Immigration, Language and Respect
Something happened to Erin and I today that has me very upset. I’ll get to explaining what it is has soon as I explain what I believe and what I am about so that there can be no mistake as to who I am. If you’re sensitive to politics, subjects on immigration or general bitching about people coming in to your country and foul language, you might not want to read this. I have no problem with individuals immigrating to this wonderful country of ours. That’s what makes this country great. I have no problem with other races or religions. I am not a racist. Yet, I know I will be called that because people use the word “Racist” in place of “Shut the fuck up”. I love my country. I love the fact that we can, within limits of the law, do what we want. We can start a business, criticize the Government without fear of reprisals, create and disseminate opposing views, and many more things. This is what makes the United States of America great. Let also not forget, we have the freedom to make an ass out of ourselves. If you think I’m not an ass for expressing this, great. If you do, well, that’s great too. Now on to what we’re really here for.
Language As A Barrier
I love immigration. It’s great that individuals and their families can move here and become a citizen. However there’s a problem with the immigrants that have been coming here. They’re trying to recreate what they had back where they came from instead of trying to become full fledged fully absorbed Americans. Back in WWII when we had a rush of immigrants we had people coming in who wanted to be Americans. They brought many things from their homeland, traditions, food, music and other things and America was enriched as a result. They realized and respected that America has its own traditions, values and language. They took the time to learn American history, traditions and the English language. Most of the immigrants today apparently just want the freedom without becoming an American or learning the language. So now we have communities based on cultures that self segregate in parts of a city. Take a look at my home town, Los Angeles. We have Little Tokyo, Little China, Little Armenia and many other “sectors”. I’ve run across many individuals who use language as a weapon, or worst an excuse, and here lies my beef. Now, not everyone does this so I’m not saying that every immigrant who can’t speak English doesn’t learn. It’s the people who don’t who give a bad name to everyone else.
I’ve had many instances where people have used their native language as a weapon. I’ve gone in to nail shops (yes, I’ve had manicures) where the workers are predominantly (read all of them) are from Philippines or Vietnam. If you’ve been there too you’ll understand where I’m coming from. Conversations between the workers are in their native language, not English. You know when you’re being talked about as they glance at you and converse. Feels weird doesn’t it? It’s also disrespectful. You get angry that they show you that disrespect. I’ve also had instances where a person fakes that they don’t speak English because they want to get away with something or that they want to make communication very difficult. So you hear in their language that they don’t understand. These people use language as a weapon.
Then there’s people who simply haven’t learned the language. They’ve never tried. Sure they can speak broken English. Picked up over the years. This is where I’m trying to get to. This is where the story begins. We have a garden at the Sepulveda Garden Center. We’ve only had it for about two years. It’s been a source of pride for both Erin and myself. However the center isn’t run very well, but that’s another post, I plan to rake the administrator across the coals. My plot neighbors are a plethora of different individuals. All sorts of different backgrounds. A few even have more than their fair share of plots. One of my neighbors is Russian. We even call him, “The Russian” because we don’t know his name. The Russian has many plots throughout the center. He and his wife have accumulated them before the rule of having a maximum of three plots. “The Russian”, only speaks Russian. His English is broken. It’s nearly impossible to communicate with him. Since we had a problem communicating we had a misunderstanding come up. You see, The Russian had grape stock that is basically all over the center. If he thinks you’re a good gardener, he gives you a vine to plant in your garden. This is a kind and noble gesture even though the vine was going dormant looked like it had Pierce’s disease and it was of shit stock. So to be nice we originally accepted his offer of a vine. I really didn’t want it. Not because it was a crappy stock but that we had found a better place and we were on the verge of deciding if we were staying or going to give the plot up and leave. He had us dig a hole 2 feet deep and two feet wide. The he told us not to plant it till we had all sorts of mulch and amendments, controlling isn’t he? He wanted us to come next weekend so he can plant the vine. We weren’t able to, something had come up and we had no way of contacting him. We didn’t meet again till three weeks later. When he came up to us he was irritated. It was pretty much a tantrum. He threw his hands up and walked away. All these years in the United States and he hasn’t learned English. Either by picking it up or going to classes. He couldn’t communicate to us what he wanted and we couldn’t communicate to him. I felt like he wanted us to cater to him. Where did this sense of entitlement come from? I felt insulted that he didn’t bother to learn English. Am I wrong to feel this way? Some people would say yes. Other people wouldn’t. We ended a friendship with both parties walking away in frustration. Now, things will be tense between us at the garden when we’re both there. All because he couldn’t speak English. Yes, America is a melting pot. However a melting pot means integration. He decided that he didn’t have to, and that’s insulting. There have been many instances where this situation comes up. I’ve been told time and time again stories of people being yelled at by individuals who don’t speak English asking why they don’t speak their language. This holds especially true with our neighbors to the South. Since they’re so close, there’s really no incentive to learn English. A friend of mine was yelled at because they couldn’t speak Spanish while they were at their job as a cashier. This was insulting to hear. If you want to come and live in my country I expect you to learn English, just as I would be expected to learn the native language of a country I immigrate to, if I were to, and I would out of respect for that country. Apparently, since I’m a white American male born in this country, I’m not allowed to expect that.
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