How about them neighbors who don't speak English?

 

If you are thinking- challenged and haven't found something popular to be mad about, how about your neighbors who don't speak English?

There is nothing dumber than the statement that "My immigrant ancestors had to learn English and these are no better."

Those immigrant ancestors who managed to  learn English did so as a matter of expediency, need and genuine willingness to adapt and enter our society.

They did it as the wisest practical solution -  and not because candidate and pundit fat heads made tough speeches about forcing people to learn English and requiring the government to print no forms in anything but English.

It almost makes you wish that some particular immigrants - those whose descendants have become unreasonable jingoists or mindless bigots -  had not come here back then.

The American Dream might be more alive and well rather than a nation's biggest lie.

... as if speaking English then entitles immigrants to the total respect of all the angry white folks who think Fox News is fair and balanced

... as if those viewers - demands met - would then welcome anyone who is "not-U.S." to be with "U.S."

Those immigrant ancestors who did manage to learn English (and there were many more who never did) didn't do so because American jingoists (I know that's a big word for people entirely raised or entertained by four-letter English words) refused to talk to them.

I was asked to teach a conversational Spanish class for business and  health care persons in the local community college. Class never got held cause enrollers were too few.

Ten years ago, through my church, we started an ESL (English as a Second Language for all you English-speakers who get stuck after 4 letters) primarily aimed at local Hispanic families.

When the number of those who signed up reached 46 the college saw $$ in fed funding and actively started recruiting me to turn the class into a college-based course. They wanted to learn English but had to balance the demands of a local job market and economy where many English-speaking white folks refused to do the minimum-wage labor in seafood canneries that support the entire community.

More of the immigrant problem lies in hearts of sons and daughters - both elected and unelected - who are descendants from immigrants and who think that every one of THEIR particular ancestors learned to speak English as fluently as the liars on Fox News do now.