Why English is Important.
One of the mantras in the immigration debate is the English language question. It could be something as simple as a sign in a fast food window or as complex as legislation to make English the national language. What is lost in the discussion of diversity versus assimilation is WHY it is so very important for immigrants (legal or illegal) to learn how to speak the English language.
Emphasis mine. The police identified themselves but because the homeowner did not speak English - he didn't know what they said! He assumed that they were bad guys and opened fire!
Back when the Logical Husband and I were newlyweds, we lived in Germany courtesy of the United States Army. Because we were living in Germany, we learned German so that we could communicate with shopkeepers, our landlady and of course the police. It's common sense! Yet two Democratic Presidential candidates (Senators Clinton and Obama) voted against an amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration reform bill that would have required official government business in the United States to be conducted in English! Instead they voted for an amendment that declared that English was the "common and unifying language" of the country. While that is a true and accurate statement, it certainly diminishes the importance of learning English in order to understand what others are saying to you!
When we lived in Germany, we did not "demand" that the German government provide us with English documents in order to do business with the government. We learned the language so that we could do what was necessary for us to live in their country. I think that maybe our guests living here need to do the same. It's common sense.
Police blamed bad information for sending a SWAT team into a north Minneapolis house early Sunday morning in a raid that ended with shots exchanged between police -- who were struck by bullets -- and the resident, who said he was just defending his family.
The homeowner, who does not speak English, told his brother that he thought the police were the "bad guys" after they broke through the back door of the house, where he lives with his wife and six children...In a statement released shortly after 5 a.m. Sunday, police said that officers found no one on the first floor of the house. When they made their way up to the second floor, they were confronted by an adult male. The officers identified themselves as police, and the man fired several rounds at them. Several officers returned fire, but no one in the house was injured.
Emphasis mine. The police identified themselves but because the homeowner did not speak English - he didn't know what they said! He assumed that they were bad guys and opened fire!
Back when the Logical Husband and I were newlyweds, we lived in Germany courtesy of the United States Army. Because we were living in Germany, we learned German so that we could communicate with shopkeepers, our landlady and of course the police. It's common sense! Yet two Democratic Presidential candidates (Senators Clinton and Obama) voted against an amendment to the Comprehensive Immigration reform bill that would have required official government business in the United States to be conducted in English! Instead they voted for an amendment that declared that English was the "common and unifying language" of the country. While that is a true and accurate statement, it certainly diminishes the importance of learning English in order to understand what others are saying to you!
When we lived in Germany, we did not "demand" that the German government provide us with English documents in order to do business with the government. We learned the language so that we could do what was necessary for us to live in their country. I think that maybe our guests living here need to do the same. It's common sense.
Labels: Illegal Immigration
posted by The Lady Logician at
6:09 PM
1 Comments:
I think it's terribly important to learn English, but when masked men burst into the wrong house waving machine guns and and shouting stuff in the middle of the night, perhaps fluency in the language isn't the main issue.
I also think that the highly-trained professionals of the MPD SWAT team should be able to, without much cogitating, be able to discern the difference between African American gangbangers and a Hmong family. (I'm not stereotyping; that's who they got the warrant for. The black gangbangers, that is; the house they shot up was a Hmong family's, inhabited by, and only by, the Hmong family.)
Preferably before firing two dozen rounds into the place, not one of them hitting anything resembling an attacker.
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Anonymous, at 2:08 PM
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