Attention Language Bigots and Xenophobes!

[AspenRose]

Wed Sep 13, 12:46 AM ET
PHOENIX (Reuters) - U.S. citizens concerned that Latino immigrants will have them singing "The Star-Spangled Banner" in Spanish can rest easy, according to an academic study published on Wednesday.

A report in the Population and Development Review found that far from threatening the dominance of English, most Latin American immigrants to the United States lose their ability to speak Spanish over the course of a few generations.

The study by sociologists Frank Bean and Ruben Rumbaut of the University of California, Irvine, and Douglas Massey from Princeton, drew on two surveys investigating adaptation by immigrant communities in California and south Florida.

It concluded that by the third generation, most descendants of immigrants are "linguistically dead" in their mother tongue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060913/ts_nm/immigration_usa_english_dc

[Warpy]

1. Spanish is alive and well in New Mexico

Families who have been here since the Pueblos let them back into the state still teach their children Spanish to use at home, English to use out in the world. There are also immigrants from all over this hemisphere, most of them Spanish speaking. Even po faced suburban crackers like yours truly can get along in border Spanish in the stores where few employees speak English.

In recognition of the linguistic makeup of this hemisphere, schools really should start teaching Spanish along with English from kindergarten on up.

Learning a second language early makes that third, fourth, or fifth easier.

I've always wished I'd managed a couple of years of Spanish along with those six years of French.

[AspenRose]

2. Claro que si: I'm from Nuevo Mexico tambien :-)

I'm in VA right now though....you lucky dog, you get roasted green chile right now :hi:

[Warpy]

8. I've acclimated, no longer think of the smell of burning leaves

in fall. Now it's that first whiff of roasting chile.

Friends and family can send it to you overnighted in dry ice. It will thaw slightly, but it can be refrozen.

That chile Jones is a serious one. I lose weight when I travel because other folks' food is so BLAND.

[bobbolink]

16. Is the chile crop OK this year? That flood in Hatch sounded bad.

?

[Warpy]

17. Every market has a chile roaster going full blast

so it couldn't be that bad.

In fact, it might be a great one. Farmers who were expecting irrigation water to be cut off in late June were surprised by a record breaking monsoon season.

The level in Elephant Butte reservoir rose four and a half feet.

[bobbolink]

19. Sad about Hatch, glad about the chile crop, and delighted to know

Elephant Butte is in such good shape. The Indians in that area badly needed that water! When I was there in January, things were pitiful. I'm relieved to hear the Indians got at least some of the water they need. Hope it was in time for their crops, too.

Thanks for the reply. :hi:

signed.... former New Mexican...who still gets mightily homesick...

[JitterbugPerfume]

6. my grand kids,

who go to Catholic school in Florida, start learning Spanish in Kindergarten . It is a shame the public schools do not do the same.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

3. There's nothing less American than immigrants.

The really scary thing is, those people might actually want to stay and eventually change what America looks like.

[EFerrari]

4. It's too late. We're already here and we already are changing

what "America" looks like.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

5. What we need is a final solution for this immigration problem.

Hmm.

[Cleita]

7. I have a suggestion. Let's send all those without Native American

ancestors back to where they came from.

[Bill McBlueState]

9. works for me!

I wouldn't mind a free trip back to a country with free health care and free public higher ed. The country of my ancestors takes much better care of its people than mine does.

[Cleita]

11. Off you go! n/t

[bobbolink]

25. I like the way you think! I've had similar thoughts!

I've also thought that since the US took in so many from other countries, and is now in the process of trying to "incinerate" poor folk, that other countries could now return the favor, take in those of us who are poor and can't survive here, teach us how to make a truly egalitarian society, so that if this country ever gets it's act together, we can come back and have some inkling of how to make this mess into a liveable, contributing part of the planet!

I think it's a great plan. :hi:

Won't some country please adopt me???? :)

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

14. Sounds great.

I'd like to apply for immigration status, please.

[bobbolink]

20. where do us heinz 57 varieties go?

I"m so mixed up I'm half the U.N. :)

[Cleita]

21. Me too. Most Americans who come from settlers or pioneer

stock have some Native American bloodlines in them. In the case of hispanics it's more than the European Americans because since the Spaniards brought very few women with them, most intermarried with the natives when they settled down creating a creole mix.

Anyway, I was really being sarcastic with that remark and should have put this up: :sarcasm:

[bobbolink]

24. No worries... I "saw" the sarcasm ^_^ My reply was also in that

tone. :hi: I'm too lily-white to give much thought to having any Indian in my background, even though both sides of the family came west quite a long time ago. ~~chortle~~

I'm so aware of the awful destruction that we did to both the Indians and the Hawaiians, that I also "see" the serious side to your comment. If we *had* to come here and settle, the very least we could have done was to recognize what we had to learn from both of those groups. Think what a much better society this would be if we had chosen to actually come in peace, and LEARN. Imagine.

The "Mountain Men" also often intermarried with the Indians. If they weren't with a company, they knew they couldn't make it through the winter alone, so they would "hang out" with a group of Indians, and often mated, of course. Not a part of our rugged history that is much discussed. :)

So, "sarcasm" away -- I'm with ya! :hi:

[EFerrari]

23. We taste a little like chicken, if that's any help.

:rofl:

[DavidDvorkin]

10. Numerous studies have shown that over the years

It's always been the common experience of immigrant communities, here and in other countries.

[Cleita]

12. My son-in-law is a third generation Mexican American and

doesn't speak a word of Spanish, however, his son married an immigrant Mexican girl, who taught him Spanish. So my son-in-law's son and grandchildren speak both English and Spanish even though he doesn't.

[OregonDem]

13. I could care less what language they choose to speak,

Americans should not be afraid to be exposed to different cultures and languages. We simply do not have the right to demand that people should speak, act, or believe what we do. This nation is not the Borg where everyone has to assimilate, although a lot of right wingers would like it to be a white, christian, english speaking only nation. I live near a community of people whose first language is Russian, although they're descendants had already immigrated to the US from Russia before the revolution in 1917 so I know that not all immigrants choose to speak english.

[Ravenseye]

15. My daughter is a third generation

And she speaks the native language of my mother who immigrated over, so there's my anecdotal evidence flying in the face of that stupid study. Hell my daughter is just about to turn 2 and she's already starting to speak in my mother's native language, so I don't know where those fancy boys at Princeton get off.

Just because my mother immigrated from England...

:evilgrin:

(oh and my father immigrated from Iraq...I speak bad Arabic, I doubt my children ever will at all)

[trotsky]

18. My experience in Minnesota would confirm that study's results.

Most of us are only 3-4 generations removed from Scandinavian/German/etc. immigrants, and it's not at all unusual for folks to remember their great-grandpa speaking only Norwegian, going to Norwegian church services, you name it. Lived and died without learning English (producing and contributing all the while), yet now their descendents are doing just fine.

Just another fear tool the Pukes use to whip up their base.

[Cleita]

22. I had a friend in college from Minnesota. She was a

hundred percent Swedish decent and she told me that there were small communities up there that were even up to third generation who hardly spoke English. They learned Swedish at home, in school and at church.

And what about the French Cajun in Louisiana? I knew a family who spoke Cajun French at home.