Escapist Reality: Article / I?m becoming liberal in my old (mid-twenties) age

I?m becoming liberal in my old (mid-twenties) age
by savage on Thursday 19 May 2005

The only thing that pisses me off more than people living in this country speaking languages other than English is people who speak English bitching about people who don?t.

Standard sitcom setup: At Wendy?s waiting in line behind a scruffy looking white guy wearing dirty coveralls who?s probably in his 50s and his young daughter.

Guy orders his meal. Hispanic girl behind the counter, probably early twenties, late teens, takes his order, relays the order in Spanish to the guys behind her. Man says, ?Is speaking English too much work for you??
Girl: Excuse me sir? I don?t understand the question.
Man: Why aren?t you speaking English? Is it too difficult for you to learn?

The man begins to go into a tirade about how if you?re in this country, you should speak English.

Man: Let me ask you, if I was in your country, wouldn?t you expect me to speak your language?
Girl: But what if you didn?t speak that language, wouldn?t you speak English?

That won me over to the girl?s side.

Man: But wouldn?t you expect me to learn your language?

The man begins on the fairly stereotypical story of how when his grandparents or whatever came over they spoke Dutch and German and something else but they learned English. His story doesn?t include how long it took them to learn or the fact that they knew four languages fluently.

A few more stories that neither the girl behind the counter nor I wished to hear or really want to listen to were told until, finally, his food arrives and his opportunity to bitch at the girl about speaking a language other than English is over. He moves on.

Girl: May I take your order?
Me: Hola?.

I used as much basic high-school Spanish as I could remember and when she told me the cost of my order as, ?seis setenta y siete? I gave her siete d?lares, said, ?de nada,? to her, ?gracias,? and got veintitr?s cents back in change.

The girl said to me, her cohort in ethnicity, ?I?m proud of my Spanish heritage.? As she should be. I?m proud of my Irish heritage and if I could speak Gaelic I?d do it all the time. But I can?t. However, I tend to think I have a fairly good understand of English. If I had to rate the two, I?d say the Hispanic girl behind the counter at Wendy?s spoke better, more proper, English than the native white man who felt the need to put down people working hard at a crap job.

I remember my bouts with trying to learn a second language. I came out of it with a black eye and a permanent limp. All the people behind the counter could at least communicate in a second language if not speak it fluently. Could the descendant of immigrants, who spoke four languages, speak anything other than English? My guess is maybe a little Latin from high school and that?s it.

During the drive home, when I decided that this episode was definitely going to become a rant, I tried to understand the mentality of people who get really angry when immigrants speak their native tongue. I can?t remember how extreme I ever got, but I think I remember being one of those people, possible while still in high school, maybe up through my first half decade at college, not quite sure. Either way, I?ve been exposed to some of the specifics of that debate and question. Using the voice of a stereotypical angry, middle-aged, white guy and the voice of me, here?s a little summery dialogue of what I?ve discovered about the situation and at least one side of it:

SAMAWG: Why don?t they learn English?
Me: Well, I remember being told once that ESL (English as a Second Language) classes are always full. They don?t have enough teachers to teach all the people who wish to learn.

Commentary: So, first answer: they can?t learn it magically and it can be tough to get a class.

SAMAWG: Well then there should be more classes.
Me: I agree. So, we both agree that funding should go to these classes?
SAMAWG: Well, I don?t think my taxes should go to that. They should have to learn English before they get here.
Me: Much like your immigrant grandparents you were just speaking of did prior to leaving their communist country, right?
SAMAWG: Well, they didn?t actually know English till after they arrived. But that?s different. Things are different now. These people should have to speak English prior to coming here.
Me: Why, so you can be included in their terribly interesting conversation of, ?One Big Bacon Classic and two orders of Biggie fries.? You just ordered it, you know what she?s telling them, do you really feel so left out of the conversation?

Are people really that mad that the worst jobs in this country are held by people who were born in a different country or culture? Isn?t that sort of the standard story of America. Worst jobs go to latest immigrants. And then, when those immigrants matriculate through the system and a new group of immigrants start arriving, the old immigrants start bitching about the new immigrants and so on.

The guy at Wendy?s seems to me to be the type of person who will travel to a foreign country and eat at a Mc Donald?s instead of trying the local cuisine. Me, I?ve become a huge fan of ethic heritage and diversity. I owe some of that to having crap jobs that are the best some immigrants can get and I owe some of that to people like Aregenthos who have exposed me to quite a bit of ethnic food I might never have tried otherwise.

But what really got me into a ranting mood was that this girl put with up with this guy?s crap pretty perfectly and he ignored it, flat out dismissed her counter argument because it would have totally disarmed his argument. He truly feels they should have learned English instantaneously the moment they were in America and he really doesn?t want to hear otherwise.

How is it that he expects this to happen? I took Spanish 2-B three times in high school before I could form a complete thought in my head without having to look up every word. It wasn?t until the tail end of four years of studying it that I finally was able to form sentences properly instead of simply straight translated English into broken, mispronounced Spanish. If I was a more serious student, I would have, after four years, been fairly competent at speaking Spanish. So, yeah, maybe if I was a better student and a lot of people around me spoke Spanish all the time, then I would have learned it quicker. But you?re still looking at years before it?s all there. I find that a lot of Americans simply think learning English should happen quicker.

Not withstanding that English is possibly the hardest language in the world to learn (I?ve been told), the people who are complaining that immigrants don?t learn a second language quick enough tend to only speak one language themselves. American?s are on such a high horse because we?re pleasantly isolated from everyone. In Europe everyone speaks three to five languages, standard ? Cause they HAVE to. Some of the countries over there make Rhode Island look big. So, to communicate, they know multiple languages. America?s fraggin? huge. We can travel hundreds of miles and expect/know our native English (in its many varied regional forms ? ?How do you drink a cabinet??) will be there to welcome us with the pleasant ease of communication. Yet we?re mad when we can?t listen in as the fry cook confirms an order.

(Maybe he?s saying something about us ? the paranoid American thinks)

I?m not necessarily mad at the guy at Wendy?s because I don?t necessarily think he?s at fault. He certainly believes what he is saying makes sense and he probably listens to or watches news personalities who echo the very same ideas.

It took me a moment to even try to explain, to work out in my mind, how one person can think that way. And I credit my theory classes for giving me the vocabulary to really express what?s happening.

The guy, who is fully absorbed into the heterosexual, white, male, hierarchy, and as such is a full believer, even if he isn?t aware that he is, of the binary of his position, the position of the native American English speaker, as the right, and the other, the immigrants, as the wrong. It?s not even a question of, ?I am right and you are wrong.? It?s, ?I am right.? There is no, ?you? to be wrong. He does not view the immigrants as people, he views them as objects. As things that should do what he feels they should do. And because they are simply objects, real life factors such as time ? it takes time to learn a second, or third, or fourth language, and while learning they still exist in the real world as people ? or the availability of learning institutions ? if classes are full they cannot begin learning and yet they still do exist while they wait ? or the pride a person can have in their own heritage and a desire to speak their native tongue.

If we don?t consider them people, we don?t have to think about them, we only have to expect them to live up to our expectations, however unrealistic they may be. It?s not this guy?s fault that he sees other people as objects. It?s how he was raised and it?s what is reinforced by those and that which surrounds him. When the only times you encounter someone speaking a foreign language is when you order food from a fast food restaurant, that becomes your opinion of fast food workers. If that is your only experience with immigrants, then that also becomes your opinion of immigrants. If you do not make the effort to break the bonds of the matrix you are in, then you will not see things differently, ever.

Some people could possibly go through their whole lives without ever becoming aware that they are caught within an ideology that is dictating their very thoughts. Some people need to be awoken by others.

People can change. I do believe that. To hate the person now because of one moment, one action they did is to objectify them the very way they objectified someone else. I?m not saying grab some placards and let?s go protest. This is a rant, not a rally. But it wouldn?t hurt to take a moment, even a very short, single breath?s worth moment, to think about why you?re about to bitch at someone. You can still bitch. That?s your prerogative. Just, make sure you?re doing it for the right reasons.

- Savage

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Comments ...

Requiem | 19 May : 19:31

Comments: 35

Registered: 14 Jun : 20:37

Yea! The republican saw the wizard and got a heart.

Ha ha! Good rant dude. Though I have a few things to say on this subject too (being a California resident). I totally agree with what you're saying, but I do sometimes get annoyed when I go to the bank and all the deposit slips and ATM promts read in spanish first, then in english second. It makes me feel like I'm the one who's in another country. But I don't blame the immigrants for that.
Also I do feel bad sometimes when mexicans come into my store and ask if I speak spanish. What can I say? I never thought I would be living in California so I never learned it. You can't help but pick up some spanish out here though, so I can sort of communicate with them a little. Before I moved here I didn't even know what a tamali was.
I have made one observation that sort of puzzles me though. Just about every fast food place and most restaurants are staffed with mexicans who know a minimal amount of english... exept for Taco Bell or any mexican restaurants. Those are staffed by all white people! I just don't get it.
Maybe it is a pride thing like you said. Perhaps the mexicans would rather serve you a greasy burger, than forsake their heritage with what Taco Bell tries to pass off as mexican food.

savage | 25 May : 07:51

Comments: 52

Indeed, there is a pride in heritage from immigrants and sense of shame that seems to permeate from certain American natives. Several generations ago, my family came from Ireland, and to this day I still dig that part of me. However, maybe more importantly, I'm an American with Irish ancestry ? I?m an American first. I'm proud to be an American, where at least I know I'm free (sorta, kinda, maybe... I like that song).

I don't really mind, in fact I encourage, helping immigrants. But as you've experienced, helping them should not mean privileging them over us. If they came to this country for the right reasons (which ever those may be, for now I'll go with the optimistic ideal of becoming an American and living a better life and gaining opportunities for themselves and their children) then steps should be taken to help them assimilate into OUR (American) culture.

I don't really mind having options on the ATM (though I know it does piss of a lot of people), though I do feel that English should be the first option. I also feel that if they're going to have multiple languages, they should include more than just Spanish. My general opinion is that if you're trying to show how accepting you are of other cultures then you should do it by including ALL the cultures.

Make the list 100 languages long, it's not like the translations don't already exist. Start the list with English then Spanish for convenience, but then go crazy. I expect to see everything from Japanese, to Latin, to Babylonian, to ancient Sumerian and up through the Sumerian revival of the mid-to-late 1400s.

Really, though, what I would like to see is that if Spanish or another language is selected, then display the words in that language followed by the English translation of it. Tools such as providing language options on ATMs should help but not be a crutch. Let them get their money, check their balance, do whatever, but make it a learning experience.

And, since I want to end this on a good idea turned silly, let's apply that to English too. You should be able to set an option to include a second language following the English listing. Think of it: Next time to you go to France, you will already know how to work the ATMs! Granted, you probably won?t need to know French ATMs lingo as they probably have the English language option on them so that visitors to their country feel welcomed. But, then again, it?s France.

- Savage

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