Thread: Every immigrant who comes here should be required within five years to learn English

I don't know that I agree that all citizens or residents should be required to be "fluent" in English, but they certainly need to know enough to get by in society. Whatever that level of involvment may be. For example, I've pretty much given up on ever going to a gas station for directions. 99% of the time, the person working there doesn't speak enough English.

Now, what really drives me crazy is when newcomers not only refuse to learn the language, but then expect everyone else to accomodate this. The fact that we have instructions to vote or get a driver's license in other languages is infuriating.

For those of us who had ancestors come here speaking other languages, I think most of them did what they had to do to earn a living. But if you told them that the state was going to teach their children in Italian or in German or in Chinese, I think they would have gone through the roof. They wanted their kids to "melt" in with society and they knew they needed to speak English to get ahead - to be "American". That's what we're losing these days.

Jordan