Barack Obama largely dodged a question on bilingualism yesterday in Georgia by dismissing “English-only” laws and dialectically suggesting that our children need to speak Spanish, because it’s embarrassing to him when Europeans come over here and can speak English, but we can’t speak French or German.
Except he was less coherent, probably on purpose.
Salon’s Andrew Leonard, anticipating the likely reaction, went on Offense for Obama:
There’s nothing particularly exceptional about Obama’s position, unless you are an English-only partisan cowering in fear of your cultural identity being swamped by funny-looking people from strange lands.
Those partisans who believe that it is more important for newcomers to learn English than it is for their fellow citizens to become bilingual make up some 77%-83% of likely voters, including 59% of Democrats. Indeed, many Spanish-speakers have figured out that bilingual education is an obstacle to their kids becoming part of the mainstream of American society.ÂÂ
Although Obama is clearly on the wrong side of public opinion on this issue, John McCain is in no position to take advantage of it. He has a long history of supporting bilingual education — right up to 2007, when he flip-flopped to support English as the official language of the United States. It is of a piece with his support for “comprehensive immigration reform.” Yet after years of pandering to Hispanic interest groups on these issues, he got a tepid reception when speaking to the League of United Latino Citizens, in part due to inept advance work by his reorganizing campaign staff, in part because he cannot be bothered to give such groups straight talk about the fact that Obama killed the immigration bill McCain — and LULAC — championed. He could have reminded LULAC that supporting Obama over him would be to punish a friend and reward an opponent, but chose to give his stump speech instead.
(h/t Memeorandum.)
All brown people are inherently Democrats anyway. Except for some wacky Cubans, and that’s changing. For real I heard it on NPR.
I don’t have the link handy, but the Cuban shift is still a myth NPR trots out every 4 years. The Diaz-Balarts are all doing just fine, and O! is doing subpar with non-Cuban Hispanics in S.FL.
I’m sure such snark will land me in trouble, but how is Andrew Leonard’s Spanish these days?
But, when Swedish tourists visit the beaches in Italy and Croatia, they speak English to the Italians and Croats, fully expecting to be understood. We already speak the lingua franca.
Can McOldguy be any more inept? He should be taking advantage of these Obambi missteps. If I were Barry, I wouldn’t even bother debating him! Obama can kindly suggest that McCain get some rest for this fall.
As one wag commented on (I think) Just One Minute, note that Obama states here that it was important to be bilingual so that you can do well in business… which contradicts his earlier exhortations to young people to turn up their noses at the base world of commerce, and instead enter into such uplifting social service endeavors like community organizing.
MAKE UP YOUR MIND, NEO-JESUS!
Unless you’re in the labor-smuggling business, if you know enough Spanish to not accidentally buy heroin when you want cocaine, you know enough. Street-fightin’ man surely knows this. Why’s he talking like some white-shamed Harvard pussy?
…Oh.
McCain will not — ever — talk shit about his Colleague in front of the servants.
(That means us.)
They took our jobs!!!!!
There’s nothing particularly exceptional about Obama’s position, unless you are an Euroweenie
English-onlypartisan cowering in fear of your transnationalculturalidentity being swamped by funny-looking people from flyover countrystrange lands..“Obama and McCain are bilingual, if that means speaking from both sides of their mouths”(Karl)-
extreme LOL!!!! Love the headline!!!
Karl, I happened to hear BHO on this- nowhere he claimed that immigrants, Spanish included, should not learn English.
But how about the preacher himself ?:-
By Obama’s Indonesian teachers’ accounts, he never learned much Indonesian despite years of immersion in it. Does he know any other languages? I’ve never heard that he does.
Now to his claim that lack of foreign language fluency holds somebody back.
How exactly did it held him in his chosen career? Would he now be the front runner for Galactic Overlord if he’d picked up Spanish and Klingnon?
Obama is “embarrassed” by what the Euros think about him. How lame.
See, Lisa, this is a sure-fire way to tell that he’s a Lefty: centrists and the Right don’t give a tinker’s dam what the Euros think, given that we fought a war for the express purpose of cutting our ties with Our Betters, who have looked down their noses at us ever since. The only way we could impress them would be to submit to their rule again, and even then the goodwill would last only as long as it took them to shunt us back into the lower classes, where we belong.
When will Lefties get that English Only laws are meant to benefit the immigrants? Those who can’t speak English can’t get good jobs or function fully in society. The last thing we need is a linguistic underclass in this country.
Back in the 19th century, when we got immigrants from all over, they HAD to speak English, because the Italians couldn’t speak Swedish and stuff. But now, most of the immigrants come from Latin America, so we risk
creatingperpetuating the little enclaves of underclass folks who have no urgent need to cross the language barrier.But the standard Lefty perspective on this is that because America is the strongest and most influential in the world, it is also the world’s (EVIL!) bully, which makes them feel ashamed. The only way to purge their shame is to roll over and show the world their soft underbelly and say “you da man” a lot.
Sorry, “eres el hombre.”
Obami – he’ll slip you the leftard salami(in six languages!).
dicentra,
Yeah, true.
When I was in second grade, we had a kid in my class, straight off the boat from Italy. I think his name was Guisseppe(?).
Couldn’t speak one word of English.
But guess what? By the end of the school year he could understand and communicate in English.
Unlike some of the Hispanic immigrants that I know who have been here for ten years and still have no clue about English. And I am not putting them down, just sayin’ that the new attitude is “Give me my money, and screw Americans and their stupid cow language”.
Because, to them, we ARE a cow – a cash cow.
– Every time you follow one of these Lefturd ideas to ground you find just another example of “Euro-fying” America. You can go right down the line in every position they take, from the “open borders” one world bullshit, to the attacks on religion, the infestation of the school system, and media. All designed to do from within what they couldn’t achieve on the battlefield or the halls of debate.
– If I didn’t know a damn thing about Marxism/Socialism, I’d know automatically it has to be a scam because the Left is forced to do everything by trickery, treachery, and mendacity, which they even wrongly characterize as “intellectual”. If a SecProgg wants it, it has to be bad for America. What a pile of sophomoric crap.
– Everything they do is designed to tear down America and inculcate EuroBloc values and thinking. This language ploy is just another example.
– Fuck the Left. Just keep them out of any real power, and all they can do is carp and annoy.
This is Obama’s standard dodge on bilingualism in the U.S. He used it before in one of the debates (the one with the anchor from Univision).
And it’s pretty standard Obama: dodge a real issue and put up some meaningless banality. As if anyone would be against kids learning foreign languages.
Not that it doesn’t work. Even on this board, discussion shifted away from English in the U.S., and towards what embarrasses Obama.
I took French and Latin years ago. There is nothing wrong with learning a foreign language. Of course I have not used either language and have forgotten most of what I learned, but it is not a bad thing. However, forcing a child to learn Spanish seems weird and wrong.
My father in law grew up in Cincinnatti in the 20’s and 30’s. He said that he spoke German in school until he was in the fourth grade. Then the teacher told them that from that day forward, they would speak English in class. He grew up in what they called German town. His grandmother never did speak English.
They took our jobs!!!!!
You worked in a packing plant? Or picking fruit and vegetables?
I did not know that.
#9: sashal,
O! never says he’s against immigrants learning English. But he’s against “English-only” laws (which are misnamed) and said that of course immigrants pick up English just fine. But I could point you to Fausta’s blog, where he says from experience that really is not always the case.
When it comes to bilingual education, the typical pattern is that polls show that Hispanics are against it. Then someone gets a ballot initiative going to end it. Then the teacher’s union spends truckoads of money to convince Hispanics that ending bilingual ed is racist. It still usually passes, but not always. Another reason McCain would not go near this is that it might not play well in Colorado, New Mexico and Nevada.
#15 Terrye: My dad graduated from Arthur Hill High School in Saginaw, Michigan, in 1948. Then they had many students bussed in from the outlying farm towns (ever hear of Frankenmuth?) who had strong German accents. That wasn’t an abnormal thing way back when. living in America and only speaking a language other than English. Still, to move anywhere in America then, to move up, English was required and still (unofficially) is. Especially since English is the common language of the business world now and for the forseeable future.
[…] Obama Campaign Site Highlights Obama’s Failures Don Surber: Daily Scorecard Protein Wisdom: Obama and McCain are bilingual, if that means speaking from both sides of their mouths Radio Equalizer: Jackson’s Candid Obama Comments Have Politicos Buzzing Mean Ol’ Meany: […]
Interesting the things O! is embarrassed by…
NOT Trinity or Wright or Pfleger or his wife’s “first pride” or…
Nah… monolingual Americans embarrass O!, especially when he dreams the progg dream of why can’t America be more like Europe?
However, most rational people understand that Europeans who speak more than one language are not more sophisticated, nor did they learn other languages because they are more cultured. It is a way to do business and communicate with one’s very close neighbors.
Lordy, if each of America’s 57 states spoke a different language, we’d all be multilingual… and those on the East coast would necessarily have more languages under there belt then those of us on the left coast. (you can fit several eastern states into just San Bernardino county … not to mention a few Euro nations!)
Well where I live in Northern VA, with a commute toward DC, you can see hundreds of illegals lining the street begging for work. They have neighborhoods here that are called “Little Havana”. Fairfax County VA is getting flooded now that the County nextdoor authorized cops to ask for Immigration paperwork. Since the other Country did that, crime has fallen 20 percent in their country, but our DMV is full daily. F these invaders kick them all out.
I’m with Techie #3 — people can speak whatever language they want at home, and learning a new language is good for you–
–but we need a common language for serious business. If the house is burning down, I don’t want to wait for the 911 operator to find someone who is fluent in Urdu.
(And don’t get me started on providing government information and services in any language other than English; my blood pressure can’t take it.)
MC
and why should the language that O! demands we teach our kids (or what? the parent police will arrest us?) be Spanish?
I live in So Cal, and even if Spanish that is the #1 foreign language here, we also have the largest immigrant populations outside of their home countries of Korean, Armenian and Russian. Not to mention thriving communities that speak Tagalog, Japanese, several Chinese dialects, Farsi, Hebrew and Vietnamese. Why should monolingual English speakers be forced to be bilingual in Spanish?
Karl, I agree, I think English should be the official language.
Sure there could be signs and descriptions for the NEWCOMERS in Spanish or even Russian in the immigrant populated areas but all the official governmental procedures and acts should be conducted in English. This is so obvious for anyone who would like to preserve one of the main identities of American people.
The important and probably funny thing about our American schools is, even if they did nothing, the U.S. would have a pretty substantial pool of bilingual speakers simply from speaking their parents’ language at home and English at school.
I feel a little king of the obvious here, but I think Baracky wants people all upset and making noises about this sort of thing. Hispanics are definitely a weak spot in his little coalition thinger, no?
People likely to be really upset about this sort of thing, they’re not Baracky voters I wouldn’t think.
The Armenians make the best hummous.
Let’s get teachers capable of graduating children functionally literate in English first, then we can start thinking about second languages.
Obama says he speaks Indonesian… which is supposedly one of the easiest languages in the world to get a grasp on.
He says he speaks a little Spanish too.
Why that thin bit of knowledge empowers him to tell anyone what to do about learning a second language is beyond me.
I speak Spanish well enough to get around and I recommend people in the Southwest of the USA gain a working knowledge of Spanish because it is the language of our closest neighbor and useful.
That said, I HATE being talked down to on this issue, and I think that learning a second language is a choice that some people have no use for.
I will say that some Americans are idiots not to learn Spanish… I’ve seen rich people running a staff of Mexicans by yelling english louder and gesturing wildly. I told one person on their third weedeater that she was supposed to be the brains behind the operation and to either learn how to write and label gasolina regular and “mix” for the gardeners or stop bitching at them… the time spent bitching would be better invested in buying a basic Spanish for gardeners phrasebook and memorizing a sentence or two.
the time spent bitching would be better invested in buying a basic Spanish for gardeners phrasebook and memorizing a sentence or two.
No, teach the laborers basic gardening terms in English. And if a Mexican doesn’t know that gasolina=gasoline and regular=regular, that’s one stupid Mexican. Or he’s illiterate in two languages. Whatever.
What makes me embarrassed is that the guy half the world thinks should run the US can’t find one good thing to say about people from the US.
“What makes me embarrassed is that the guy half the world thinks should run the US can’t find one good thing to say about people from the US.”
– Even worse his comments, spoken with such strident assurance, betray his ignorance of the complex nature of the country he contends he knows how to run. The sum total of his “experience” seems limited to his upbringing in private schools, and the street conditions of the South side of Chicago, neither one of which is at all representative of the majority of the cultural realities in America.
– I live near the boder in S. Cal. For many years I ran businesses on or near the border. Most are mises of Hispanic (not Spanish), Korean, and American owners and employees, and that influence and mix of languages carries pretty consistently up to LA.
– If you wanted to be sucessful in business, you learned at least a passable level of all three languages. I happen to like language as a hobby, but that aside it was important to be able to deal amd operate effectively. As far as the employees are concerned, some wanted very badly to learn English to get ahead, while others did not seem to understand or care. As in all things it was a mixed bag.
– When Obama makes a statement like “you should teach your children Spanish”, his ignorance is breathtaking. He would be better off just not commenting at all in some areas. He doesn’t have a clue about what hes talking about.
– My guess is he knows more about the gaggle of dinky EuroBloc countries than he does about his own, and tries to apply their cultural standards, eons of inter-state rivalries and one-upmanship bickering), to America because its what he knows, and that is decidedly embarrassing.
Thats the point dicentra: label the gas and machinery.
The english speaking woman was the “brains” of the operation and if she wanted undereducated mexicans working cheap not to ruin her tools, the onus was on her to teach them. They don’t magically know what fluid is what or in what ratio and shouting it in english doesn’t work. So if going down the cheap labor road meant so much to her then the translation of english to spanish gasolina regular=regular gas and mescla = “mix” (or mix = “meex” spanglish) written on stuff was her job.
I’m told I am bright enough, but when I traveled alone through Asia I had a heck of a time. I couldn’t read the writing and couldn’t understand tonal inflection nuance… much less vocabulary.
I had phrasebooks, but I’m educated and literate enough to be comfortable with them.
When a rural Mexican has a sixth grade education, it is nowhere the equivalent of a USA education. More like second or third grade here. They know how to work hard, and what to do there better than most because while US kids are in school, they are digging, gathering, weeding, carrying etc.
So the education part falls first on the most educated… which by default is nearly any native born American. Don’t forget either that being self educated takes resources, something that many mexicans have not had access to in their village. So learning how to acquire educational resources and put them to work is a skill that needs to be taught to them, but to us here is just assumed.
We take a lot of basic resources for granted and don’t realize stuff like that others grew up without a library for miles. Nobody taught them how to read and write, they were taught to work etc.
[…] criticized McCain for not taking this approach before NALEO and LULAC, I give him his due now, though he should not have had to be provoked to do it (though it could be […]