In light of talks about English Only and Spanish I HAVE to share this story

[noahmijo]

This happened when I was a Sophomore in college we're talking about 3 years ago. So I'm in class I overhear this guy carrying on a conversation in Spanish. He was dark skinned had the usual features of a Latino. I myself am half Mexican ( I look like an Italian but I take that as a compliment anyway) with Spanish as my first language. I figured this guy must be from or around the same area that my mother is from which to me seemed rare and cool.

So I go up to the guy and introduce myself in Spanish. He was very warm and returned my hello. I then asked him in Spanish where he was from.

His reply?

"Saudia Arabia"


I snapped into my typical New York English and said "Get outta here! you gotta be kiddin me pal, how the hell do you know how to speak Spanish so well???"

He replies in English "This is Arizona man, if you want to make a good living here you have to be able to communicate with everyone, it's how business works."


Well needless to say we became buddies and at graduation we went our separate ways. I think he moved to California with a job in investing and stocks, but to this day whenever someone bitches to me about how everything should be English only and why it's necessary for us as a culture to maintain this standard.


This is the story I always tell them.

[CottonBear]

1. Mr. Patel at a local gas station here speaks Hindi, English &Spanish

depending on who the customer is. (We have many Mexican and Central American immigrants here in my city in NE GA.) The mechanic at this gas station (owned by Indians) is Hispanic.

The Chinese woman who waitresses at a local Chinese restaruant near my office speaks Chinese, English and Spanish. Many Mexican workers go to this particular restaurant and she needs to communicate with them just as she would any other customer.

[noahmijo]

2. I've noticed that the "English First" crowd can barely speak English themselves

Sounds like you live in an area like my old neighborhood. Down in Mexico even there are Chinese businesses in which the owners can speak near perfect Spanish-then they turn around shout an order in Chinese.


I just see that and grin personally I think it's cool. :)

[CottonBear]

3. I live in a blue college town in a mostly red state.

Many of the "English only" crowd here in Georgia cannot speak English properly.

It must be so difficult to speak three such different languages! It boggles my mind!

I speak English and some Spanish. I took four years of Spanish in High School and I could read and write fairly fluently , but, at the time, there were no Hispanic people with whom to practice speaking except my Bautista loving Cuban-American Spanish teachers!

[Lydia Leftcoast]

6. It's counter-intuitive, but the more languages you study, the easier

the next one becomes.

The important thing is to lose your fear of making mistakes or looking stupid. When I was teaching Japanese, I noticed that Malaysians were among the quickest learners, because they'd grown up in a multi-ethnic society (Malay, Chinese, and Indian), had to learn English in school, and, if they were not ethnic Malays, were required to learn the Malay language as well, so tri-lingualism was normal for them.

In contrast to my American students, who often looked panic-stricken if they were required to speak in class, the Malaysians seemed to delight in speaking bits and pieces of Japanese, and they were the only students who voluntarily try to speak Japanese to me on campus outside of class.

I'm convinced that one reason Japanese people are so notoriously bad at speaking English is that their school system tends to insist on "the one right answer" for every situation, so they have trouble relaxing and just letting the language flow. When I tutored people during my student days, my best class was at a beer company, because the students insisted on having and partaking from bottles of their product during the lesson.

[CottonBear]

7. How interesting! Thanks for the information!

I practice my Spanish on my Hispanic mechanic and on any other "victim" that I can find! :)

I had friends who taught English in Japan for a few years. It was an interesting cultural experience.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

4. The small town in Oregon where I lived for seven years had

a large Mexican-American population, so I wasn't surprised when I walked into a hair salon and was sent to have my hair cut by a dark-skinned woman whom I will call "Nadia." She had a slight accent, so I assumed without asking that she was from Mexico.

She did a good job on my hair, so I went back to her several times. We mostly talked about life in the town and about her husband, who was an Anglo, and her son.

One day, I called the salon and asked for an appointment with Nadia, and the owner told me that she had taken three months off to go visit her parents and siblings and have her son meet his relatives. Again, I assumed Mexico or some other Latin American country. I took an appointment with another stylist.

When I went in for my appointment, the other stylist started told me that Nadia's parents and siblings were in...Iran.

Yes, Nadia was Iranian, but she looked Mexican enough that real Mexicans would walk up to her and start chattering away in Spanish.

(In the end, Nadia spent only two months in Iran, having found the atmosphere too repressive.)

[Karenina]

14. Psssst.... LL!!

Shall we impress upon our kids here how much FUN they miss out on being willfully, ignorantly monolingual? It isn't ever a matter of being fluent, it's about making an effort to COMMUNICATE!

Twenty years ago I went to Japan with $100 and an AE card. I knew enough of Japanese culture to sing folk songs, do line dances and my mastery of the pronunciation of just a few rudimentary phrases led people to believe I could actually speak. OH, the HILARITY that ensued as I biked with my hostess through the suburbs of Tokyo... I followed my dear Buddhist priest through the alleys of Osaka (at a proper distance, HEAD DOWN, HEAD DOWN) until we reached a Sukiyaki place (where the waitress was at least 70, ELEGANT and BREATHTAKINGLY BEAUTIFUL), ate and drank well, even SHE emitted a giggle at my attempts to "assimilate." So much laughter!

Last night I was depressed, hungry and didn't know what to do with myself... Then it occurred to me, RAMADAN ist vorbei!!! I rang Mama's bell. I understand her commands in Turkish. "SIT DOWN." "EAT." Damn it was tasty! "COME AGAIN! TOMORROW?" She speaks a Turkish/German dialect (as her children were born here and REFUSED to speak Turkish to her) that I'm S-L-O-W-L-Y beginning to be able to decipher. But I don't get to talk much after Papa and I finish waving our hands in the air and raising our voices about the crazy world in our pidgin Deutsch. He takes his leave and I am commanded to shut up, take the remote and eat. (She thinks I'm too thin...) OH, those NASTY Muslims! :sarcasm:

This guy across from me on the train was blabbing on his cellphone. I was switched off taking him for a Turk/Iraqi/Whatever. Then my ears said SPANISH ABER NICHT. When he concluded his call I asked him, WHO ARE YOU and what-the-hell language was that? Turns out he and the party-to-whom-he-was-speaking were BOTH born here, raised bi-lingual and had developed their own personal dialect. What a personal history I heard!

I WISH I could convey to those in the land of my birth HOW MUCH FUN it is to engage with others. Sadly, their assumptions of superiority and FEAR make it virtually impossible...

[eleny]

5. America is not a melting pot - it's a stew!

IMO, "English Only" is an ignorant response to fear.

[Not Me]

9. Great bumper sticker

Welcome to America, Now speak Cherokee.

[eleny]

10. If I need the language to get along - I'll work on it!

For now, I'm honing my Spanish skills and trying like mad to not forget my first language - Lithuanian.

[WolverineDG]

8. When I went to Egypt

I discovered that each place I went had someone who was fluent in whatever language the customer might be fluent in. Apparently, in large families, one child is taught to speak English, another Spanish, yet another German & French, in addition to the Egyptian dialect of Arabic & Arabic in order to read the Koran.

And here in the US, people fly off the handle at the mere suggestion that they should learn another language! Yet, we're supposedly capitalists & how can you sell something if you don't understand your customer & your customer doesn't understand you? :crazy:

Me? I've learned Spanish & French. I understand more Spanish than I can speak it, though, & I have a long way to go to be that fluent in French. And for those who come here & refuse to learn English, I call them the same as Americans who refuse to learn another language: Lazy.

dg

[eleny]

11. My grandparents were all born in Lithuania

My paternal grandfather spoke Lithuanian, Latvian, Polish, Russian some German and then English. He never went to school a day in his life.

[kineneb]

12. some of my famly spoke German until WWI

German at home and English in the outside world. Grandpa didn't learn to speak it, but did wind up working as an auto body specialist at VW; half the workers there were 1st-3rd generation German immigrants, so there were lots of German words in use.

I have a degree minor in German. And being in CA, Spanish has always been the de facto 2nd language here.

[nealmhughes]

13. I lived in NYC for 5 years in Fort Tryon, which is a very mixed hood

ethnically. I am "Black Irish" and "look Hispanic" and speak, read and write Spanish (with a portoriqeño accent). I have olive skin, very dark coarse wavy hair and dark eyes, and a triangular wide nose... Most people in the neighborhood who didn't know my name assumed I was Puerto Rican or Dominican. At the Bodega on Bdwy and 192 they certainly did. Walking my dog, they did. A lot of Russian immigrants began to move into the neighborhood in the mid to late 80s and I watched so many of them learn Spanish for shopping and navigating the labor pool as fast as they did English.

When I was leaving, I was telling all the guys goodbye and one finally asked me my name, I told him "Neal Hughes" and he said, but I thought it was "Nido." sounding shocked. Nido means birdnest in Spanish and friends coined me that due to the White Boy Semiafro I once had... Then they asked, why do you have an anglo name, my reply, "Porque soy irlandes."