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

Originally Posted by gugi

Right, so we're finally at the source of contention. It's not the language, that's bothering people, it's the money. The lower economic class of US citizens do not want to compete successfully with the immigrants (legal and illegal) because they do not want to lower their standard of living. On the other hand the more enterpreneural US citizens are quite happy to decrease their cost of operation by hiring this cheaper labor.

Hi again.
I think this is a bit of oversimplification. It is just one facet of many. The jobs being done by illegal aliens are typically paid under the table at rates that an employer would not legally be able to pay a citizen. Sure it is illegal that the employers are hiring illegal aliens and paying them less than minimum wage. Unfortunately there is so little enforcement against the employers that actual citizens essentially need not apply. Many say these are jobs Americans won't do, but this simply isn't true. Many of the jobs formerly occupied by Americans (high school students, laborers, even more skilled trades) are now filled instead by illegal, off the books employees, who do not "live" here, but share an apartment with 20 other men. So, the effect is compound. Rental prices in such areas are artificially high, because even a high rent divided by 30 is cheap-therefore regular families can afford less and less; teens who would have been working a summer job putting shingles on houses or mowing lawns-are now called lazy and unwilling to work, when in reality, they cannot compete with an illegal alien with 30 years experience willing to do it cheaper than the employer is allowed to hire them(the legal citizen) at. I'm not proposing the minimum wage be dropped, but that the employers be taken to task. I also say illegal alien, because, in many cases they have no intent of living here, which is why they split apartments 30 ways. The money goes back to (Mexico/Guatemala/wherever).

Originally Posted by gugi

I imagine that they way things got here was that a not so long ago there were more 'better' jobs available to americans which are now gone because they have been outsourced. But that's just the way things work as the world becomes increasingly globalized. I suppose that americans can take back the landscaping and lettuce picking type of jobs, and these positions may even get a slight pay increase, but this is still only getting ahead from being unemployed.

This is a different topic, perhaps, but it would be a good one I think. The outsourcing of jobs has nothing, however, to do with those here speaking the language or even people coming here illegally to take advantage of what others have paid for (although a bit tongue in cheek, one could say this is actually becoming the new "American dream" only it doesn't actually involve Americans). Outsourcing is just another way for employers who have become global corporations to skirt labor laws. Personally, while things would be a bit more expensive, I think that people should be paid fair wages for fair work. If a shoe company or (just about any company in China) wants to have 12 year old slave girls make its shoes (or insert other product here...) for $0.15 per hour, then I feel that company's products should be penalized so as to cost exactly the same as if they had paid the employees minimum U.S. wages. I believe in the market, etc. but we cannot sit here and complain about child labor, slavery, etc etc. here in the US then by default support such activities in other countries by allowing corporations to use slave (or *almost*) labor to make their products more competitive against companies which do not support such activities. I also feel that if a foreign company does pay its workers fairly, that should be taken into account and their products should receive less restrictions, IMHO. The global market is only a free market if everyone is playing by similar rules; if we require things of an American company in order to allow them to sell their product to us, the same should apply to foreign, and nominally American(but not) global corporations, as well.

Originally Posted by gugi

The way I understand it, the american dream is not moving from an IT consultant to landscaper - it is more like moving from IT consultant to a sucessfull IT consulting business owner.
Everybody wants to give examples of highly sucessful stories, but in reality there are much fewer sucesses than there are failures. Bill Gates built an empire from winning a contract with IBM, but Henry Ford failed over and over and over again.

This is true to a point, especially wrt. the failures involved. It seems too often people miss this part.

Originally Posted by gugi

I find it a bit dishonest to put the blame on the immigrants. Yes the illegal immigrants are breaking the law by crossing the border, yet somehow to me this seems like shifting the burden of protecting a country's border from that country onto its neighbors. As far as border towns turning from english-speaking to spanish-speaking - is this worse than another alternative 'ghost towns'?

I will say this. It really disturbs me to see people speaking of illegal aliens as "immigrants". They are not the same thing. An immigrant is just as American as any other in my opinion. An illegal alien is someone who felt it necessary or even appropriate to cheat everyone else doing things legally, jump the line, then in turn cheat others willing to do work legally by undercutting their wages. Illegal aliens may or may not intend to stay here, may or may not have good intentions (there is no difference IMHO between crossing a nation's border at night in a remote location and "infiltrating" that country). It isn't *that* difficult to come here legally, especially for the majority of those who arrive illegally nightly at the US borders-so why did they not wait their turn like everyone else? I lay the blame on much of this on unscrupulous employers as much as I do those sneaking in, but both are attempting to get something for an unfair profit.

Originally Posted by gugi

In any case, back to the 'requirement' of immigrants learning english - as you may have guessed I would favor market oriented approach. The majority of this country speaks english and if one day that becomes spanish, or chinese, to me that would only mean that those people were economically and demographically more viable than the rest, and then that's how it should be.

This I could agree with; however right now the common language happens to be English. It is only sensible that people should attempt to learn it. Above there have been a few posts speaking of older people who had difficulty with the language-unfortunately for this argument, it is almost NEVER the older person who stands in a hospital demanding they only be spoken to in their native tongue. It is younger people, and to be honest, I wish the laws were different and these people could be informed that just across the border they came over, there is a perfectly good hospital waiting for them. After all, haven't we been told again and again by filmmakers and other knowledgeable medical types that Cuba and other countries like that have much better medical care than we? So stop using our tax money and putting our hospitals out of business unless one is at least willing to try. TRY. It isn't too much to ask. I really don't understand why people decry Americans for wanting those newly here to do this. Every nation in the world does this, why should we Americans be the only ones to take it in the shorts.

Originally Posted by gugi

In any case it seems to me that the current economic problems of US have very little to do with legal and illegal immigrants. And my understanding is that in historical plan, the numbers as fraction of the population are not too high - a higher fractions have been sucessfully integrated in the past.

You would only be partially right. Go to San Diego or some other border town. Look at the hospitals that have went out of business. Higher fractions of legal immigrants have been successfully integrated, sure, but we aren't speaking of legal immigration, and the number has lots of zeros on the end of it these days. Legal immigrants are ALWAYS welcome, and are a great contribution to what this country is all about. People who come unlawfully and flaunt the laws of our country show it no respect and, call a spade a spade, they are breaking multiple laws. Demanding (and getting) home loans when citizens can't get them, undercutting wages, artificially inflating the prices of housing, taxing the medical, educational and social security systems...
A real immigrant would not demand to be spoken to in his or her native language, but would endeavor to learn English instead. Five years as suggested above is PLENTY of time, even for the slowest to learn enough English to function; at any rate even elderly etc. coming here to assimilate into society at least should (and do!) attempt the language at the very least. Some may never be fluent but functional is much easier to achieve, after all they put the effort forward to get here in the first place, right? no problem. It is the illegal who gets here, cheating the system and breaking the law from the first step on US soil, who, with no respect to his or her host country, demands also to be spoken to in his or her native language. Like our country, he or she has no use for the language the rest of us use, either.

It is my feeling, however, that regardless of one's opinions on those arriving illegally, people who break the law to get here and or stay here are not going to respect any law about language, either. On the other hand, those who put forward the effort to do things correctly, and respect the country they wish to live in, should IMHO be given a certain amount of time to learn some basic skills in English, and if need be, I'm all for help for those people in learning it, as they have shown the effort to do things right in the first place. Learning "Hello," "Stop" "Help" "Where is the (bank/hospital/grocer etc)" and such does NOT take five years even for an elderly person. Typically however, as above, the elderly person at least tries and is not the one from the hospital example.

One day I'll be able to be succinct with my thoughts...

I promise.


John P.