proud to be an American

I am a struggling young person trying to find a job. I constantly come across spanish or espanol a must or plus. how is that EQUAL? I am a second generation from a family of immigrants from Holland, my grandparents learned the English language in order to become citizens, as well as immigrants from mexico during that time period. Now it does not seem to be valued by spanish only speaking immigrants, in fact schools are now offering grade passing exams in spanish, not only is our country teaching curriculum in spanish, it is now passing spanish speaking students on to higher grades with no intent to learn and fully understand and fully comprehend the English language. Now I know the argument already, its not fair to give the exams in English because ESL students can not perform to there full potential due to not completely understanding the English grammar and language. but isn't this only going to make it harder for them later on in life when they will have to learn the English language to be a contributing citizen to there community and us society? well no spanish is excepted and let me the English only speaking American not be able to get a job because I can't speak spanish. I feel like I have already been shafted by the education I received by this country ( you can probably tell in the grammar and spelling mistakes in this post). now lets make it more confusing and throw spanish language as a standard into the curriculum. Lets look at japan and china and the education they give there people, I bet a 10 year old from japan would be way smarter then the average high school graduate in the US. where I work now there is two guys who speak English and spanish yet when they talk to each other around us English speaking employees they speak in spanish, I find this flat RUDE. all the money our government sinks into spanish in our education system I think I might take advantage of our screwed system and sue the government to pay to teach me how to speak and understand the spanish language. I have more thoughts on my rant but I'll conclude it for now

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mikekey

Ask Bush. He seems to enjot espanol pocito por favor.

mikekey

Honestly the answer is. Life ain't fair and you should do what makes you more valuable to an employer. Maybe learn some Chinese while your at it.

proud to be an American

your right, but if immigrants prided themselves to be American then they would learn English and all citizens could communicate and we could thrive. I work in a industry where people get hurt due to language barriers and its starting to be where I'm the one getting hurt, that's not good. Think about all mistakes, time lost, money lost, inefficiency, accidents, deaths, the list can go on, all due to people not understanding.... when directions are given, road signs are up, I can talk about this for awhile, you get my point. who pays and who benefits? what happens when I get into a car accident and cannot understand the person who I crashed with? half of these people don't even have insurance but that's another issue and I'll leave that out for another thread. I love this country, best place to live in the world for a mixed number of cultures, economic classes and so forth, but the US gets exploited, and I a born citizen pays for it while someone else benefits. I can't make ten bucks an hour, live in a house with two three maybe four families and send money home to mexico so they can live a good life there, again i pay they benefit, I don't want to single out mexicans and there are a lot of variables but this is a reality for young high school only graduates who have families especially in California, I stress to young members in my family to go to college its the only way you can make it and going the way we're going its only going to get harder

mikekey

There are more issues there then language. For example. There are illegals here. That is a fact. The feds aren't sending them back. Another fact. So when Eliot Spitzer in NY said he wants them to at least get a license and insurance the right flipped out. They were screaming bloody murder. So now if a illegal runs in to you they have no insurance. Real dumb if you ask me.
Secondly, Have you ever been to Walmart. Illegals spend almost all the money they earn here in America. They actually help the economy more then the fortune 500. Not that I want to fling the doors open. I would actually approve more border security. I don't blame them for coming here. I would do the same if conditions were reversed. They serve in our military heroically. In fact there is a street in Illinois called hero street. You can look it up. One short street has produced more medal of honor winners then anywhere else. All Mexican Americans.
There are issues no doubt but we should address the fact that those that are here now ain't leaving. Jews send billions to Israel. Does that also hurt our economy? Maybe a little.

Dr.Knuckles

It takes 5 years of full-time study with professionals, meaning 4-6 hours a day, to learn English from scratch to the point where you could work in the language. There's no magic button for people to press to learn a language. Not when they have jobs and kids and extremely high-stress living conditions such as no health insurance and no education.

I'm just saying, of course they SHOULD speak English, but they don't. So what can you do. Mandate the impossible or deal with the reality?

Dr.Knuckles

I agree with you that speaking a language that someone beside you doesnt understand when you know his language too is rude. And you can tell them that you think it's rude.

However... isnt Spanish mandatory in school. Hasn't the government already paid to teach you to read and write Spanish? Or is it different state by state?

Bourne

I'm in a surgical practice and I have found that speaking, reading and writing Spanish has been quite useful in dealing with hispanic patients.

It has always amazed me that so much of the rest of the world speaks multiple languages yet we here in the US don't place a premium on multiple language talent.

proud to be an American

you have a good point, but for one I see your location is Vancouver, I live in Southern California, so it directly effects me. Why should we help other people, only to make it harder on our own? and don't even bring up health insurance because they either get it flat out free or they can go to LA County hospital and get it without even giving there name, I know, I'm here to see it first hand. The middle class (American citizen) gets shafted for health insurance, I have lots of experience with this from being hospitalized and having numerous surgeries in the last couple of years. stress, I live across the street from a house that occupies two mexican families, I constantly worry about there children running out and playing in the busy street we live on when they sleep all day and I been kept awake all night from there loud music, parties and constant coming and going let alone me having to wake up at 5 in the morning to work for 11 hours a day 5 days a week to pay my bills, rent and cost of living is expensive in So Cal and I don't want to move this is where I was born. I know I have it good compared to others in another country but its my kids that are going to pay for it, why should I leave my home due to others taking advantage of it? they can go down to home depot get picked up as a day laborer make 15 bucks an hour (tax free) 5 days a week no problem, whats even more screwed up is that it is the wealthy contractors who are usually republicans that pick these people up, hypocrites, no wonder the immigration problem has not been fixed. so work is no argument for there stress. they can go to several places in LA and get bogus papers to work, I wish every job in America required a background and fingerprint but they are not going to do that for a waiter or gardener, oh yeah, which gardening is another thriving business for them to make money under the table. the ones who come from mexico with no education, that's not Americas responsibility, its mexicos. I constantly see mexico #1, hecho en mexico, proud to be mexican, mexican pride, mexican flags flown. if they are proud to be mexican, made in mexico and so forth then why are they here? if mexicos so great why do they want to live in america? if I moved to canada and flew the American flag and burned the Canadian flag what would you say? don't get me wrong some of them are proud to be Americans but there are few. the magic button is take care of our own before others, we suffer to help other countries while our veterans are living under bridges and killing themselves and there the ones paying for it. this war is so f'd up and our government talks about closing the boarders, how about deportation? our justice system is not connected with INS. if an illegal gets a DUI our court system will punish them like a citizen even send them to jail, like that doesn't cost money . half the time they don't appear and there is no way to track them anyhow, they have more freedom then our own citizens in this case.

proud to be an American

US employers do place a premium, in fact there are jobs sole for multilingual people and it should NOT be that way.