Illegal’s get to go to College

Sorry for being unclear B4. I see where our misunderstanding lies.

I know there is a problem, but the problem stems back to our policies. It would not behoove anybody to come in illegally if they had a viable time effective, cost effective, achievable alternative. The solution, therefore, is to tone down our entrance requirements, raise the caps on immigration, and still enforce the requirement to speak English. This would result in more legal immigration, more integration of the incoming people and less of the problems you are describing and LESS illegal immigration.

I think that's what just about everybody wants, the question is, does my proposed solution have any potential to work? I think that it would be irrational to put livelihood and family at risk if there was a viable legal alternative.

 

So the problem is not that they don't speak English, is that you don't have any patience to talk with someone with thick accent and just won't talk with them.

How are they supposed to improve their English if americans refuse to talk with them just because their pronunciation is not perfect?

Luckily not all americans are like that

 

By JIM FITZGERALD, Associated Press Writer Jim Fitzgerald, Associated Press Writer – Tue Jun 15, 4:08 pm ET
PORT CHESTER, N.Y. – Arthur Furano voted early — five days before Election Day. And he voted often, flipping the lever six times for his favorite candidate.

 

Sure Steve.....It was not that they had an accent, THEY DID NOT SPEAK ENGLISH! THERE SIGNS WERE ALL IN SPANISH! Steve you owe me an apology…….
You act like I am the crazy one, when its seems like you are. Go ahead with your plans to leave the US like you want to.

 

No it’s that they did NOT SPEAK ENGLISH. They open businesses that only cater to Spanish people. All the signs were in Spanish. It is not my job to teach people English.

 

That's not what you said - you said their English was bad. That's way different than not speaking English.

And as a foreigner I have to say that americans have pretty low threshold of tolerance regarding accents and pronunciation.

Even foreigners with a perfect TOEFL score like me or foreigners with English as their second native language too (like Indians) sometimes have to deal with americans that refuse to talk with us (or talk with a very bad attitude) because we "don't speak English" and they can't understand us.

And I'm not kidding about the Indian example - I have some Indians friends that only talk with their family in English and they had this kind of problem here.

It's funny because if you're American and you go to almost any other country (maybe not in France...) people are more than willing to try to help you speak the local language and understand you even with a very thick american accent.

About signs in Spanish:

Well, I cut my hair every month in a Salon owned by a nice old chinese lady, with almost all the signs in her language. And her English is also very, very basic and her cantonese accent very, very thick.

But the price it's good and it's very convenient for me, as the Salon is right in front of my place.

The point is: if I - a non-native English speaker - am able to deal with chinese signs and very basic English to get my hair cut, I pretty much doubt that you, a native English speaker, would have any problem with Spanish signs.

Specially because Spanish is also a European language, is not that difficult to guess what the hell the signs are telling you.

 

So as of right now the people on this thread are A) Married to a immigrant or B) Are a immigrant. I have no problem with people coming here for a better way of life. I have a problem when it causes a riot when Americans were American flag shirt to school. When they get 6 extra votes. I am treated like a bad person because I want my values and way of life to be preserved. I would be beaten in Mexico if I tried to do that. But it’s ok, I'm clearly wrong for wanting everyone to speak English while in the US.

No one is Native anywhere btw, we all came from different places. Yes people that came here were immigrants but so are the people from Mexico. They are there because of the Spanish. I should just kick back and watch as we lose our way of life. Let’s be real here, have you ever been to Mexico? It’s just so nice and great over there, that’s why they all want to come here.
Some immigration good, a million people flooding over our boarders unchecked, bad. All you POS that have been PMing me saying you’re so right, where are you at on this thread? Don’t PM if you don’t have the nut’s to post it. You all know who I’m talking to.

 

Yes it is, I read it in an AP article and watched the MSNBC Clip on youtube.

 

I was just linking to the article mentioned but let's examine the issue:

From the same article:

"Although the village of about 30,000 residents is nearly half Hispanic, no Latino had ever been elected to any of the six trustee seats, which until now were chosen in a conventional at-large election. Most voters were white, and white candidates always won."

One possibility is that Hispanics or Latinos don't vote, another is that despite being almost half the population perhaps a significant portion are illegal and therefore ineligible to vote. In giving 6 votes to those Hispanics who can vote those that cannot are represented.

Given that there are six seats the results can be swayed if these individuals place all their votes behind a candidate. The process was specifically put in place "as part of a new election system crafted to help boost Hispanic representation."

When you say that the process is fair I would disagree. Any process specifically designed to benefit any race, gender, etc... is biased and flies against a democratic process of one vote.

 

Dude, I totally agree with you in that ridiculous case of the students with American Flag Shirt in the school during that Mexican holiday (Fifth of May if I'm not mistaken).

Everyone in that school should have been fired in my point of view - a american should never be ashamed to be proud of being american in their own country.

Having said that, that was a very extreme case. I doesn't relate at all to your unwillingness to speak with non-native speakers and your position that "Bad English" equals " No English".

About changing you're values or way of life - do you really think any immigrant is doing that to you? I sincerely don't see how a Hair Salon with Spanish signs is threatening your way of life.

I'm originally from South of Brazil and there in some tourist cities during the summer a good number of stores and restaurants will have more Spanish signs than in Portuguese (we speak Portuguese in Brazil) because of the high volume of Argentineans and Uruguayans tourists.

I don't feel threatened by that at all. Makes me wonder why do you feel that way.

It's not like English is gonna vanish from the USA any time soon. At any rate, English the "de facto" international language in the world and, as others have pointed out, if some immigrants won't learn English their sons will for sure.

I imagine you'd hate to live here in San Francisco - every municipal official sign is written in three languages: English, Spanish and Chinese.

You probably see this as anti-american. Funny, I see this as a sign of the strength and tolerance in american culture. Go figure.

 

ok. I don't know the exact numbers of Hispanic versus non Hispanic voters but for a simple exercise: 6 seats, no Hispanic at this time. All Hispanics vote for a candidate for a single seat. Remaining 5 seats are divided among the other voters. The numbers are with Hispanic voters in this instance, even if only a portion of the 50% Hispanic population can vote. The only way for this system to fail is for everyone to cast their vote for the same seat and oppose each other.

The article states that most voters are white but it doesn't give me the exact numbers to paint a clearer picture but for instance if 60% of the voters are white it is conceivable that 41% would vote against the Hispanics and cancel out the vote and the remainder would elect the other seats. My assumption is that the folks who developed this system understood the dynamics and have weighed the probability of nullification voting against human self interests.

I'm not sure why you aren't understanding the math. The folks who drafted and passed the measure understood the means to ensuring Hispanic representation or it would not have been done. That is, if 6 votes means the same thing as a single vote then what would be the point?

The only issue I see is that this system encourages voter collaboration and race bias in representation selection. When I read the article what I take away is that a Hispanic representative is needed to represent the Hispanic population. I disagree with this premise. A qualified candidate should represent the constituents regardless of race. While my thought is altruistic it can be demonstrated in several instances historically where a minority constituency has benefited from voting for a candidate who represents their interest regardless of race.

 

I totally agree with you - it's unfair, biased and a example of "identity politics" going to far.

Thing like this (not immigration) will, in time, ruin the american system of democracy.

It's even more stupid in the case of "latinos" because that a "invented" race/ethnicity that doesn't have any real meaning. It's a nonsense term only used in the USA (never in Latin-American - south of the border "latino" means a totally different thing) that tries to englobe different nationalities, different languages and different races ("latinos" could be white, black, native, asian or asian!) in one absurd umbrella.

The more likely reason for no Hispanic/latino candidates ever winning the elections is the simples fact that "latino" is too broad of a definition that is impossible to say, like the articles states, that one or two candidates were the favorites of all "latinos".

 

"I hope that if Hispanics get in, they do something for all the Hispanic people," Sandoval said in Spanish. "I don't know, but I hope so." AP article

We have nothing to worry about were just fine in the US. This is becoming the way of life.