It is their children who will learn English and have the
opportunities.
There are different types of immigrants who come to this country.
There are professionals, from all different countries, who come to
take a job. Chances are, these folks already speak English very
well. There are folks who immigrate here to open businesses. If
these businesses are to serve the public at large, as oppose to a
single group, these folks will learn English, at least to some
extent.
There are our grandparents/parents who either immigrated here many
years ago and lived in enclaves of similar folks, or they are
brought here later on to live with the family. It is unlikely that
these folks will learn English if they have not done so already.
Then there are the ones everyone will debate about... The workers,
laborers, undocumented or otherwise, who come here for better
opportunities than they had in their own countries. You can debate
all day whether these workers should be here or not, whether they
are taking jobs away, etc, but let us just start with the fact that
they are here. They are working hard. If given the opportunity to
learn and study, many would probably take it. But they may have had
little or no education in their former countries. They may even be
illiterate in their native language (some, but not everyone
obviously). Of course, the more that they learn, the more
opportunities they will have. But, the reality is, it is their
children who will have the greatest opportunities. It is unlikely
that an undocumented worker from rural Mexico, with limited
education, will learn English, study hard, become a citizen, get
his/her GED at 35, go to college, go to medical school and become a
heart surgeon. More likely, that person will work his ass off doing
construction, learn some basic English along the way, maybe take
some night classes, put his kids through school, and maybe one of
his/her kids will become a heart surgeon. Just like all the
immigrants did in generations before (including most of our
parents/grandparents/ or great-grandparents).
So, unless you are going to seal off the borders and wait a few
generations, there will be people here who do not speak English, or
who do not speak it very well. So, how do you communicate with them?
That is the issue at hand here in AP. That is what needs to be
addressed, whether it is by having bilingual cops, or having
interpreters we need to be able to communicate with our residents.
--- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "justifiedright"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> --- In AsburyPark@yahoogroups.com, "asburycouple" <asburycouple@>
> wrote:
>
> > So perhaps rather than simply
> > villifying those who can't speak the language an effort can be
made
> > to provide an opportunity to learn English?
>
> Who is doing the villifying? Who is clamoring for opportunities
to
> learn English? Please compare.
>
> I've said many times my prodding for them to learn English is
> compassion toward them. Success comes much easier with the
English
> language in America. No one can dispute that, so all the
> encouragement to speak English is a help to them, not
villification.
> It is also asking for them to take every "opportunity to learn
> English" as you say.
>
> Yet for giving this good, helpful, compassionate advice, some will
> yell "Xenophobe" which is how this conversation started.
>
> So who is doing the villifying here? The folks yelling xenophobe,
> that's who.
>
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