Usually when I see the argument that "some immigrants do not think they should learn the language" the argument is missing a survey of the actual community and a mention of actual measurement of that attitude. No evidence except anecdotal.
However, the argument is made and has been made for centuries. "Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion. " -Benjamin Franklyn, 1751 The Dutch had similar concerns even before Ben: http://www.ned.univie.ac.at/publicaties/taalgeschiedenis/en/puris.htm Benjamin went on to establish German language writings and schools in part to try to Anglicize them and eventually to curry favor with them when we woke up to the fact they were participating Americans. America has has multingual schools and publications since it's inception among the first citizens. And it has has xenophobia since then as well. And, well - look how many of us speak German. I remember Al Gore, during his presidential campaign using the common retort - "It's out language that unites us." I thought , "That's a damn shame." With people speaking multiple languages on this list - what is it you find to talk about and do in those other languages? Do you join in causes with them. Work with them? Enjoy life with them? I don't speak Korean. Am I not united with korean speakers who work within the digital divide concerns? More practically - the numbers for these concerns are missing. Anglo Americans have been complaining about losing their English skills since before the US was founded. (Not to say it's unique to them..) Instead of falling apart and becoming German, Dutch, Spanish - the elite held their power and English remained dominant. Even though German towns persist today.. It's worth noting that my Puerto Rican grandmother (american citizen since birth) and grandfather (also American and a Veteran) who understand Spanish better than English pay taxes and deserve to have more access to her government than an immigrant from England or Australia might. When getting into the exaggerations of what about Chinese, Korean, Micronesian... Do they pay taxes? Are they member sof the democratic society or not? As their population rises, their needs should be met. The response by CAIRCO and Benjamin Franklyn are formula examples of xenophobia. What was their primary concern? Entitlement of being dominant. Removed evidence of "others". Besides the fact that this concern is largely fictional, if it were real, there are few realistic concerns outside of class and power. Whenever statehood for Puerto Rico is disucsed, Senator sinvariable show concern over them speaking Spanish. They ignore the fact that Puerto Rico has been participating in US society, Military, Postal Service, Court System etc for almost a century. Access to information and resources for members of society are important. Immigrants are and have been learning languages worlwide because they know the benefits. That is why evidence of long term immigrant not wanting to learn the host nation's language is lacking. very few might hold that opinion, but it's mostly held by people worried in some way about immigrants. All of the US spoke another language at some point. A huge portion spoke European languages other than English at some point. English continues to dominate. So - to frame this closer to the topic of this discussion list - (be sure to smell the well intended sarcasm) Is the problem that people don't want to use or learn technology? I've met people who have started cussing and crying when computers were introduced to their job as a requirement. Should we legislate and force people to adopt and use technology? Remove the other options like paper ballots for voting? For their benefit of course..... Or is the problem on the other end? If we use technology, do we end up with a dozen operating systems and hundreds of applications to "be fair"? (like the argument of using Chinese, Vietnemese, Korean, etc) Thanks for the original poster for showing how the issues covered here are related to the library incident. Something that hadn't occurred ot me before, but access is access and information is information. - Rich Vázquez p.s. Benjamin Fanklyn was wrong... _______________________________________________ DIGITALDIVIDE mailing list DIGITALDIVIDE@mailman.edc.org http://mailman.edc.org/mailman/listinfo/digitaldivide To unsubscribe, send a message to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the word UNSUBSCRIBE in the body of the message.
