LA Daily News: English bypassed in L.A.

[question everything]

English bypassed in L.A.

Koreans learning Spanish
By Rachel Uranga, Staff Writer
LA Daily News

9/26/05

Peruvian immigrant Miguel Aliaga always knew that coming to Los Angeles would mean a long struggle mastering a new language. He just never figured that language would be Korean.

In a city that lures some of the world's poorest, brightest and most ambitious immigrants, a strange phenomenon is occurring.

Clusters of immigrants are learning that America is not as much about assimilating into an English-speaking world but into a diverse immigrant culture, where Koreans can speak Spanish - and vice versa.

(snip)

While no agency officially tracks the phenomenon, groups working in immigrant communities around Los Angeles can point to a handful of foreigners who assimilate by learning the dominant language - and sometimes it isn't English.Latinos working in Chinese restaurants learn Mandarin. Koreans running manufacturing warehouses speak Spanish.

(snip)

http://www2.dailynews.com/news/ci_3061843

Rachel Uranga, [phone] [e-mail]

[ugarte]

1. English is useful but not essential in LA

Hell, I've known people in LA who once spoke English and have forgotten it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. Well, if it was important to keep English a dominant language in that

city, maybe you should have renamed it, "The Angels."

JK.

[Poll_Blind]

3. LOL! n/t

PB