Speaking Spanish - Speaking English

Hablando Español - Speaking Spanish  - Hablando Ingles - Speaking English

A student of mine told me that while working at Walgreens in Houston, she encounters all sorts of issues about what language she speaks.  This is a young woman who immigrated from Mexico, is a successful college student and fluently bi-lingual in English and Spanish.

She says that when a customer arrives, she generally greets them in Spanish (since it is her first language).  If that person is not an immigrant (but Latino) they often become angry with her and demand she speak English.  

She has tried speaking English to customers and often they become angry because she is not speaking Spanish.

What is the answer?

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Last week while my brother was in the hospital, a chaplain told my mother that he thought she spoke really good English.  I told the man that my Mom is a 7th generation Texan.  Even though her border Spanish is perfect (Spanish is her first language), she ought to speak good English - she is 85 years old and has lived in Texas all her life, graduated from a Texas high school...

It bothered me that he said that, but then, why should it be offensive?  Was it because the man was implying that my mother was an immigrant....  and at another level, he was being patronizing....  slightly insulting.  He was also showing us that he believed all Latinos are the same.

Why would be insultive to tell someone they speak good English?  Why is it patronizing to say imply you believe someone is an immigrant?

Because when a very very American person tells another they speak good English they are probably really saying "You aren't so bad for being a Mexican (or Hispanic).  

Funny, when I am in Mexico or another Spanish speaking country and people tell me that my Spanish is good, I am not insulted.... so what's the difference?  Maybe its because I am truly learning Spanish.  It is my second language.  I was not fluent until my 40s.  It has taken a lot to learn it and be able to read everything I encounter in Spanish.  I can certainly say its one of the best things I ever did.  A whole world of reading is now available to me.  Professionally it has also made my research so much more thorough... now that I am writing about Guadalupe and the Jews, I can read what the academics in Mexico and Spain say about the Jews and the Conversos, and the Inquisition....

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more on this later

Bilingualism -- only an issue in the U.S. - Part I

The argument about bilingualism is only a big deal around here because the other language we are talking about is Spanish. If it was French it would be a different story.

Did you know that the Department of Homeland Security offers a special pass (if you are able to get security clearance) - the pass lets you go through security check points very quickly. The web page of course is in English, it offers the form in one other language, French!

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September 28, 2008, 7:57 pm
The Bilingual Debate: English Immersion

By Lance T. Izumi
Series logo

In this installment of Education Watch, Bruce Fuller and Lance T. Izumi discuss the candidates’ positions on bilingual education. Go to Mr. Fuller’s post.

Lance T. Izumi, a senior fellow in California studies and the senior director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy, is the co-author of the book “Not as Good as You Think: Why the Middle Class Needs School Choice.” (Full biography.)

Making effective appeals to Hispanic voters is a tricky business. Barack Obama’s education proposals are a case in point.

Mr. Obama’s campaign notes that, “African-American and Latino students are significantly less likely to graduate than white students,” which is true. To combat such achievement gaps, Mr. Obama’s education plan specifically advocates, among other things, “transitional bilingual education” for English-learners. Yet, the question for Mr. Obama is whether his commitment to bilingual education, which emphasizes classroom instruction in languages other than English, overrides his interest in closing achievement gaps.

Take, for example, Sixth Street Prep, a charter elementary school in eastern Los Angeles County. The school’s students are overwhelmingly Hispanic and low income. More than a third of the students, many of whom are recent arrivals, are learning English. Yet, among fourth graders, an astounding 100 percent of the students tested at the proficient level on the 2008 state math exam. A nearly equally amazing 93 percent of fourth graders tested proficient on the state English-language-arts exam. This incredible success was achieved using a different ingredient than the one favored by Mr. Obama.

Sixth Street emphasizes review and practice, constant assessment of skills and a no-excuses attitude. Furthermore, and here’s where Mr. Obama should take note, according to Linda Mikels, Sixth Street’s principal, the school’s instructional approach for English learners is “full immersion.” English immersion emphasizes the near-exclusive use of English in content instruction. Ms. Mikels, who opposes bilingual education, told me, “we’ve had tremendous success with having a student who is brand new from Mexico and you would walk into a classroom 12 months later and you wouldn’t be able to pick out which one he was.” “It’s working,” she observed, “it’s working for us.”

Would Mr. Obama hold up a school like Sixth Street Prep as one model for replication by other schools with large Hispanic and English-learner populations? The school’s achievement results should make the answer to that question a no-brainer, but the education politics within his own party (the National Education Associations has been a long-time supporter of bilingual education) and his own consistent support for bilingual education obscure predicting Mr. Obama’s response.

While he agrees that immigrants should learn English, Mr. Obama recently trivialized the issue when he said that people should stop worrying about “English-only” legislation. Instead, he said, “you need to make sure your child can speak Spanish.”

If Mr. Obama truly wishes to close achievement gaps, he should carefully consider education models that work rather than scorn or trivialize them.

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Bilingualism- only an issue in the U.S. - Part II

Comments from NYT article on bilingualism.

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It would be interesting to find out how classes are taught in Switzerland, which is tri-lingual.

— Posted by John

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Our maid had a child within two months of my wife delivering our own second child. Five years later, we managed to get our maid’s child into the same public school to which our child went. But she got kicked out for misbehaving and sent to a local school near where our maid lived. Unfortunately, this was a school that mandated that Spanish to be used to teach the students. 13 years later, our child was headed to an elite college and our maid’s daughter was barely able to finish high school. Do I think that our son was brilliant and our maid’s daughter was stupid? No. But it’s very interesting that our maid’s daughter spoke English with a Spanish accent even though she was born and reared 100% in this country. I think back to the day a decade earlier that our maid cried to us that they were teaching her child in Spanish and that she wanted her to learn English in school so that she could do well in this country. To my limited experience, therefore, it’s a really bad idea to teach students who need to work and compete in English to depend upon Spanish.

— Posted by Gary
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Speaking as someone who has taught ESL, using very different models in different high schools with different clientele, I am struck by how much the debate about the quantity of English in the class quickly devolves from a sensible search for the best strategy to an ideological war that produces some very silly teaching strategies. With a little common sense, we can quickly dispatch with some of the silliest of these extremes. For example, using the student’s second language when they first arrive makes sense only if the teacher has a homogeneous group and a basic grasp of the languages students bring into the room. I speak Spanish, and when I had a room full of Spanish speakers, I could use Spanish words to compare true and false cognates, to explain which rules are similar and which are different, etc. But when my classes were filled with students who spoke Chinese (I can hardly manage please and thank you without messing up the tones) this strategy was beyond me. Some folks worry that the use of any of the student’s first language is somehow unpatriotic or counter productive. To these folks I’d say, if you went to another country where you didn’t speak the language, as much as you’d want the instruction to center around the new language and move you to a conversational level, you’d certainly hope the initial instructions could be provided in your language, and that you could ask questions, in English, about how to express certain ideas. Those who favor the use of full bilingual teaching often seem to imply that the English-only folks are disrespectful or even downright racist. Though some of the people who espouse these views outside of education may be just that, people who have dedicated their lives to teaching kids (probably, hopefully) aren’t trying to hurt them because of some external political agenda. Because every class of students is different, and because every teacher’s grasp of foreign languages is different, I’m very glad to see that Senator Obama isn’t the type to jump on one example and try to force it on other schools. We teachers don;t benefit from that kind of armchair quarterbacking, and our kids certainly don’t, either. Instead, he’s voiced the principles that all ESL teachers should hold: Teach every child English, and do it in the way that works the best for that child. It’s not racist or evil to admit that our kids will need to be fully fluent in English to be successful in our society, and it’s not unpatriotic to admit that sometimes it can be helpful to use a little of the student’s first language to make that happen.

— Posted by Ben Gorman
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Just one more thought to add: As someone who predominantly teaches literature to native speakers now, it will be very helpful to have a President Obama who shows my students just what a mastery of the English language can sound like, instead of someone like our current president, who shows them that they can butcher the language (and get mostly C’s in school), but if they have a father who is president and lack a conscience, they can still manage to become president, albeit to disastrous effect. I encourage you all to consider what it has been like, over the last seven years, to try to impart the simple values that education matters, that grammar matters, that using real words matters to high school students who see Dubya on the news each night.

— Posted by Ben Gorman
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I 100% agree on your belief in the power of English immersion. That faith is based on my personal experience as an exchange student in France, the experience of my daughter as an exchange student in France, and the experience of a number of primarily Asian foreign exchange students who have lived with my family here in America over the years. One school year is enough time to become fluent in an immersion setting. This is especially true for young children who have the greatest facility in learning a new language.

— Posted by ANC


Obama’s not trivializing educational models. Reading the linked article, it’s clear that he was discussing isolationism, not pedagogical philosophy.

The elephant in the room is that most of the arguments for English-only education come not from education experts, but from jingoist laymen. Obama was trying to point out the dangers of that outlook; the world is shrinking rapidly, and kids (and adults) really are at an advantage when they can read and speak more than one language.

While the success of Sixth Street’s program is impressive, as a lay-reader of this article I wonder if there is sufficient evidence that English-only is the cause of their success. I’d be interested to read further research from education experts. (I.e., actual peer reviewed research, not politically motivated pronouncements from people or organizations with an agenda.) If it does turn out that English-only is the path to educational success, then that point needs to be clearly made and not mixed up with positions on isolationism and jingoism.

— Posted by Hopskotch
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Greetings from a bilingualism researcher in Japan. Bilingual education is a field that should never be politicized, first of all. The bilingualism discipine has an established body of research and theory that proves elusive to sound bites, because the common sense of a given society is insufficient, and rigorous scientific analysis is necessary. Even when academics from other fields enter the debate, the gaps in their understanding are apparent, and it becomes a choice of which values are agreeable. For example, the use of the fine-sounding “immersion” in both articles should be corrected to “submersion,” which more realistically portrays what the learner experiences. “Immersion” in the bilingual education field always means that language majority students, like Japanese speakers in Japan or native English speakers in the U.S., learn regular school subjects 50% or more in a foreign language. There is no danger of majority students losing native language proficiency and being thus submerged, drowning in the unfamiliar, or losing linguistic ties with their families. One charter school cannot be generalized to the more common public school experience. It is true that the school staff members need precisely this correct knowledge of bilingualism that is surrounded by misconceptions and politics. Schools should at least be free to act on their best knowledge and staff abilities. Being against bilingual education is often a politically motivated cutting off of informed choices. Is it not absurd that high school students are struggling to start to learn Spanish and other languages for future international trade and communication while the native languages of immigrants are left to rot along with their cognitive abilities? Sweden manages to teach children in a hundred native languages, and Europeans are generally multilingual, because they prioritize international communication. My half-Japanese younger son was just realizing that a lot of foreigners don’t speak Japanese, and being bilingual in Japanese was another cool thing about his dad. How about the rest of you? There is plenty of unused space in growing and mature brains for multilingualism and multiculturalism if you weed out the propaganda.
(Prof.) Steve McCarty in Osaka

— Posted by Steve McCarty
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I live in Iowa City, about twenty miles away from West Liberty, Iowa. There they have a bilingual school system that starts in kindergarten. They have a large Hispanic population and ten years ago they started a voluntary bilingual program. About 40% of the district starts the program in kindergarten. Not only do the Anglo kids who opt for the program learn both Spanish and English but the Hispanics kids learn proper Spanish, not street Spanish. The voluntary program continues to expand.

— Posted by tim
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America is more isolated in the world than she should be, because of the lack of proficiency in a wide range of languages among her citizens. This is ironic given that immigration is the backbone of our nation.

Bilingual education, done properly, will result in students who have a very good mastery of English and who also have academic skills in their native tongue or their parents’. Whether or not their English is as perfect as it would be in a monolingual classroom, I think that there is substantial value in having educated bilinguals in our community, something that gets lost in strictly monolingual classrooms.

— Posted by Greg Shenaut
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Look up look way up, yes that’s Canada up there, and guess what we are Bi lingual. Even if you live in Red Necked Alberta, home of the Calgary Stampede, Yahoo, if you want a trial in French no problem. Canada has spent Billions on making this a priority, to save the French Language is to save the French Culture. Personally I don’t give a s–t about French, but we got it, so if you need help being Bi-lingual, or you just want to study ways we have made teaching a second language to people from all, and I mean, all over the world, check it out.

Lary Waldman

— Posted by Lary Waldman
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23.
September 29th,
2008
10:44 am

If the student who is “brand-new from Mexico” cannot be distinguished from others after 12 months, he or she is probably very adept at accessing peer assistance and hiding what he or she does not know. The difference may not be noticeable to the casual classroom visitor, but for this student academic language competence is years away.

— Posted by Catherine
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Obviously Mr. Izumi hasn’t done his homework. He claims that support for bilingual education has a detrimental effect on English Learners’ academic achievement. He needs to read the report from the esteemed panel of experts convened by the federal government, the National Literacy Panel for Language Minority Children & Youth (August & Shanahan, 2006). The 12 member panel reviewed 292 scientifically sound research studies over 4 decades that show a clear advantage for English learners who acquire reading skills in their native language, which is accomplished through effective well-implemented bilingual education programs. Prof. Claude Goldenberg of Stanford University quantified the native-language reading advantage, pointing out that bilingual readers have a 12 to 15 percentile point advantage over their English learner peers taught exclusively in English. Izumi either ignores or doesn’t know the research findings on the effectiveness of bilingual instruction, which are among the most robust in educational research. Shame on Mr. Izumi for arguing a position that is totally unsupported by the authoritative educational research. His ignorance of the research findings exposes the ideology rather than the science that drives his opinion about bilingual education. Sen. Obama is right. There is every reason for him to support Latino voters’ rights (and the rights of all parents who want their children to have the bilingual advantage) to establish and choose bilingual education programs.

— Posted by Jill Kerper Mora
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If the goal is to help the child, Dr. Izumi’s proposal is unquestionably best. The history of my country (USA) show Immersion in the local language works far faster and with clearer understanding than teaching in the language of the childs past. Immersion language instruction does however require Teachers with broader training in languages and culture than usually found in most local elementary schools in the USA. Principal Mikels is right on. On this one, Senator Obama is simply wrong.
-XL

— Posted by Axl


Research in the field of applied linguistics shows that English only education is not necessarily the best method for ESL students, despite the success of this method in one instance. Success in the language classroom encompasses far more than simply language proficiency and is determined by factors other than a high score on a test. The goal of any teacher or ESL program should be to foster the overall academic success and well-being of the students. Using an ESL student’s first language in the classroom enhances cognitive development, offers the student the chance to be fully literate in two languages and functionally bi-lingual (which opens many career possibilities for students in the future) and is beneficial for the student’s self-esteem and cultural identity. Academic articles such as “Reexamining English Only in the ESL Classroom” by E. Auerbach or “It’s not my Job” by Oxelson and Lee support the use of the heritage language in the ESL classroom. The success of a teaching method is highly dependent on the dynamic of the classroom. Because each classroom has students of different backgrounds and skill levels, it is impossible and foolish to say that any one method, such as English Only, will be successful for all ESL classrooms.

— Posted by Charlotte Peterson
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My father remembers getting disciplined and shamed for speaking spanish at school; native american children were stolen and beaten when they spoke anything other than english. My father nearly lost his ability to speak spanish and entire generations of children ended up unable to speak to their parents and grandparents.

What people are afraid of is the isolationist and jingoistic tone (thank you Hopskotch) that frequently infiltrates the discussion on bilingualism. I think that kids should learn as many languages as possible. I’m proud of my little cousin who is three but can converse easily in english or spanish. It is important to teach children english BUT we HAVE to be careful that they don’t lose their native language. unfortunately, I don’t ever hear that concern for balance coming from anti-bilingual education folks.

— Posted by Bernardette
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How many Presidents have been bi-lingual? How many member of the congress are bi-lingual?

Now, how many of them were required to study another language in both high school AND college?

I was just in Barcelona, the waiter at this cheap restaurant spoke three languages FLUENTLY.

I have America friends in Germany. Their two kids spoke three languages fluently by age 8: English, German and French. so did the other kids in neighborhood. They also knew some Italian.

John Kerry studied in Switzerland and downplayed his ability to speak another language. Apparently in America that makes one elitist.

Jackie Kennedy, on the other hand, was treated like a demi-goddess because she spoke French!!!! Imagine that? She took French in school and learned it! Isn’t that amazing??!

— Posted by Mark W
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f teaching a child in Spanish makes her a maid, and teaching her in English makes her a lawyer, where to we get our bilingual lawyers for NAFTA cases, international negotiations, etc? I am able to be a historian of Latin America because I learned Spanish in high school. Should the children of Spanish-speaking parents also have to learn Spanish in high school if they want to be scholars or executives or diplomats or travel directors or container-ship captains or alpaca-fleece buyers or high-school Spanish teachers with native accents or any of the huge number of jobs where speaking and writing Spanish and English equally well is very important? Shouldn’t we try to preserve and improve all our immigrant kids’ native language skills as a way of helping connect the US to the rest of the world? I’ve seen this point made already here, and I’m glad.
Are some people really arguing that we should intentionally make kids lose their native language so that their English will be better? That knowing a foreign language is too dangerous for immigrants and should be restricted to the native born? I hope not, but it sounds like they might be.
Does anyone on the pro bilingual side really object to using immersion-style classes for teaching English (as opposed to refusing to give any tutoring or content help in a native language)?
Is there no middle ground? No program in which everything is taught in English, but there’s a class in formal Spanish or French or Hebrew or Portuguese or Cantonese or Korean or whatever foreign languages have enough students to justify the class? No program in which the English classes are designed to prepare students to study, say, history in English after a year, math in English after 2 years, geography in English after 3 years, earth science after 4 years, etc? I have advised college students doing poorly because their English classes hadn’t taught them the words they needed for calculus — I assume something similar happens in grade school, and could be fixed.

— Posted by Sam Martland
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Too much of this discussion is either/or, black and white. I grew up in 4 foreign countries where, each time, and have lots of experience with language learning (and being thrown into new environments without much warning as a child). Immersion is great, but children also need some grounding in their own language. If parents are illiterate themselves or not providing Spanish-language reading material and complex language interactions at home, and the kid is in an immersion program, it will be detrimental to the kid.
Immersion is great for some subjects, but in that case children should also have a class in Spanish-language literature and culture, with practice in writing in Spanish. The non-Hispanics could be in a language-learning class of their own at that time.
I’m fluent in 4 languages, but my comprehension for complex content will always be fastest, easiest, and least effortful in English. If I had had to stop learning in English completely while I was growing up, I would have been an intellectually stunted and discouraged and bored person.

— Posted by cls

What Language Do You Speak at Work?

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January 27, 2008
Under New Management
When English Is the Rule at Work
New York Times
By KELLEY HOLLAND

MEMBERS of Congress are battling. Blogs are trading complaints. Conservative commentators are grumbling about government overreaching into the workplace.

Why the fuss?

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, using authority it has had for more than a quarter-century, sued the Salvation Army last year over its requirement that employees in its office in Framingham, Mass., speak only English on the job — a requirement that cost two Spanish-speaking clothing sorters their jobs. The suit has landed in the middle of the virulent national debate over immigration and assimilation.

“Hot and bothered” would be a way to describe the political climate of the issue, said Reed Russell, legal counsel of the E.E.O.C.

Under the Civil Rights Act, rules limiting which languages can be spoken in a workplace are allowed only if they are nondiscriminatory and if they serve a clear business or safety purpose. In 2004, the Salvation Army decided to enforce an English-only rule after the sorters had been working in the Framingham store for several years, the commission’s complaint said. The commission found no such reason for the limitation. A Salvation Army spokesman declined to comment on the specifics of the case, which is pending, but the organization says it believes there is no legal basis for the suit.

Politicians like Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee, have jumped into the fray. Last year, Mr. Alexander introduced legislation to prevent the commission from suing over English-only rules. After that measure died in conference committee, he introduced a similar one in December.

“This bill’s not about affecting people’s lunch hour or coffee break — it’s about protecting the rights of employers to ensure their employees can communicate with each other and their customers during the
working hours,” he said in a recent statement. “In America, requiring English in the workplace is not discrimination; it’s common sense.”

Time out, everyone. Let’s think about what really makes sense here.

Certainly, safety issues arise in some workplaces. The Federal Aviation Administration, for example, requires air traffic controllers to “be able to speak English clearly enough to be understood over radios, intercoms, and similar communications equipment.”

Managers may also need employees who can speak English to English-speaking customers. And they may hear complaints if English-speaking employees say they feel excluded or gossiped about when colleagues converse in another language. Such situations, in fact, gave rise to English-only rules in the first place.

“When employers call, asking if they can implement English usage rules, it’s usually because they have safety concerns,” said Wendy Krincek, a lawyer at Littler Mendelson, an employment law firm. “Or they have Spanish speakers and non-Spanish-speaking employees think they’re being talked about, or supervisors only speak English and they are monitoring how people speaking Spanish interact with co-workers and customers. You’ve got to show a business necessity.”

But from a management standpoint, these rules should be a last resort.

Good management depends on communication in every direction. If some employees are more comfortable speaking a language other than English, particularly over lunch or during breaks, and it has no effect on customers or safety or ability to function, it is hard to see the purpose of cutting that off. It is also hard to see how conversing in a foreign language is more off-putting than endless tapping on a BlackBerry.

Nonetheless, in a study of Latina executives published last October by the Center for Work-Life Policy, many said they refrained from speaking Spanish at work because they felt that doing so would hurt them professionally.

“Women told us they don’t speak Spanish on the phone to customers because it is such a black mark in their corporate culture,” said Sylvia Ann Hewlett, the founding president of the center. “The immediate judgment is they’re talking to their girlfriends or mothers or whatever. Spanish is not associated with business connections. It’s associated with gossiping or wasting time.”

One respondent, a Dominican marketing executive at a consumer products company, said her company discouraged her from speaking Spanish to Latin American customers — even though, she said, it helped her build relationships with them.

Wachovia, the bank based in Charlotte, N.C., has some experience, albeit indirect, with English-only rules. In the 1990s, First Union, a bank later acquired by Wachovia, was sued in federal court over its English-only policy. (The case was dismissed in 1995 on summary judgment.) But with Wachovia offering financial services nationwide and overseas, a diverse work force is almost a necessity, said Sharon Matthews, director of work-force policy.

The bank has call-center employees who can respond to customers in a variety of languages. And Wachovia actively recruits employees who speak more than one language, she said. “We expect our employees to be able to speak with colleagues in English, but we also place a great emphasis on bilingual or multilingual skills,” she said.

E-mail: newmanage@nytimes.com.


for link to article click title of this post

A Conversation About Immigration Policy

Below are some questions posted by a reader regarding immigration policy - with my responses.

Dear Alexander,

It seems best to respond to your questions and comments on a blog post. I am sure many other readers will be interested in what you had to say.

1. Americans will always vote to preserve their nation's sovereignty over the bias of some ethnic minority.

You are probably right about the nation voting to preserve its sovereignty, its been one of the main trajectories since we separated from England.

2. Who cares what Hispanics think.

I think most people don't care what Hispanics/Latinos think. Just like most people don't have much interest in Catholics or 7th Day Adventists. Usually if you really care about a group of people you have some other special type of connection. Probably the people most concerned about Latinos now are political campaign managers. I'm not saying they care in a good way, just that they seem to be encouraging their candidates to spend lots of time on this subject (or avoiding it). If you would take the sarcasm out of your statement your argument would be more effective.

3. Most want open borders

.

You might be right on this one, at least a majority probably want open borders. But there are many that are as angry about immigration as you are.

I think what U.S. residents and citizens who are Latino really want is a fair, safe, system for people to immigrate to our country. One of the main problems now is that its almost impossible to come here legally unless you are wealthy or have a particularly much needed profession.

Many are for open borders because its hard to imagine keeping people from coming here. Its an extremely complicated situation that involves economics, international politics, patience and calm.

4. You are talking like they already run the United States of America

.

The voting block is getting to be very large, and there is a good chance this group will influence national (and many local) elections in the near future. But I certainly don't think Latinos run the country. Right now it seems that Bush/Cheney and their gang unfortunately still have lots of control.

5. Most...are too blinded by the needs of their relatives "back home"

Most people who left close relatives behind would probably be obsessed with getting them here -safely. But there are many who have no relatives in other countries, there is no "back home" - Remember there have been Latinos in the U.S. since before it was the U.S. There is a whole group (a few hundred) that migrated here from northern Mexico (the Linares area) in about 1750 - they were with the Santander expedition. They have many many descendants in the American southwest. Lots has been written about it.. you might want to check it out sometime.

6. Guess what. They do not.
That is why you will NOT see "comprehensive immigration reform" But you will see 700 miles of fence
and more deportations.

Yes, that is why we still don't have comprehensive immigration reform - and so many deportations. The small, but very vocal group of anti-immigrationists are running the show at the moment. But I think its only temporary. You underestimate the power of American corporations. Business will win over in the end - because the workers are needed.

7. Not because we are mean.

I guess that is what is so hard to understand. How can you not be hard hearted when you encourage sending children to deportation camps, separate families, and insult people? I know there is another side of you that is reasonable and fair, that you are probably a good family man. So the question is, why does this bring out the bad side of you? I know, most people say, its that they can't stand someone being here illegally. Ok, so that bothers people, but then if that is true, why do people tolerate so many other types of illegalities?

8. It will be because of
Mexican arrogance, articles like this, and millions marching in American cities with Mexican flags

Don't you think there is arrogance on both sides? Millions marched, but millions from the other side blasted the U.S. Senate with emails and faxes. Just an aside - it seems to be the American way - to be arrogant.

9. Next time write your blog in Spanish so you do not alienate most of your readers

.

My Spanish is not that good for writing a whole blog (its my second language)- and most of the people who read this blog can't read Spanish that well anyway. Remember that group that came here in 1750? Well their descendants mostly can't speak Spanish. Serious academic studies see that by the second generation the Spanish is just about gone. It may not seem that way because Spanish is everywhere these days... and true this is because of ongoing immigration and globalization.

Maybe a better question is why is it so difficult to accept people speaking another language? Most people in Europe do. Many people in Africa know French or English besides their native language. Most people in India speak English.

A good number of people don't like to be around those who speak different language because they are concerned the non-English speakers are talking about them. But believe me, they have a lot on their minds, much more than talking about the Anglo person* nearby.

Hope this clarifies a few things. Your comments are welcome. All that is required is that you be respectful.



*I use the word Anglo, because (you may be surprised) a large number of Hispanics/Latinos are white. Anglo means non-Hispanic white person.

Siendo bilingue es muy ventajoso/Being Bilingual is Very Advantageous

The United States is behind the times. In this age of globalization, most of the rest of the world acknowleges that its helpful, even necessary to know more than one language.

In Europe, many Italians know at least 2-3 languages, same with France, Germany, Belgium.

We look to Europe so we can emulate them... we are intrigued by the French... so why does everybody get upset when a car dealership advertises in Spanish?

Sure, its just an excuse to send out a little hatred. What else could it be?

I know my fellow Americans are intelligent thoughtful people, seeing advertisements in another language won't upset them. They are happy to see that Stewart has gone to the trouble of learning a few Spanish words.

By the way, the complainers who are angry with Stewart's use of Spanish must not know that MOST Latinos in the U.S. were born here.... they can't go back to a place they don't belong.

Hey, even Beyonce Knowles is learning Spanish.


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IN MY OPINION

English language not endangered
Posted on Sun, Oct. 21, 2007
By LEONARD PITTS
lpitts@MiamiHerald.com


La gente dice que Earl Stewart lo hizo sólo por el poderoso dólar.

(People say Earl Stewart did it only for the almighty dollar.)

El dice que tienen razón.

(He says they're right.)

What's that? The subtitles are distracting? Fine, I'll stop.

But the point here is, all Stewart wanted to do was sell Toyotas. It's something he's been doing for 33 years as the proprietor of Earl Stewart Toyota in Palm Beach County. Then he hit upon an idea he thought might expand his market: Spanish-language commercials with English subtitles. The spots run on English-language television and, though he speaks no Spanish, Stewart stars in them himself.

The subtitles, he says, were an afterthought. 'I said, `You know, I'm going to be talking to a lot of people that don't speak Spanish so, as a courtesy or to explain what I'm doing, maybe I should use English subtitles.' It was really an effort on my part, albeit a failure, to be nice to the monolingual folks.''

The ''monolingual folks'' were not feeling the love -- putting it mildly. Stewart says the commercial brought him a ''flood'' of angry, often profane e-mails and phone calls, nine out of every 10 sharply critical of his commercial. As described by Stewart, the complaints tended to be longer on emotion than on logic.

For instance, they said that by advertising in Spanish, he encouraged Spanish-speakers to avoid learning English. But he was advertising on English stations, so anyone watching presumably already spoke the language.

And people kept referencing Mexico, usually in sentences that began with, ''Why don't you go back to . . . '' But anybody who knows South Florida knows that, while it is home to many Spanish speakers, the bulk of them are not Mexican.

''I think there's a lot of fear out there,'' says Stewart. ``All of the (presidential) candidates to some extent are using the immigration thing as a lever to get elected. They're appealing to the fear Americans have, some of this 9/11 stuff. And the rhetoric has a lot of the people who are not as informed or maybe don't listen carefully, convinced that most of the Spanish people in this country are illegal immigrants or they're terrorists.''

It's a cogent analysis, but I think there's more going on here. One suspects that at bottom what set Stewart's critics off is a fear so visceral they might not even have words to express it. Put simply: Since when do we need subtitles in our own country?

To which the best answer is probably another question. Who is ''we''? What is ``our''?

The fact is that ''we'' is not what it used to be, and ''our'' reflects a nation more diverse than ever before. The Census Bureau says the Hispanic population of Palm Beach County stands at 16.7 percent, nearly two percentage points higher than the national figure. Isn't it smart business to reach out to them? Why begrudge Stewart's efforts to do so?

Granted, it's not hard to empathize with the sense of dislocation some people feel as they watch the nation changing around them. But to understand what they feel is not necessarily to share it.

In the first place, hysterical predictions to the contrary notwithstanding, it's exceedingly unlikely that English is in danger of losing its position of primacy. In the second place, people will sooner or later have to understand that while change is frightening, change is also life, especially in a nation as susceptible as this one to the forces of the free market. Which is, for my money, the moral of Stewart's story.

He says that as that story has become better known, the public response has done a 180-degree turnabout. The commercial -- and the notoriety -- have brought customers from as far away as Miami. And he's just had his best September, ever. All of which leaves Stewart with mixed emotions. He's disappointed in many of his fellow Americans.

On the other hand, business is good.

http://www.miamiherald.com/851/story/277442.html