(no subject)

[bzarcher]

Grr. Serious fucking Grr.

My great-great-grandfather came to America, knowing no English. He found a wife, had a son, built a house, and worked until he died without being able to speak English well. He also happened to raise my great grandfather until he was 15, and instilled in him how to be a good man, to love his new country, and to work hard and do well.

My great grandfather helped design a warplane that is to this DAY considered an icon of World War II and American history, and his son went on to be a hard working citizen and respected man in his town, who raised his son to go to College, treat people well, and work hard.

And then his son had me, and while I don't really get along with him as well as I could, he taught me a lot of things, too.

Being a good citizen, or even a good person, is not about the language you speak. It's not about your skin. It's not about your hair or your religion (though that religion can be reflected in it). It's about raising your children to respect others, and to show them that working hard and trying to make things better is important. It's about wanting to leave things better than you found them, and about wanting to do well by the people around you.

That is not something that a "universal" language gives you. It can be communicated as simply as a nod and a smile. And trying to take enforce monolingism or worse, monoculture, won't ever change that.

Comments

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

While the watery law that was passed won't have any actual impact, I think the intent of this and similar actions is to relieve the Federal government of having to pander to various language groups. The IRS doesn't need to print tax forms in a thousand dialectic versions, it's already complex as is.

More tangentially, learning English is a very powerful and necessary step for immigrants to assimilate into the nation, and these kind of proposals are attempting to drive that process forward.

Is either really that oppressive? I fail to see the moral injustices you're sensing.

[bzarcher.livejournal.com]

I think that requiring people to learn English, or lose the ability to become citizens, is rather oppressive. A lot of people come to this country who have a difficult time with English, yet can function quite well, and I firmly believe will do better if given an incentive to learn rather than a demand.

For that matter, we can't even teach ourselves English very well! It's a difficult language, and even the people claiming it should be the National Standard have problems with it. Yet they say that people need to master it or leave. Maybe we need to look at that before we start imposing requirements on others.

I don't think it's merely a paperwork churn - and if it is, wouldn't it be easier to make more electronic versions of the paperwork, and give the normal points of distribution (Post Offices, Libraries, Tax Preparers, etx) the ability to print various language forms on demand rather than in bulk?

Plus, didn't the President just get on TV and talk about the value of our "diverse history of immigrants"? I don't think this serves that, nor do I think it makes the legal immigration process any easier or effective.

It's a step backwards, and it has a lot of possible repercussions that I really don't like.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

and I firmly believe will do better if given an incentive to learn rather than a demand.

There's an enormous amount of incentive to learn English already, that I won't even bother to list them. But by the bill supporters' own admission, this law is symbolic at best, we're not about to start tossing people off shore because they can't conjugate verbs.

I agree that there's a lot of folk out there who need to work on the language skills, but that seems irrelevant to the idea, nor does it dispute the fact learning English is critical for proper assimilation.

I don't think it's merely a paperwork churn

No, it's about keeping all facets of the Federal government simple and straight, I was just using the tax forms as comic gaggery because I thought the greater notion was evident. We can't have citizens demanding judges, clerks and other officials to be fluent in every language, and frankly, I think it would be a colossal waste of resources to try and get to that point. I do feel that one day we'll have ample technology that this problem will solve itself, but hey, I want my flying car as well.

You want to see a step backwards, look at what Iran wants to do to Christians and other non-Muslims. Our attempt at embiggening our nation through a national language (something almost every other first world country has) is not a step back towards slavery and eugenics, I assure you.

[ixx.livejournal.com]

"We can't have citizens demanding judges, clerks and other officials to be fluent in every language..."

I don't think we do that now. We just expect translation services to be available.

[ixx.livejournal.com]

If the manual for my toaster or the instructions for assembling my desk can come in English, Spanish, French, German, Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin, why is it too much to expect the IRS to print its forms in other languages? It is probably larger, organizationally, than Ikea.

Yes, learning English is important. But how is imposing additional de facto penalties on non-English speakers in the US "driving that process forward"? Maybe more English as a Second Language education would help.

Reading is important too, but requiring literacy for voters was racist policy. This isn't far different in principle. The main disparity is, it's not a law that is really going to do all that much; just something the Republicans can vote on to assure conservatives everywhere that they really do love their base... as long as the vote isn't about something that matters.

[gigerlicious.livejournal.com]

Again, the IRS bit wasn't meant to be taken so seriously, but why put the burden of expectation on the government instead of the individual? I'm certain this is probably a fundamental part in philosophy. Does this mean we accuse every nation in the world of some bizarre linguist racism and we are the shining beacon of multiculturalism because we don't vote in official languages? The need to infuse racism into this debate just confounds me.

The literacy/racist bit I don't quite understand, since by your own analysis of this token law has nothing to do with it. In fact, I don't understand how you claim this bill creates de facto penalties and racism and puts blacks in chains and then turn around and say it's just a trivial, pandering bill to the Republican base. You really can't have it both ways.