Ed Brayton is a journalist, commentator and speaker. He is the co-founder and president of 
You have to love the utter stupidity of the nativist crowd. I can certainly understand the need to do something about illegal immigration; there are areas of the country with serious, undeniable problems as a result of illegal immigration. Personally, I'm all for converting the illegal immigrants we have here to legal immigrants as quickly as possible so that we can A) track who they are and where they are and B) tax their earnings so they contribute to the system rather than just draining it.
By "nativist" I do not mean those who want to do something to fix the illegal immigration problem; rather, I mean those who really do just hate the notion that other nationalities - especially dark-skinned people - are allowed to come here at all. And they especially hate it when those dark-skinned people dare to try and maintain anything of their cultural traditions, including the language.
Take a look at this story from the Worldnutdaily for an example of the kind of idiots I'm referring to. A car dealership in South Florida, where there is a huge Latino community, mostly Cuban and Dominican, put an amusing commercial on the air making fun of the fact that he can't speak Spanish, but promising that he has employees who do. For this horrible crime of trying to reach a large segment of the market he advertises to, the man is being accused of "destroying America."
One WND reader who saw the commercial said, "The whole issue is that this is America and Spanish ads should not be running on English TV stations, period. We are not a bilingual country. Run them on the Spanish stations, no problem. But Spanish ads thrown in with English programming - he's got [testicular fortitude] and so do the stations that allow them to run."
Like most Worldnetdaily readers, this one appears to be an idiot. Seriously, if you were bothered by someone putting out a commercial in Spanish, shouldn't it bother you even more that there are whole stations broadcasting in Spanish? After all "this is America" right? If you're going to use that as the premise of your argument, as stupid a rationale as that is, at least apply it consistently. More reactions:
The idea of making profits is fine, but America isn't just about making money. There is a nationalistic pride that far outweighs "going for the gold." In your case, your timing is terrible considering you decided to run the ads at a time when many Americans have had it with do-nothing lawmakers who want to disguise amnesty proposals for illegal immigrants as comprehensive immigration reform. I think the reason you have had such a negative reaction is because the ads can be construed by white, English-speaking Americans to mean you are either indifferent to their concerns or support the misguided argument that illegal immigrants should be extended the same legal rights as full-fledged citizens.
No, you dolt; the commercial had nothing whatsoever to do with illegal immigration. Where is the logic? "We've had it with politicians who won't do something about illegal immigration, so we're going to take it out on anyone who speaks another language, whether they're here legally or illegally, and even on those who want to talk to those who speak another language." Brilliant thinking.
And I love the car dealer, who responded to such comments from anonymous idiots on his blog with this:
Stewart thrashed back at the above "anonymous" post by saying, "Anonymous? A person who criticizes me but is afraid to tell me his name, phone number or e-mail has no credibility. You are either afraid that your opinions won't stand up to intelligent debate or you have a secret agenda to do me harm ... such as a sales manager or salesman for a competing dealership. The KKK Klansman has a good reason for his anonymity ... what's yours?"
Makes me wanna buy a car from this guy, and I don't even speak Spanish. Stand strong in the face of the know-nothings, Mr. Stewart.
Comments
Hey Ed, I don't comment here a lot because I largely agree with most of your posts. I enjoy the blog. Keep it up.
Posted by: writerdd | August 31, 2007 10:16 AM
Posted by: mark | August 31, 2007 10:24 AM
Mark: Radio waves naturally vibrate in English. Didn't you know that?
Any argument containing this premise can be dismissed out of hand.
Posted by: kehrsam | August 31, 2007 10:33 AM
Ah-yup. Real 'murikins talk gooder english, just like Jesus did.
Posted by: justawriter | August 31, 2007 10:39 AM
I wonder if the morons know that every single Cuban in Florida is a legal immigrant. Gotta love the "One foot on dry land" policy.
Posted by: Owen | August 31, 2007 10:40 AM
Muy Buen, Senor Stewart! Los Wingnuts es muy estupido, verdad?
Posted by: J-Perro | August 31, 2007 10:42 AM
I wonder: would this particular breed of wingnut actually self-identify as a "nativist"? I ask because I suspect they would object to government documents being published in, say, the Navajo language (which I think I remember being a possibility in New Mexico, but of course now I can't find anything definitive via Google) -- and yet the Diné (Navajo) people have been around much longer than the United States have been, and thus are truer natives than most native English speakers...
Posted by: Liz | August 31, 2007 10:58 AM
Normal worldnetdaily stuff. There was a similar 'article' a couple of years ago accusing Wells Fargo and Citibank of being traitors because their ATMs are bi-lingual and they set up services allowing latinos to more easily transfer money to their families in mexico.
Posted by: yoshi | August 31, 2007 11:07 AM
It always makes me laugh when mongrel, immigrant nations like the US whinge about this sort of thing. Throw out all the immigrants and it would be startlingly underpopulated place.
It's a bit like the idiots in the BNP over here in the UK farting on about racial purity. Do these retards have any idea how pure the English gene pool actually is, even for 'natives'? Well once you filter out the Danes, the French, the Celts... ah never mind.
Posted by: Matthew | August 31, 2007 11:23 AM
ha! this story reminds me of that mass email that gets forwarded around a couple times a year that say things like "America has ONE religion: Christianity. and ONE language: English, and immigrants can't come here and take all of our money and jobs and get better benefits than hard-workin', tax-payin' Americans, etc, etc."
Posted by: Jane Know | August 31, 2007 11:32 AM
Among my students' The Past That Became Our Present slides for this week: August 28, 1565 - The Spanish establish St. Augustine, in what is now Florida. It is the oldest surviving European settlement in the U.S.
Posted by: Elf Eye | August 31, 2007 11:43 AM
The fact that WingNutDaily censored "balls" with "[testicular fortitude]" is funny in and of itself. How is "balls" supposed to be any more offensive or off-color?
Posted by: Wes | August 31, 2007 11:53 AM
You do realize that most illegals DO pay taxes, especially in places where the local government doesn't have income tax (like Texas, say) - and in fact get less back for them because they don't get a lot benefits and often are using fake SSN numbers and so on? And if they're paid in cash so they don't pay taxes, well so are a lot of good ol' native Americans - people who come around to do my father's yard work and want cash only. Granted some of these people don't have bank accounts, but lots of Americans want to avoid paying taxes. The real cure for that is to clobber the employers who pay like that - and who hire illegals in the first place, generally well knowing what they're doing.
Posted by: The Ridger | August 31, 2007 12:05 PM
Why isn't anyone pointing out that this traitor is selling Japanese cars? That's just money being stolen from America!
Posted by: Cody | August 31, 2007 12:31 PM
This post reminded me of a Family Guy episode:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pn6KErRpNiM
Posted by: plunge | August 31, 2007 12:34 PM
Simply because no one has mentioned it yet...
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus Christ, it's good enough for the children of Texas!"
Attributed to "Ma" and/or "Pa" Ferguson (both governors of Texas during the early 20th century.
Though it occurs to me that neither of them probably employed "Thee" and "Thou" in their normal lexicon.
Posted by: Russ | August 31, 2007 12:50 PM
"Seriously, if you were bothered by someone putting out a commercial in Spanish, shouldn't it bother you even more that there are whole stations broadcasting in Spanish?"
Yes, but he doesn't have to watch those channels. He can surf past the Spanish channels. This ad ran on an English TV channel -- wherehe had to watch it! His beautiful Anglo ears were sullied by the presence of the foul Spanish language -- on his TV channel!
Geez, Ed. You sure are insensitive sometimes.
Posted by: Greta Christina | August 31, 2007 1:08 PM
So why didn't he just take his trusty gun and shoot the TV?
(No, I'm not encouraging anyone to own or use a gun. Or, for that matter, a TV. But this clown sounds like the type that would think such an action would solve the "problem".)
Posted by: blf | August 31, 2007 1:38 PM
Actually, you don't know that the original letter said, "balls." Perhaps it said "cojones" and WND was purging the evil, evil Spanish word.
Posted by: Alex | August 31, 2007 2:53 PM
There's another "Eek - people speak foreign!" news story today: a San Diego to Chicago flight was delayed overnight because a woman freaked out that a bunch of men on the flight were speaking Arabic (later on it came out that the men had been Iraqis visiting Camp Pendleton to help train Marines in Arabic language and Iraqi culture).
There's an article here, but what's more remarkable than the news story are the comments to this article, where quite a few people seem to think that it's entirely reasonable to expect everyone inside the U.S. to always speak English in public, even in conversation with their friends and family.
Posted by: Alex | August 31, 2007 3:13 PM
Whenever I see nonsense like this, I hearken back to my junior high Cincinnati history classes and my own grandfather's stories. A lot of Germans settled in Cincinnati, so many that up until WWI, German was the city's second language. Not just the language the immigrants spoke in Over-the-Rhine, but a language every successful business was prepared to use, a language used in government documents and proceediings, and the default second language taught in public elementary schools. Courts, on being confronted with a witness or party who didn't speak good English, were able to conduct trials in German because everyone-judge, lawyers, court reporers, and parties - was fluent in the "foreign" language. Newspapers were published in German and I'm sure if radio and TV existed, there would have been German language channels.
German, of course, is no longer the second language of Cincinnati. And it was never spoken by scary brown people (although the Know-Nothings in the 19th century sure hated the Germans). Somehow, though, Cincinnati managed to flourish as a bilingual city for a century without destroying our democracy or fracturing our national identity. Nor has the existence of a large Spanish speaking population in the southwestern U.S. since we conquered it a century and a half ago.
People who want to advance - which would include almost all immigrants - eventually learn English. There are reasons to be concerned about illegal immigration, but the threat of Spanish crowding out English is just not one of them.
Posted by: AnneS | August 31, 2007 3:55 PM
I totally do not get this. I talked to a woman from Charlotte NC, where apparently a lot of Spanish speakers are moving in. She bitched like crazy because her bank posted signs in Spanish as well as English. I said, 'think of them as free language lessons.' She said, 'I guess that's one way of looking at it.' It never occurred to her it was an opportunity to broaden her horizons.
(And we were in a resort in Puerto Rico, where speaking a little Spanish came in very handy!)
Posted by: hoary puccoon | August 31, 2007 6:07 PM
I keep getting histrionic emails from my aunt in the Midwest because Hispanic immigrants are moving in to take the de-unionized meat packing jobs there.
I have lived my entire life in the Southwest where bilingual *means* Spanish + English. My general response to her panicky screeds is generally some variation of "um, so?"
Posted by: twincats | August 31, 2007 7:07 PM
My household was bilingual when I was growing up. My protests against this was met with something less than enthusiasm by my parents.
Posted by: gwangung | August 31, 2007 7:48 PM
Question: What do you call someone who speaks three languages?
Answer: Trilingual
Q: What do you call someone who speaks two languages?
A: Bilingual.
Q: What do you call someone who speaks one language?
A: American.
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | August 31, 2007 9:27 PM
Dang! Someone got to the point about German before I did! There was also a big number of German speakers in the Hill country around Texas that only started dying out around the 60s. Besides that, many of the counties along the Brazos river have had significant Italian populations for about as long as they've existed (good farm land). And let's not forget the Creoles and Cajuns of Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, and Alabama. From the start the Union's development has been driven by people either not born here, or of decidedly non-English origins.
Posted by: Julian | August 31, 2007 9:52 PM
My father grew up in Queens speaking both German and Yiddish, German because his father was from Nuremburg and Yiddish because most of the customers of his father's butcher shop were hallel. The shop received four English papers daily, two German and three Yiddish. They had to drop the German papers for WWII.
My father and his brothers all ended up speaking perfect English, of course. And the fact that they were all in the military saved my grandfather from deportation in 1942 (the judge granted his counterclaim for citizenship).
I have a hard time seeing what the threat is here. If the immigrants want to stay in the US and succeed, they will learn English as necessary. If not, we will take advantage of their labor and they will leave on their own at some later date. Celebrate the diversity and let freedonm ring!
Posted by: kehrsam | August 31, 2007 10:16 PM
When has this NOT happened?
Educate the children and the problem disappears, automatically.
Oh, wait. Educate? Hm....
Posted by: gwangung | September 1, 2007 12:17 AM
Is there a more common anti-bilingual mentality in some parts of USA? I just heard that a Finnish man married an american woman, and now this woman insists that they do not teach their children how to speak finnish. This means that their Finnish grandparents can't really communicate with the children.
The way I see it, bilingual people actually have better opportunities in life (education, job). Perhaps this was a case of only one nutter.
Posted by: Paholaisen Asianajaja | September 1, 2007 3:20 AM
The part about the whole Spanish debate that pisses me off is that the entire reason *why* Spanish is practically the second "official" language of the United States is that this country is practically being overrun by illegal Spanish-speaking immigrants who refuse to learn English, while people from the countries of my familes' origins are regularly denied lawful entry.
My families learned English and came here legally. My father's family came from the Philippines, a former US possession that was cut loose specifically for purely racist reasons, yet everyone in the Philippines grows up learing English in school, and it's still the official language of government business in the Philippines--still the Philippines is the hardest country from which to enter the US legally after Mexico. Members of my family have been trying to get here legally for decades, while illegals just walk over the border, and the rest of us are expected to accommodate them?
Ed, people who break the law are criminals, and should certainly not be given any advantagein obtaining legal status. Send them home, and let them apply just like everyone else.
On the other hand, before we start falling over ourselves to grant amnesty or build longer and higher fences, maybe we should take a long hard look at our immigration policies and improve them, because they're pretty fucked up right now.
If I have to choose from different languages even time I hit an ATM, then why can't we just use multi-lingual software like they do in Canada and every country in Europe? It's not as if it would be a major hardship for the software guys.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 4:43 AM
No, Michael, the reason that Spanish is practically the second official language of the United States is the same reason that most countries outside North and South America have significant minorities that speak a "foreign" language. Our border with our Spanish-speaking neighbor moved about a century-and-a-half ago, leaving behind a population of Spanish speakers. We also have a Spanish speaking territory - Puerto Rico - that has sent a lot of legal immigrants our way and over the years a lot of (legal) immigrants and refugees have left Central and South America for the nearest rich country -us. And legal and illegal, most learn some English, even if they don't become fluent, because they want to work.
And the myth that "my ancestors came here and learned English and didn't keep using their foreign language" is so much bullshit. Not only does it imply that the Europeans who immigrated here in the 19th and early 20th centuries were more virtuous for not disobeying laws that didn't yet exist, but it is based on a very skewed perception of the process of cultural integration. Here's what actually happened:
Some immigrants did become fluent in English, but many, possibly most, didn't. Hence the large enclaves of Italian, German, Yiddish, etc. speakers in most American cities and many rural areas. The adults who came over would learn enough English to function in their jobs, but would speak primarily their native language at home and in their communities. Businesses and newspapers catered to them. Their children became bilingual and their children's children eventually abandoned their ancestors' tongues. Since there hasn't been a constant level of European immigration to renew the old communities, the communities have died out along with the first and second generation of immigrants.
Spanish will probably not die out here as German has because (1) there is a large population of Spanish speakers native to the Southwest (that pesky border move) and (2) our geographical proximity to a large number of Spanish-speaking countries guarantees that the immigration (legal and illegal) from them will continue at a relatively high level for the foreseeable future.
And not for nothing, but a large part of the reason that English is widely spoken in the Phillipines is the same reason English is widely spoken in Kenya and India - the Phillipines used to be an American possession. While I'm sure your relatives would be an asset to our country, their ability to speak English is not really a sign of their virtue or eagerness to fit into our culture.
I repeat, there are reasons to be concerned about illegal immigration and our generally screwed up immigration laws, but the threat of Spanish overtaking English just isn't one of them.
Posted by: AnneS | September 1, 2007 9:18 AM
Anne:
Do you have any good statistics as to the population of the territory that we "acquired" from the Mexico in 1848 and 1853?
I didn't imply anything about the virtuosity of my ancestors as opposed to anyone else ancestors who came here *legally*, but perhaps you're so used to underdeveloped arguments that look quite a lot like what I said that you reacted reflexively.
Still, you completely fail to account for the influence of the well-known fact that the vast majority of the estimated 12-20 million illegals here right now come from Spanish-speaking countries to our South. This is *added* to the many millions of legal Spanish-speaking immigrants.
I also said nothing to indicate that I believe English speakers are somehow more virtuous, more eager, or more fit immigrants. What I said is that people who already speak English in some cases have a more difficult time entering the United States legally than some Spanish-speakers who come here illegally, and this is causing not only a cultural shift, but a language shift, that I find annoying because the Spanish-speaking influence would be less if there weren't so many illegal Spanish-speaking people here.
Let me make this perfectly clear. This is not a debate about the merits of Spanish-speakers v. English-speakers. It's a debate about legal v. illegal. Period.
Send the illegals home when ever we find them, and do not accommodate them (within reason) while they are still here illegally. Revise our immigration laws to make it easier for people of all origins to come to the US legally. If that results in a cultural shift, I have no problem with it.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 2:23 PM
Great idea! Send away all the illegal parents, and let's send all their legal children to live in orphanages... Is this what you want? Or perhaps the children who are born in the US, and thus are US citizens, should be shipped off to (relative) poverty to Mexico and South America.
Which do you want, Michael? Let's make it your choice. While your heart might be in the right place, it isn't as easy as you'd make it out to be.
Posted by: doctorgoo | September 1, 2007 2:43 PM
A couple of quotes to consider:
There were 1,266,264 immigrants who were granted legal residence in 2006, up from 601,516 in 1987, 849,807 in 2000, and 1,122,373 in 2005. The top twelve sending countries in 2006, by country of birth: Mexico - 173,753, China, People's Republic - 87,345, Philippines - 74,607, India - 61,369, Cuba - 45,614, Colombia - 43,151, Dominican Republic - 38,069, El Salvador - 31,783, Vietnam - 30,695, Jamaica - 24,976, South Korea - 24,386, Guatemala - 24,146, Other countries - 606,370.[8] In fiscal year 2006, just 202 refugees from Iraq were allowed to resettle in the United States.
The Pew Hispanic Center estimates that in the 1980's the net advance of illegal aliens was at the 130,000 per year increasing to 450,000 /year from 1990-94, and further increasing to 750,000 /year from 1995-1999 and staying at 700-850,000+ /year since about 2000. Illegal Mexican immigration amounts to about 500,000 /year of this influx since about 1999.
So, 500K+ illegal Mexicans alone every year, but only 175K+ legal Mexicans. It can be presumed that the vast majority of the illegal Mexicans are primarily Spanish-speakers.
800K+ illegals a year, of whom the large majority are Mexicans and Central/South Americans, but only 85K legal Chinese, 75K legal Filipinos, and 60K legal Indians.
Do you not see the problem?
Perhaps the influence of legal Spanish-speaking immigrants is enough to justify the language and cultural shift, and if that's the case, I have no problem with it, but how can we possibly allow all cultures equal opportunity to influence the country when we have so many illegals involved?
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 2:47 PM
Michael,
I discussed the question of whether Spanish-speakers in the US are primarily illegal immigrants in a Language Log post.
The answer is: no.
Posted by: Bill Poser | September 1, 2007 3:09 PM
Doctorgoo:
Current US policy grants full citizenship to children born in the US whose parents are not protected from US jurisdiction by treaty (diplomats and such, mainly). Obviously, we should not revoke the citizenship of these children, nor should we forcibly separate families.
There are two solutions to this:
1. Allow the children and their parents to stay.
2. Send the children and their parents back to the parent's country of orgin. Allow the children to return to the US when they are 18.
Take your pick, but I lean toward #1, since #2 is not only somewhat unfair to the children under current policy, but wouldn't necessarily lead to those kids growing up to be good citizens.
However, I advocate a constituional amendment that better defines what it means to be "subject to the jurisdiction thereof". Illegal immigrants fall into a grey area here. The US obviously has the right to subject persons within the borders to its jurisdiction, but the illegals themselves are obviously still citizens of some other country, and really shouldn't be allowed to remain simply because they managed to have a child here. It subverts the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.
This also ties in to United States v. Verdugo-Urquidez, a decision while on seemingly good legal grounds, is nevertheless a terrible decision. Agents of the US should perform their functions under the strictures of US law, regardless of the ground they stand upon.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 3:11 PM
Bill Poser:
I never said that Spanish-speakers in the US were primarily illegal. What I said was that they have a disproportional influence on US culture because a significant number of those Spanish-speakers *are* illegal.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 3:14 PM
Bill Poser:
Let's posit that the numbers in your Language Log are reasonable. So, we have 21,000,000 or so legal Hispanics, many of whom can be presumed to be fully fluent in the English language, and many of whom can be presumed to be fully integrated into US society.
Constrasting with that, we have statistics from Pew estimating (and these numbers are reasonably considered to be *low* estimates) that we have approximately 11,000,000 illegal immigrants now in the US originating from Mexico and Latin/Central America, most of whom can be presumed *not* to be fluent in English, and all of whom are almost by definition *not* integrated into US society in any reasonable fashion (and this doesn't include illegal Spanish-speakers from the rest of the world).
Are you seriously proposing that an illegal influence that amounts to anywhere between 50 and 100% of the legal influence does not amount to a disproportionate influence for Spanish-speakers?
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 3:33 PM
I think you need to demonstrate that this IS a disproportionate influence on the US. AND that this is a negative things.
Posted by: gwangung | September 1, 2007 3:37 PM
Lest anyone get the idea that I am somehow not sympathetic to the plight of Spanish-speaking immigrants to the US, legal or otherwise, let me remind you that I am of Filipino heritage on one side of my family, and the Spanish ruled the Philippines for hundreds of years until the US took the Philippines away from Spain in 1898. So, my people have a fair idea of what it's like to come from a formerly Spanish territory and have to integrate into American culture.
But the rule of law is the rule of law, and we can't set it aside. Again, this isn't about Hispanic v. Everyone Else, it's about legal v. illegal.
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 3:40 PM
Gwangung:
This is simple math. I've already demonstrated the disproportionate influence that Hispanic culture has on the US due to the significant nature of the illegal population.
Are your seriously suggesting that the influence of people who demonstrably will not abide by the law should be welcome in this country?
Posted by: Michael | September 1, 2007 3:44 PM
Michael - My point is simply that Spanish's status as our unofficial second language a) would continue even if illegal immigration stopped tomorrow, and b) even if that weren't true, widespread use of Spanish would not only not be a problem, it wouldn't threaten the status of English as the primary language in the U.S. And I'm sorry, but you did invoke the "learn English like my ancestors did or get out" canard. In reality, most Spanish-speaking immigrants do learn some English, but, like other immigrant groups before them, they find it easier to conduct their day-to-day business in their native tongue. Businesses that want their money cater to this. It really isn't a new or disturbing phenomenon.
All the furor over widespread use of Spanish (especially in places like Florida, California, and the Southwest) sounds more like the nativist xenophobia my German and Italian ancestors faced than valid concern over illegal immigration. I understand your frustration with the immigration system and our porous borders, but the whole Spanish language paranoia thing is a silly distraction that only alienates the tens of millions of Spanish speakers here legally.
Posted by: AnneS | September 1, 2007 4:02 PM
Perhaps you could clarify yourself, but once again you're demonstrating some relatively simplistic thinking here.
If their only crime is that of wanting to provide a good life for themselves and their families by living in the US, then I would hardly consider them hardened criminals who are so far beyond rehabilitation that they shouldn't be welcomed in our country.
And besides this, you seem to have a more liberal view of what's considered "within reason" when it comes to accommodating them while they are still here illegally... you concede that it's probably best to let the illegals with children who are US citizens stay here. But these parents are still illegal, even though the moral thing to do is to let them stay. So you're contradicting yourself when you make simplistic, blanket statements like what I quoted above.
Posted by: doctorgoo | September 1, 2007 4:11 PM
Michael,
I challenge your assumption that large percentages of illegal immigrants are not able to speak English. Study after study shows that Spanish-speaking immigrants to the US overwhelmingly want to learn English and that most eventually do.
Furthermore, the relationship between the use of Spanish in the US and inability to speak English is more complex than you suggest. The great majority of Hispanics in New Mexico, for example, most of whose families have been there for hundreds of years, and in the US for 150 years, speak both English and Spanish. Their continued use of Spanish is not in most cases the result of an inability to speak English. The same is true of Cubans in Florida. Some of the first generation may never have learned English, but the generation born and raised in the United States is bilingual.
I also wonder why you think that illegal immigrants have a large amount of influence. They can't vote and for the most part can't even pettition, demonstrate, and otherwise exert political influence since they don't want to draw attention to themselves. They are mostly poor and so are of relatively little interest to marketers. For the same reason, they can't make large campaign contributions. I suggest that their influence is limited to things like provision of emergency medical care and small, local businesses. Insofar as there is pressure for the increased provision of services in Spanish, it is actually coming primarily from legal residents.
Posted by: Bill Poser | September 1, 2007 5:03 PM
Michael: Leaving aside that Legal vs illegal isn't much of a distinction when it comes down to policy concerns, what was your objection to Verdugo-Urquidez?
Posted by: kehrsam | September 1, 2007 5:07 PM
For some information on the use of English by immigrants, try this article.
Posted by: Bill Poser | September 1, 2007 5:14 PM
Posted by: gwangung | September 1, 2007 9:42 PM
In the '80s and '90s I lived in a largely Greek immigrant neighborhood in Upper Darby PA, and I observed first-hand exactly what AnneS describes- the classic immigrant linguistic pattern, which my own ancestors followed when they came to the USA at the turn of the 20th Century:
The aged cling to their original language and customs- we had no shortage of little old ladies who wore black shawls and spoke only Greek.
Those who arrive in the prime of life quickly learn enough English to make a living, but speak with an accent ever after.
Kids grow up truly bilingual. The kids playing outside on my block could be heard switching from Greek to English without even pausing for breath. More than once I encountered a checker at the local supermarket who chatted in Greek with the black-shawled L.O.L. in line ahead of me and then spoke to me in perfect, Philly-accented English.
When I was in high school, my classmates included kids from Ukrainian and Armenian families, all of whom could speak their ancestral languages. They studied them at church-run after-school classes, just like the Jewish kids went to Hebrew school to receive language and religious instruction. This kind of cultural preservation is also very common in Greek-American communities.
Funny how the wingnuts don't get all bent out of shape about those communities' linguistic habits, is it not?
Posted by: Ktesibios | September 1, 2007 10:50 PM
When did jaywalking at midnight become graft at a bank?
Posted by: Alan Kellogg | September 2, 2007 12:04 AM
All questions and concerns about language aside, hasn't anybody stopped yet to consider how much population growth in the United States is enough?
300 million people is a lot of people. Where will the line be drawn? 500 million? A billion? Where will we all live? And how comfortably? What sort of 'quality of life' issues will we face when there isn't any more room to turn around?
Massachusetts, where I live, has approximately 6 million residents right now. I shudder to imagine it with 12 or 15 million. Rhode Island has just about 1 million people and it's pretty damn crowded.
Imagine it with 5 million.
English/Schminglish - Spanish/Splanish. It isn't about language; population growth is the REAL CONCERN.
Posted by: treestump | September 2, 2007 1:29 AM
Non-English speaking is a new concept to these people? I think this is enough evidence to show that people who leave comments on WND lack a university education. Even one year of college is enough to realize: "Oh snap! Other languages exist"...
Posted by: Shawn Wilkinson | September 2, 2007 5:05 AM
What will the US be like when it has a billion people? And where will they all live?
You mean when it still has a population density less than half that of the UK right now?
Posted by: Rick Pikul | September 2, 2007 12:22 PM
The UK is almost entirely without deserts, mountains and other areas of extremes. Much more of it is highly hospitable to humans, yet it is missing all its once-native megafauna and much else. The US is already relatively crowded and ecologically degraded with 300 million people; it is time to stop. If people of other nationalities find their own situation too crowded and unpleasant, birth control will solve their problem locally instead of moving it elsewhere.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | September 7, 2007 7:38 AM
Immigration from Mexico in particular is making parts of the US dysfunctional; see Cash economy threatens wages, tax base.
Posted by: Engineer-Poet | September 7, 2007 7:41 AM
That's crazy, I'm glad i live in Australia sometimes. Although I don't know if our school systems are any smarter...
Posted by: sean kingston | March 11, 2010 11:07 PM