions like what constitutes American "culture." For me one of the things that makes American culture worth preserving in the first place is an ethos of inclusion and charity (inherent to our American past AND, btw, to Christian principles, for all those out there who identify themselves that way), INCLUDING towards immigrants.
Right, which is why I"m ok with being charitable enough to make sure that medical care is provided for them.
But more importantly, what you are talking about is not necessarily just exluding people from services because they DECIDE not to speak English. Do you make an exception for their CHILDREN, who have no decision making power and who depend on things like education in order to BECOME part of the "system and culture"?
No, because I am NOT responsible for everyone else's kids. THEIR PARENTS ARE. If this is not the case, where does it stop? It's a slippery slope. Their parents should prepare themselves by learning English before bringing their kids here...so they can help their kids learn the language. If I dump 10,000 orphans on your doorstep and you can't afford to take care of them all are you a bad person? No. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 6:06:18 PM |
No, because I am NOT responsible for everyone else's kids. THEIR PARENTS ARE. If this is not the case, where does it stop? It's a slippery slope. Their parents should prepare themselves by learning English before bringing their kids here...so they can help their kids learn the language. If I dump 10,000 orphans on your doorstep and you can't afford to take care of them all are you a bad person? No.
Cute, but not very helpful. As an individual I can't care for 10,000 children. As part of a society, it's no skin off my nose if part of my tax money goes to educating immigrant children even if they require bilingual teachers. I'd much rather my money go there than to many places it does go....illegal wars, etc. | |
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| Should basic English language skills be required for LEGAL citizenship?
Posted: 6/26/2008 6:11:14 PM | | nice try with the War thing but it has nothing to do with the illegal immigration problem or their refusal to speak English. Besides Obama played a part in committing us to a more costly venture than the war(Global Poverty act)..Why should hard working citizens pay to educate the children of illegal immigrants? its funny to see you question the legality of something such as the War but excuse the fact that so many are here Illegally... | |
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