> My father, an immigrant from Italy, spoke very broken English
> throughout his 60 some years here. And yes, he worked very hard --
> to enable my brother and me to better ourselves through education.
It's definitely possible that the immigrants want to learn English
and may even be doing so - I just haven't personally seen it. I have
immigrants as neighbors and pass at least 50-100 every day while
walking my dog. I've yet to hear a word of English.
What I have been seeing in Shore towns is not much different from
when I used to go to Elizabeth in the '90s. I'm not sure how it is
now, but about 10-15 years ago, English was pretty much a forgotten
language everywhere but at City Hall (where I think they had a
mandatory English only policy at the time). Every sign for every
business on Main Street was in Spanish.
Is that bad? Yes and no. It's nice to have a mixture of cultures;
however, places like Little Italy and Chinatowns are not seen
spreading across an entire city. When an entire city is in a foreign
language, it seems a bit far fetched to think those people are
assimilating. After all, why should they? Everything they need is in
their native tongue.
But, just as you stated, I know I could be wrong about this. I'm not
quoting statistics across the country, I'm only saying what I believe
based on what I see every day. The wave of immigration to the Shore
hasn't been just a few months - it's been several years. So far what
I've seen is the emergence of two languages that do not look like
they have any plans to become one. And as someone else pointed out,
when I'm in a foreign country I try to learn the language. Maybe
they are too, but so far I haven't seen it.
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