Well, the cops don’t get hired and the doctors don’t get through med school without learning English.

I didn’t mean English, I meant the language (in this case Spanish) they would be using when providing the services to immigrants.

I realize that, but the police, doctor etc. need to learn the language too, and some are incapable. Is it fair for them?

Well, the cops don’t get hired and the doctors don’t get through med school without learning English. Their second language is very helpful, but they won’t get the job in the first place if they’re not at least proficient enough to deal with their superiors and other professionals, such as pharmacists and district attorneys.

I used to work at a law firm where one of the secretaries was a nuclear engineer from Russia who could speak enough English to do that job (or, at least, was able to transcribe well enough), but didn’t have enough English to get a job in engineering.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. As I said, I believe we need to make it easier for immigrants to learn English. I also know that language acquisition takes time, even under ideal circumstances, and that in the meantime, it is better for immigrants and for the rest of us if immigrants can work, go to the doctor, communicate with the police, and otherwise function in society.

I realize that, but the police, doctor etc. need to learn the language too, and some are incapable. Is it fair for them?

My grandmother was an illegal immigrant. I suppose you might call her a “selfish criminal.” I think of her as a desperate person trying everything she could think to do to survive. Had she not entered the U.S. illegally, she would almost certainly have died at Auschwitz,

I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. When you look at the invidual, the stories are frequently heart-breaking. My grandparents were refugees in their own country, having had brothers, friends and relatives killed, homes bombed, and lands stolen. The shadow of WW2 and Holocaust hangs on many of our roots.

I will still maintain my position that the solution should be done legally. I’m sure there are heartbreaking stories of people who respected the law and thus suffered, having had their place taken up by someone who was less needing but more willing to break the law.

You need to work on your reading comprehension.

Well, to be fair to Tuomas, I believe English is not his first language (he’s a Finn).

I’ll be honest, I have no idea of the legality of my ancestors’ entrance into the US. My father’s family were all potato-famine Irish, which says to me that they just booked passage and moved here, probably prior to the imposition of any controls on immigration. On my mother’s side, it was all great-grandparents, her mother’s mother came over at age 11 with her older brother, likely not entirely legally. Her father’s parents were from a landed family in Ireland, so they probably had the resources to go through channels.

Basically, I just assume that because of the time and the fact that we weren’t Chinese, nobody gave a crap and legality was eventually achieved.

How is the solution for this providing services in languages other than English? I’d think that these kind of structural problems would require direct action instead of the band-aid like surrender.

You need to work on your reading comprehension. As I said, I believe we need to make it easier for immigrants to learn English. I also know that language acquisition takes time, even under ideal circumstances, and that in the meantime, it is better for immigrants and for the rest of us if immigrants can work, go to the doctor, communicate with the police, and otherwise function in society.

sympathies?

There are probably literally billions of people who would like to come to U.S or Europe, and I see no reason that those who decide that they are more ’special’ and entitled (and can break existing immigration laws) should be treated as anything else than selfish criminals that they are.

My grandmother was an illegal immigrant. I suppose you might call her a “selfish criminal.” I think of her as a desperate person trying everything she could think to do to survive. Had she not entered the U.S. illegally, she would almost certainly have died at Auschwitz, the way her mother and brother did. Maybe you think that’s what she should have done. But I think that it’s pretty easy to judge other people when you’ve never had to worry about food or shelter or whether you’ll be able to send your kids to school or whether your government is going to decide it’s a good idea to kill you. I think if it were me, I would make feeding my kids a higher priority than following U.S. immigration law. I’m glad that’s not a choice I’m ever likely to have to make.

Why not? Multilingualism (or even bilingualism) increases the number of people you can communicate with and knowing another language is fun.

Multilingualism in society:
Assuming the number of people you have contact with remains the same, it decreases the number of people you can communicate with.

Invidual multilingualism (learning new languages):
Increases, and is fun. Assuming the person learning has any talent/interest for learning new languages.

The US does not have an official language. Nope, not even English.

That is fun.

The thing is that there are a lot of forces working against them: it’s hard to become fluent in a new language as an adult, many new immigrants work very long hours and don’t have time for classes, all low-income Americans face an acute childcare shortage that makes things like taking language classes difficult, and many immigrants don’t have a lot of opportunity to interact and socialize with English-speakers. All of this stuff is amplified for illegal immigrants.

How is the solution for this providing services in languages other than English? I’d think that these kind of structural problems would require direct action instead of the band-aid like surrender.

I’m very unsympathetic to illegal immigrants, btw. There are probably literally billions of people who would like to come to U.S or Europe, and I see no reason that those who decide that they are more ’special’ and entitled (and can break existing immigration laws) should be treated as anything else than selfish criminals that they are.

The US does not have an official language. Nope, not even English.

I don’t not want this to become a bi-lingual country like Canada

Why not? Multilingualism (or even bilingualism) increases the number of people you can communicate with and knowing another language is fun. Any person of normal intelligence can learn at least two languages, especially if they are exposed to both languages as children and even adults can do it if they use immersion. What’s the downside?

I can not understand the logic of people who think that immigrants are entitled to get everything in the language they were born with, that immigrants should not learn the language of the country they are moving into.

I suspect that’s because you cannot understand what it’s like to live in a country that assumes that immigration is a good, healthy, and important thing. If you’re going to have immigration, and if you’re going to give immigrants and their children a real chance of succeeding in the society, you need to accomodate the fact that it’s really hard for members of the immigrant generation to acquire a new language.

The overwhelming majority of immigrants to the U.S. would like to speak English, because it’s a prerequisite for full inclusion in the society. It’s just a myth that immigrants walk around contemptuously scoffing at English and planning to raise their kids to be monolingual Polish speakers who are confined to tiny Polish-American enclaves. And indeed, pretty much everyone who is born in the U.S. or moves here as a small child speaks English. Parents who want their kids to speak their birth language want them to speak it on top of, not instead of English.

The thing is that there are a lot of forces working against them: it’s hard to become fluent in a new language as an adult, many new immigrants work very long hours and don’t have time for classes, all low-income Americans face an acute childcare shortage that makes things like taking language classes difficult, and many immigrants don’t have a lot of opportunity to interact and socialize with English-speakers. All of this stuff is amplified for illegal immigrants. I think it’s really important to try to counteract the forces that make it difficult for immigrants to learn English, but we need to realize that even in the best case scenario, it’s going to take a lot of time.

So the question is whether you isolate members of the immigrant generation who have not fully learned English or whether you make moves to accomodate them. Do you allow them to use banks and set up retirement accounts, or do you force them to put their money under the bed? Do you make it possible for them to call the police when they’ve been victims of a crime, or do you either make them totally vulnerable or force them to develop a justice system outside of the legal one? Do you explain to them, in a way they can understand, that their fourteen-year-old son needs to start planning now if he’s going to take classes that will make him eligible for college, or do you figure that a parent who can’t understand doesn’t need to know? I believe that it’s much better for the society if you do everything possible to allow immigrants to participate as fully as possible in the political, social, and economic life of the country. I believe that immigrants’ children end up much more successfully integrated into the society if their parents’ linguistic needs are met.

Personally I actually like the fact that English is the lingua franca of the world, it’s simple that way (as people speak their own language, and English). To me, that increases communication between people of different cultures (yet preserving their specialness). Besides, I very much doubt that my language will spread any day soon.

I can not understand the logic of people who think that immigrants are entitled to get everything in the language they were born with, that immigrants should not learn the language of the country they are moving into. That IMO speaks of entitlement as much as anything white folks do.