I think we should insist that well off youngsters from families that have been American for generations learn to write intelligible English first. Then we can worry about the immigrants that are busting their tails to make a living here doing work no one else wants to do.

I went to Yale and always tested well and blah blah blah and if you required me to learn a second language or face deportment, I'd have to start packing because I've got a tin ear for languages. I think we need to cut some slack to people that are trying to make a go of it in this country doing hard work.

Having said that, I don't like the fact that we enable ignorance of English by posting Spanish language translations of so many things - forcing it is one thing, making it easy not to learn is another.

Incidentally, I do think our schools should copy the Scandinavian model and start teaching second and third languages from elementary school on. That way most people can get programmed to handle more than one language while their brains are still developing. And with the globalization of the economy it is a shame that we are not making ourselves competitive in communication skills.