{"id":429,"date":"2007-06-15T12:33:03","date_gmt":"2007-06-15T16:33:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/valorguardians.com\/blog\/2007\/06\/15\/so-learn-english-already\/"},"modified":"2007-06-15T15:55:17","modified_gmt":"2007-06-15T19:55:17","slug":"so-learn-english-already","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/?p=429","title":{"rendered":"So learn English already!"},"content":{"rendered":"

First of all, let me say this; I speak almost exclusively Spanish in my home. There are times when I speak Spanish with my wife outside my home when I need to speak privately to her. In fact, when I first saw Schwartzenegger make this comment last night, I was watching it on Telemundo – I watch Spanish language news programs. Well, here’s the report from SFGate<\/a>;<\/p>\n

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told a gathering of Hispanic journalists that immigrants should avoid Spanish-language media if they want to learn English quickly.<\/p>\n

“You’ve got to turn off the Spanish television set” and avoid Spanish-language television, books and newspapers, the Republican governor said Wednesday night at the annual convention of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists.<\/p>\n

“You’re just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster,” Schwarzenegger said.<\/p>\n

“I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say, and I’m going to get myself in trouble,” he said, noting that he rarely spoke German and was forced to learn English when he emigrated from Austria.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

When I first heard it, I thought, well, that makes complete sense. The language of commerce for the whole world is English – someone wanting to make money should learn to speak English, for Pete’s sake. Then I listened to the outraged SPANISH-LANGUAGE journalists complain about what Arnold said, and they pretty much\u00c2\u00a0echoed the SFGate article;<\/p>\n

“I’m sitting shaking my head not believing that someone would be so naive and out of it that he would say something like that,” said Alex Nogales, president and chief executive of the National Hispanic Media Coalition.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

“Naive and out of it”. Hey, Nogales, compa<\/em>, you’re being naive and out of it.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n

From Hispanic Business.com<\/a>, probably the most ignorant\u00c2\u00a0words in response to the governor’s statement that\u00c2\u00a0Latins should learn English;<\/p>\n

“They’re busy working,” remarked panelist Pilar Marrero, political editor of Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion. “They don’t have time to.”<\/p>\n

[…]<\/p>\n

“Spanish media is there to do what the English media doesn’t do, which is to serve the immigrants,” Marrero said afterward.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Spanish media is there to make money for the Spanish media, Pilar. If your audiences learned to speak English, they wouldn’t need you anymore and you’d have to become a real journalist instead of victimizing and stigmatizing your audience. And next time you’re talking to the governor, and you’re trying to present yourself as a journalist, don’t end a sentence with a preposition – it detracts from your credibility.<\/p>\n

I learned Spanish when I lived in Panama, I learned German when I lived in Germany. I already had jobs in boths places that didn’t have a language requirement for the local language, so I didn’t have to learn the respective languages – but I did out of respect for my neighbors and the people with whom I conducted daily business. There were English-language TV channels in both places, but I watched the local TV stations to immerse myself in the language.<\/p>\n

And who better to make that “naive and out of it” statement but Scwartzeneger – an immigrant who came here speaking no English? Is it\u00c2\u00a0politically incorrect because he happened to be an immigrant from a European country instead of a southern country? Pilar Marrero thinks so;<\/p>\n

Marrero said afterward. “As he said, it’s a political hot potato. I think he believes it, he thinks about his own experience. It’s different when you come from Austria than when you come from Latin America.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

That’s pretty racist, Pilar.\u00c2\u00a0Are you saying that Europeans are genetically predisposed to learning multiple languages? Or are you saying that Latins are too stupid to learn another language besides Spanish? Or are you just yapping to hear yourself yap?<\/p>\n

Actually, the SPANISH LANGUAGE\u00c2\u00a0JOURNALISTS were upset that Schwartzeneger implied that they, SPANISH LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS, were contributing to the inability of their audience to function in an English-speaking society and conduct English-speaking business. And they are. They’re just angry that he said it outloud – to a group of SPANISH LANGUAGE JOURNALISTS.<\/p>\n

Like\u00c2\u00a0I said, who is being naive and out of it?<\/p>\n

By the way, I speak Spanish in my home to keep in practice for when I visit Latin America – out of respect for the people I’m visiting. I can do that because my English (the language of commerce) is just fine.<\/p>\n

Salud!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

First of all, let me say this; I speak almost exclusively Spanish in my home. There … So learn English already!<\/span>Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-media","category-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.azuse.cloud\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}