Disclaimer: I am in no way a racial person. I do not consider myself to be any better or worse than any ethnicity that exists out there. This is just meant to be a rant on my soapbox and nothing physically violent will come from it.
I was 8 when I moved to Carthage with my parents. At that time I was extremely unaware of the two different kinds of Spanish speaking people: Guatemalans and Hispanics. I saw them in my school -- children my age who spoke very little English and who often translated for their parents.
It didn't seem like a big deal until I got older. Any job in Carthage it seemed like a desired quality would be Spanish speaking. No, not Hispanic of Guatemalan Spanish speakers, but biligual English speaking people. You had to be able to speak both English and Spanish fluently.
It didn't make any sense to me that people who were immigrants (sometimes even illegally) were being catered to. Anywhere you saw it, older Spanish speaking people relying on their children to translate or even do some kind of sign language to get their point across.
The language barrier is great and in some ways continues to grow, but I don't understand why we are encouraged to learn their language if they don't have to learn English? Doesn't that enable them?
My wife has witnessed this time and time again being in the medical field -- Spanish speaking nurses preferred over non-Spanish speaking. One of her close friends landed a much coveted job that she applied for over and over again and this girl speaks fluent Spanish. The hospital has used and abused her, sending her all over to translate and not paying her a penny more than her nursing salary. But in her particular area a lot of Spanish speaking mothers need a translator and she is demand.
The translators in her hospital get paid more than the nurses do. Both have a bachelor's degree, but the translators make significantly more.
Am I going in the wrong field???
Please don't misunderstand me, it is just frustrating that in some ways it feels like we are enabling the non-English speaking community.
My wife and I have been to Mexico 4 times. No English speaking Mexicans there -- they all spoke Spanish and we had to learn a few phrases in order to make our stay easier. If we went anywhere in the world we wouldn't be catered to. And why should we be? We would choose to live in the country that speaks French/Spanish/German/Portuguese we should learn their language.
Okay, I'm off my soapbox. Now I'm off to learn Spanish since that may help my marketability in this area and my starting wage may be greater.
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Wow, this is something, I too, have been asking. We are in America, so learn English, I hate that everything we buy has directions written in English and Spanish. I totally agree with everything you have said, and I wish immigrants would come here and learn our language. It's not fair, but seems to be little we can do about it. Good post though.
ReplyDeleteI agree that they should learn English, but clearly they're not going to, so I guess it's our job to learn Spanish. I actually love Spanish and have taken a few years of it, so it doesn't seem like much of a convenience to me.
ReplyDeleteyeah, but it would be a big inconvenience to others who don't want to learn Spanish. I for one, would not want to learn spanish to make people from another country feel better. It's not our job to cater to their ways. If they want to live here, they need to do things our way. This is America and we speak English here, so if they don't want to learn our language, then go back to their country and speak their own language.
ReplyDeleteWhat ever happened to "When in Rome, do as the Romans do.."
ReplyDelete