Kid busted for Speaking Spanish?

Yes, OK -- but can such social engineering occur by force with minors? In Canada, they tried that with the native population. The results -- a complete disaster -- the human consequences -- ugh.

Bruce mentions a police officer killed (always very sorry to hear when that happens -- RIP Constable Darrell Edward Lunsford Sr.) as a result of three who conspired in a language he didn't understand (one assumes). Telling kids not to speak Spanish in the hallway won't stop that. Building a society where crime seems like a less viable/desirable alternative to a non-criminal path might have an impact on such situations.

I sometimes think of the last 200 years of society as a failing social experiment (not that it was any better before that time!).

Society is an organic thing -- and certain disruptive technologies (such as the Internet) have come into play to connect the world in ways that might make or break it.

For one, these technologies can allow young people to be exposed to a variety of cultures, languages, ways of life that they just could not see even as recently as when I was a kid/teen -- and it hasn't been that many years since I was a teen!

People can educate themselves now in ways they could not before. They can seek information in ways they never used to be able to. They can explore their heritage. They can learn new skills. All while sitting at home (or at a library computer).

Exposure to variety, to information, is great -- but I do not feel that schools do one very important thing: encourage people to strive to lift themselves up and out. Just as with those athletes who did poorly in high school and had to jimmy their way into universities -- education about how to cope with societal pressures and mechanisms must start young.

And this means better educating teachers about how to educate the young. Universities might consider pro bono programs to upgrade teacher's skills in these areas. Professors of various disciplines concerned have a social responsibility not only to tertiary and academic systems -- they have (IMO) an obligation to bring their research into the high schools and get everyone talking about its implications -- before the implications are different.

Nothing worthwhile is easy. Nothing worthwhile is cheap. But if it's truly worthwhile -- it's worth trying.

 

Everybody's eloquent, wise, & civil. Nobody's being stupid. Degreeinfo at its best!

 

I'm not sure that the United States should use Canada as its model. Canada is already at the verge of coming apart. I don't think that the US will reach that point for a couple of generations yet.

I think that the United States set out consciously to become a new nation, a new people. In doing that the US welcomed individuals and families from around the world to come and join us, and to contribute some of the cooler things from their home countries that the rest of America might like. (Just think of what Americans eat.) That's how the United States grows and evolves, through people joining us, by our incorporating their contributions, and by the whole community growing and broadening in the process.

It's worked strikingly well over the last 200 years, but I fear that today's Mexican-wave is going to swamp and sink the boat. That's not because they are Mexican, because they speak Spanish or anything like that. They could be from anywhere.

It's just the incredible volume of the flow, the millions upon millions of them coming in so fast and furious that they probably will never be absorbed. (It might be the biggest single population movement in the earth's history, at least in this short a time.)

The barrios aren't simply the immigrant neighborhoods of past generations, way stations on the road to assimilation and Americanization. They are more like permanent foreign enclaves full of people who will never merge with the rest of the American people but who will set up shop alongside them in a parallel and sometimes interpenetrating society.

My fear is that's an inherently unstable condition. Competition, conflict and violence will almost inevitably result.

Moving on to Canada...

What does the word 'Canadian' mean? If communities in Canada all boast their own foreign-derived "heritage cultures", then why is Canada itself supposed to be so different than all those places across the sea?

I don't know... I'm not sure how realistic it is to announce that a whole nation is somehow devoid of its own culture and then to expect that everyone will continue to identify with whatever countries their ancestors came from a hundred or two hundred years ago. (Countries that in many cases would no longer even recognize their emigrants' distant Canadian offspring.)

Some degree of homogeneity, of which the basic ability to communicate with one another is probably the most fundamental, is what turns haphazard collections of people into 'societies' in the first place.

 

Re: Re: Problem...

A most cogent -- and, in this case, deadly -- example of that to which I referred earlier: The whole business of those whose primary language is not English using said language as a wall between themselves and English-only speakers in their presence.

The language used at the killers' trial(s) should be any language they don't understand, with no translator for them except to tell them when the jury foreperson utters the word "guilty." Furthermore, they (the killers) should only know what anyone actually said during their trial(s) later... when they watch it(them) on videotape.

I know, I know... a funny notion, coming from a bleeding-heart liberal. And, of course, I wouldn't really want it that way. But, being only human, it feels good for a moment to just imagine it. One can dream, can't one?

 

Canada has been falling apart at the seams since long before I was born 36 years ago, and it will be falling apart at the seams long after I'm gone. Falling apart at the seams seems to be something Canada has managed to weather since confederation.

Indeed -- falling apart is part of what keeps Canada together.

Sound insane? Well, I live in "British Columbia" -- which is neither British, nor Colombian. We once had a "Progressive Conservative" party. Our universal medicare coverage -- differs from province to province (thus isn't really universal, except maybe "universally bad") -- but something we don't want to abandon. Our liberals are conservative, our conservatives are called reformers, and our pinkest red is green.

With me so far? We spell colour/color, cheque/check, centre/center or whatever depending whether we intend Canadians/British or Americans to read what we're writing, or just because Word defaults to American English. We watch American TV because most Canadian TV is so awful it's beyond hope, but we notice in American shows when parts of Vancouver we easily recognize show up with American flags on the show.

We'll freely export our talent, but feel betrayed when they become citizens of wherever it is they manage to become famous. We measure height and weight of human beings in feet, inches, and pounds, but we sell gas by the litre and food by the kilogram. We can jump between thinking in miles or kilometers, depending on what we're talking about.

Know why a Canuck passport is worth so much on the black market? Because it can say just about anything on it as to where someone is born, what his name is, or whatever and the holder could barely speak English or French -- and anyone who knows Canada will say, "Yes -- he could very well be a Citizen of Canada." That's why.

In short -- we're a mosaic allrighty -- and it's the seams that make the quilt.

Some Canadians whine about every one of the above, but (and maybe I'm wrong about the following statement, maybe I'm not) -- in the end -- most wouldn't have it any other way.

In Canada -- we homogenize our milk and pasteurize our orange juice. The rest is up for grabs.

 

Dude, you made me laugh so hard I will have to celebrate the day of the dead before my time. You kill me.

 

Mejor vivo que muerto!



Abner

Take care JLV and Miguel!

 

I like your style Quinn!



Abner

 

The English speak it best!

Oh, listen, there's a reason they call it, "English". Heck, even when Tony Blair is lying, which appears to be whenever his lips are moving, he SOUNDS so good...

We had some Royal Shakespeare actors here a couple of years ago to do "the Scottish Play". Oh, they not only sounded GREAT, the Elizabethan English is somehow easier to understand when they speak it.

English English is full of understatement and irony as a matter of course. Brooklynese just ISN'T, you know...then again, neither is Cockney...

This is ABSOLUTELY subjective, of course...

Go read Pygmalion again!