Score one for the “nativists,” I guess. From the Rocky Mountain News:
Students who don’t speak English score far below other students in math and reading, the Pew Hispanic Center said Wednesday.
Colorado’s figures followed the national trend, according to a report released by the Washington-based affiliate of the Pew Research Center.
Richard Fry, a researcher who prepared the report, said the findings aren’t surprising because they are based on tests given in English. But he said the report “shows there is a lot of work to be done.”
Barbara Medina, who heads English-acquisition programs at the Colorado Department of Education, said that funding has not kept up with the rapid increase in the number of non- English-speaking students.
This year, Colorado schools reported enrolling 71,582 students who speak little or no English – a 210 percent increase from 10 years ago, when the number was 23,062.
About 2,500 Colorado teachers have the special training to work with non-English-speaking students, Medina said.
The report was based on figures released in 2005 by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, which conducted nationwide testing, as well as tests administered under state programs, such as the Colorado Student Assessment Program.
Nationally, only about 29 percent of non-English-speaking eighth-graders scored at the basic level or above in either math or reading on the NAEP test.
Among white students, 79 percent of eighth-graders passed the NAEP math test and 81 percent passed the reading test.
Of course, the real problem here, were you to ask those who push the egregious multiculturalist agenda, is that schools continue the ‘racist” practice of testing in English, instead of providing each student with a test in his or her native tongue.
Whereas to we nativist assimilationists—who wish nothing more than to colonize the Other by forcing him to bend to our collective will—the real problem is that we as a country no longer embrace an immigration policy that pushes for naturalization, and that, for fear of being labeled racist by those who have a compelling interest in seeing the state segmented into distinct and easily-led voting blocs, we are reluctant to say that learning the English language, in an historically English-speaking country, should be one of the primary requirements for citizenship.
But that’s just crazy talk.
Combine utopian social ideas about preserving cultural distinctions (which, it should be repeatedly pointed out, can—and should—be done even while promoting assimilation: this is, after all, the idea behind the “melting pot”) with an immigration policy that does little to combat the problem that those who don’t speak English pose for schools not equipped to deal with, and you wind up with a public school system that is failing the majority of non English-speaking students, perversely creating a permanent underclass even as proponents of multiculturalism and broad immigration relaxation pat themselves on the back for the “enlightened” non-exceptionalism that it turns out is responsible for the future disparities in wealth and education that they will then self-righteously rail against.
But hey, at least you can’t sneer and call them “nativists.” And that’s all that matters—particularly in a culture where one is granted moral authority simply because s/he is an activist, with little consideration given to how that activism might be undercutting the very cause it ostensibly champions.
Nice work if you can get it.
I don’t know, man, did you ever try to read that stuff? They got a different word for everything!
When I went to live in Brazil it never occurred to me to not learn the language, even though I knew Portuguese would be of limited utility elsewhere. I can’t fathom not wanting to learn the lingua franca of the world today, particularly when you’re living in a nation that speaks it.
Wouldn’t want to alienate them by encouraging them to accommodate.
I hope all the new immigrants learn English so we can be friends and do fun things together.
With yet another issue, to the Left, it is all about their feelings … they care more. Results of the policies implemented on the backs of that caring are not relevant. They care more. Just like the war on poverty fought since LBJ. Literally trillions of dollars were spent, and a perpetual underclass was created as a result. Their solution? We need to spend MORE ! And, if you oppose us, and our programs to help the poor and the illegal immigrants, you are racist.
It has actually been a brilliant strategy implemented by LBJ. It gives the Dems the position of being affirmatively in favor of something, in most cases, spending more of our money to secure entrenched voting blocks. It has forced the Republicans to be against same. It is always easier for PR purposes, to be seen as in favor of something, than opposed.
Yet another voting block to be exploited.
It sure seems odd that Poles and Italians and Vietnamese in the US have all managed to maintain cultural identities… while also all speaking English (at least by the second generation).
Must be racist to think Hispanics are as capable of learning English while not abandoning their culture as Viets and Poles are, I guess.
Maybe we should encourage more mixing it up – then we could have al pastor pierogies and beef noodle tortilla soup and bigos burritos.
God bless America, I say.
Until the relatively recent advent of the political victim class, most immigrants were too busy working their butts off to get a piece of the dream, and making sure their kids would be better off than they. That included making sure the kids learned English.
I recently saw a news item that featured interviews with immigrants from Mexico (whether they were legal or not was not explored). Some of them had been here for at least seven years and apparently didn’t know any English. I consider that a failure to assimilate.
Resistance is not only not futile, but encouraged. Sad.
Mexico just accepted the Peace Corps a few years ago, but it would be nice if we could send people down there to teach our new friends English so they would be ready to go right when they get here. I might even bake something.
These are not your father’s immigrants. Most cannot read, write or compute in their own language much less English.
Everyone likes chocolate cake, I don’t care where you’re from.
Sorry, happyfeet, it is the Marshall Corps now, a bit of Orwellian irony I don’t think I could say out loud just yet, even typing it makes me giggle uncontrollably.
So felons who want to serve in the military are bad… but “potential terrorists” deserve a cabinet-level department to sprinkle goodies on them?
He silly man.
My wife is an emergency room physician here in Southern California.
When she started practicing several years ago, she was amazed at the number of Hispanic patients she was seeing who had been in the country 10+ years yet spoke zero English. Of course, the novelty of this has long since worn off and calling for the on-staff translator has become a regular occurrence.
I don’t get it. Why is it that it seems to be only the Hispanics that can’t assimilate without losing their cultural identity. I see this everyday living in So Cal, there are a number of cities such as downtown Santa Ana where the store fronts advertise only in Spanish..At least try to learn English
As a person who did electrical work while going through college, I feel I need to share that I have discovered the key to universal translation.
Here is the way a typical conversation goes:
American: Can you hand me that wrench?
Mexican: …. No habla…
Here is my universal translation technique:
American: Can you hand me that wrench, motherfucker?
Mexican: Hey, screw you man.
See!? Just like that you can speak a foreign language and educate your nearby foriegn national as well.
My father in law has been in this country for 30 years, married two different American women, and lives in rural Ohio and he speaks pidgin English at best. His current wife speaks nada. Yet, everyone of his kids speaks English (and, except for my wife) and Spanish. Everyone of them is proud to be American with Mexican heritage. I’m unmoved by “the Hispanics don’t assimilate” as it sounds like the cases we read from the turn of the 20th century when states banned teaching German, ‘cause there were just too many damn Germans.”
They assimilate after a generation and we are the better for their efforts.
PS. Did you know in 1900 the city with the highest Polish population in the whole wasn’t Warsaw? It was called Chicago. If they can become Bears and White Sox fans in less than 50 years, I think the Hispanics will do fine.
Am I reading this wrong, or does the way this sentence is constructed place timmyb’s wife in the category of children of timmyb’s father?
OOPS ! I apologize, timmyb.
I re-read your post, and note that you were speaking of your father in-law, not your father.
My bad.
I’m unmoved by “the Hispanics don’t assimilate†as it sounds like the cases we read from the turn of the 20th century when states banned teaching German, ‘cause there were just too many damn Germans.â€Â
They assimilate after a generation and we are the better for their efforts.
But the Germans stopped coming in droves after awhile. It’s true that the next generation always learns English, but we keep getting new waves of non-English-speaking immigrants to refill the Spanish-only slots.
How many Europeans in the 19th century failed to become reasonably functional in English? A few, sure, but whole cities?
JD—he said father in law.
timmyb
My mother grew up in Las Cruces New Mexico, first generation American, both her father and mother learned to speak English as it was required to get a decent paying job. My Grandparents understood this back in the 20’s and 30’s. What has changed? My mother taught me Spanish early on, but my Dad, being a true Scottsman, would not have any of it. His roots go back to 1703 when his ancestors stepped of the boat in Boston. So now we have to put a time limits assimilation?
Oh, and. If people are worried about losing their language and culture, they shouldn’t settle in a foreign country, duh.
Imagine if a bunch of gringos legally but mostly illegally settled in the middle of Mexico, refused to learn Spanish, put English-only signs in their storefronts, used government services without paying taxes, used medical services without paying at all, drove uninsured, and then began to agitate for secession. Wouldn’t you find that a bit arrogant and ungrateful of the gringos to do that? Then why isn’t arrogant and ungrateful when someone does it to us?
timmys wife either can’t speak english…. or was it spanish? Couldn’t tell.
The difference is we didn’t provide public education in German, we didn’t provide government forms in German, and we didn’t act like the native, English-speaking people were crippled if they didn’t know German.
Oh, and. If people are worried about losing their language and culture, they shouldn’t settle in a foreign country, duh.
Imagine if a bunch of gringos legally but mostly illegally settled in the middle of Mexico, refused to learn Spanish, put English-only signs in their storefronts, used government services without paying taxes, used medical services without paying at all, drove uninsured, and then began to agitate for secession. Wouldn’t you find that a bit arrogant and ungrateful of the gringos to do that?
dicentra – Excellent points, one and all, as well as being expressed in a far more civilized and measured manner than I am ever capable of.
I wonder how many legal immigrants of two and three generations ago moved to this country to take advantage of the enormous social programs available to today’s illegals.
Learning the language is but one measurement of true assimilation. The far more important measurement, in my opinion, is whether an immigrant wants to come to this country to work for the American dream, rather than be subsidized to it. The founding fathers were not seeking subsidies.
Touching on what Todd said…
I think one big difference between immigrants of today and earlier generations is that previously, even though the initial immigrants often did not speak English, they made damned sure that their kids did… knowing that speaking the language of their new country was an important part of assimilation and their children’s success. On the other hand, the current generation seems perfectly happy to have their kids fluent in Spanish and appear to be apathetic about their English skills.
I see this all the time in stores here in SoCal. Hispanics families talking amongst themselves exclusively in Spanish. Not only are the kids talking to the parents in Spanish (which you would expect for the non-English speaking parents), but they are also speaking Spanish to each other.
In general, there seems to be far less emphasis on assimilation with the current generation.
With all of the pressure that the government of Mexico seems to be applying to ram through this legislation, might I suggest we move forward on a treaty-like track instead of a mere statute? Of course, with a treaty it’s likely we’d demand reciprocity from Mexico, giving US citizens virtually unfettered access to Mexican lands, businesses, public services, media, etc.
I think it only fair and, after all, I’m sure the Mexicans don’t want to be labelled as racists.
On my dad’s side, I’m a third-generation American. Grandad spoke his native Russian, English, Greek, French, old Church Slavonic, and Ukrainian fluently, and he integrated quite quickly not only in France (where he’d fled with his brother after the Bolsheviks turned his native Ukraine over) but later in America after he married grandma and immigrated. One of my (many) regrets is that he wasn’t around when I started taking Russian in college so I could talk to him.
Anyhow, timmyb. I don’t think the issue is that Hispanics can’t assimilate (because clearly they can), it’s that there’s a subset of the population who insists on treating them like they can’t assimilate, nay, that ASKING them to assimilate would be a horrible thing to do, so they don’t even bother assimilating. And, as a consequence, we’ve produced a non-assimilated Spanish-speaking subset of the population that continues to function poorly in an English-speaking world, but expects (or have advocates who expect them) to be treated better than native English speakers who function on the same (poor) level.
That’s the issue. Not that anyone here believes that Mexicans are fundamentally incapable of assimilating, though Tom upthread implies that there’s a seriously deficient subclass of them that might not be able to categorically, but that they’re getting treated like they are so therefore they don’t.
Me, my Spanish stops at “mas, mas,” “Donde esta el baño?” and “Excuse me, para mi abuela esta en fuego.”
Not that my grandmother’s ever caught on fire, but it’s the principle of the thing.
TW: nation99, more flavors of nationalism than Heinz. Mmm-mm good.
Since the national political conversation takes place in English, isn’t it unfair to insist that new arrivals remain liguistically ghettoed within their language of origin, unable to participate fully in the American political experience, except through grievance-hustling intermediaries?
Oops. Nevermind. That’s the whole point.
Cripes, even I tried to learn some of the language in places I have been more than a day or two. I used to speak survival Russian, Serbo-Croatian, Dari, and very good German and slightly passable Dutch. Of course, now all I remember is the German, and a few words of Dari…but at the time, mind you, I tried to learn.
If I was going to live in a place, ostensibly for the rest of my life, and have children there to boot – I’d be awful sure to try to learn everything I could!
Of course, except for the Netherlands, it wasn’t like I was living in areas where darn near everyone spoke English, had English signs, etc.
PS. Did you know in 1900 the city with the highest Polish population in the whole wasn’t Warsaw? It was called Chicago. If they can become Bears and White Sox fans in less than 50 years, I think the Hispanics will do fine.
Not really. Chicago has the largest urban Polish population outside of Warsaw. We also have the second highest urban hispanic population outside of Los Angeles.The third or fourth largest state hispanic population as well.There are also a large number of Ukranians, Russians, Chinese and Japanese. The vast majority of them legal.
Tom is right though. I have trained dozens of hispanics in an industrial setting and found nearly all of them were illiterate in their own or any other language.
I bet hispanic people couldn’t even handle the block quotey thing. Sad.
Uncle Tomás can!
Read this starting at page 15
http://www.sbcgj.org/2007/immigrationeffects.pdf
One of the footnotes contains a bit of a breakdown on language… second to Spanish is Mixtec and we have a good sized Hmong population that doesn’t speak much english either.
Mixtecs and Hmongs have pretty closed societies and often they don’t even speak much of the language of their respective countries of origin.
The influx of illegals into schools is constant at at all grade levels. In other words, new, non english speaking immigrants show up in seventh grade with the dust still on their feet from the cross border trek. That’ll ALWAYS screw up your test scores.
Hispanic kids who start at Kindergarden and stay through do just fine.
It is the constant additions to each class that create and perpetuate the headache.
There is also that “soft bigotry” thing going on here. My wife had to fight to get her kids out of the ESL category. She drove them to a more white elementary school and told them that little brown kids or not, she didn’t want them taught in Spanish. Period. The administrators are geared towards the “program”… brown, hispanic birthname-surname,… ESL.
Answering another post, I’d discount any claims to ten year residency by an illegal
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancellation_of_removal
10 years is the “magic” number and for hispanics, any person seen as a authority figure will get that claim.
Legal Aid puts out flyers in Spanish that tell people about this loophole.
The other reason is a mix of culture, ghettoization, and workplace language.
Hispanic culture is very shame based. Mexicans will kill you if you call them stupid or dumb. Do it in front of other Mexican’s and they will kill you slowly.
Mexican’s are hard to teach at times, because they shame and heckle each other so hard.
So some adults will avoid group learning whenever possible.
Hispanics gravitate towards places where someone speaks their language and set up an enclave. You can live in Santa Ana or Santa Barbara and if you work it right, never have to speak english.
Lets be honest though. Travel to Mexico, like to Rosarito Beach to the Gringo mobile home parks.
Most there speak awful (if any) spanish… often the spanish that is spoken is so bad that it is detrimental to the task at hand.
Same goes for Costa Rica, Nicaragua. Golf courses, American food, American TV, American music…. these areas are called “Gringolandia”.
Americans living in Costa Rica often overstay their visa. Usually they pay someone to run their papers up to the border and get them stamped as if they have left. Americans live illegally in New Zealand, Australia but really we just aren’t a nation of emigrants.
When it comes to the language of the workplace, hispanics now gravitate towards jobs where others (perhaps those who more proficient in english) have gone before.
Over time english has quickly become secondary to productivity. Further on, a point is reached where no one speaks or uses english on the job. A Mexican picking strawberries in my county is likely to learn more words of Mixtec on the job than english. Mixtec could even be more important and of more immediate utility. A little Hmong never hurt either.
In certain jobs, english is only needed at the highest field levels.
Construction in So Cal
Laborers- all spanish
Foreman-spanish
Skilled labor- mixed. Put non english skilled craftsman with bilingual skilled craftsman
Site supervisor needs English and Spanish.
Some laborers will never need english in work or private lives. They may not seek advancement that english might bring and/or they may be too embarrassed to learn it from their kids
Very interesting points, SteveG. I work for the court system in a “sanctuary city,” and the impact of illegals is tremendous here. Many (mostly Mexican) risk driving without licenses, and they can’t or don’t get insurance. We have to provide simultaneous interpretation to those who don’t speak English, especially where there is a possibility of jail in their case. It’s an agonizing job for the interpreters sometimes, because terrified and confused defendants ask them for information or advice. While the interpreters are generally sympathetic to these people, they are strictly prohibited from doing anything other than straightforward interpretation.
What really saddened and surprised me is the amount of unclaimed bond money the court is holding. The interpreters tell me that many times when the court releases a bond posted by an illegal or his or her family, nobody ever gets the money back from the court. They either don’t understand that they are entitled to get their money back (it’s the “cost” of getting out of jail), or they are afraid they’ll be shaken down for more. Says something about the native culture.
The sad thing was that the company had all these incentives in place to help hispanic workers learn to read english and do simple shop math. Less than 1 percent took advantage of the opportunity.
In further breaking news: nonswimmers lag in floating.
I live in Houston. We’ve had huge influxes of Vietnamese immigrants as well as Mexican and central American immigrants here. We not only have a Chinatown here in Houston, we also have a Vietnamese-town in midtown/downtown complete with Vietnamese language street signs and Viet restaurants and shops. I’d guess the Vietnamese-American population in the greater Houston area is 200,000 or more. Although making the transition from Vietnamese language to English is far more difficult than from Spanish to English, the Vietnamese immigrants tend to speak more English and do better academically on average (by a very large margin in my observation), compared to hispanic immigrants, and Viets here have done as well or better integrating themselves in American society and culture. They tend to be good Americans and a great addition to our cultural melting pot.
Recent immigration legislation is skewed heavily in favor of those largely uneducated latinos from Mexico and central America who are already here as a result of their willingness to break and exploit our immigrations laws…when imo we should be “embracing diversity” by bringing in less Latinos who are already here in large numbers, and instead admit more Vietnamese, Cambodians and Eastern Europeans, who not only tend to make good Americans, but they also have the relatively recent experience of experiencing the societal and economic destruction resulting from communism.. they have seen first hand the consequences of exteme leftism.
How much money did it take to figure this crap out? And I wonder what the average IQ of the researchers was? Illegals don’t want to assimilate to our society, they want to be different, and be treated different.
My wife is an ER nurse – she tells me that the illegals that are seen in the ER for non-emergent health issues know a phrase “Medi-Medi”…they’re covered under Medicare and MediCal and don’t pay a freaking dime for their medical care…
LBJ is probably a happy man right now – as he stokes the fires of Hell…and sees the work of Teddy and other uberLibs …
Dear God.
I don’t want to go over old ground, but the reason that it is uniquely Latino immigrants who can’t speak English is that they are the ones with whom Michelle interacts internationally on a daily basis.
The poor bastards never stood a chance.
cynn, that was a very useful and instructive input. Thank you.
Just remember your own complicity in this. You let these people in. You passively gave them leave to steal from our social services. It’s expedient to have them here: afraid, exploitable. Protest and you’re a racist.
Cynn,
the drivers license thing drives me insane.
No insurance without a license… but in So Cal. you need to drive.
Plus I thought we wanted to know who was in the US and to have their photo and their fingerprints.
But no.
I see licenses from North Carolina and Oregon all the time because California can’t figure it out.
Tell me agin why Visa and MasterCard can scan stuff perfectly but the state cannot
Gorditas, they are tasty. I also learned about Fabuloso from our housekeeper, which is awesome stuff – just pour some in your sink before people come over and whatever else is going on, your place will *smell* totally clean. So that and strategically dim lighting go a long way. Frankly, between Mexico and North Africa, I’d say we’re not getting a bad deal. Oh no! Hordes of Catholics are pouring over the border!!! I say bienvenidos.
Goddammit, GMG, I’m not a smart man. All I ever contribute here are lame little jokes. I had almost made it to the bottom of the comments when I saw yours. I’ll bet you’ve taken the popsicle right out of a five-year-old’s mouth.
Just wondering: Doesn’t the “Pursuit of Happiness” translate into Spanglish.
I think it’d be cool if America’s Constitution could survive a language-change. Then, we’d really be teh hsit!
Adios, mes amis.
Awesome!!©
Head bowed; leaving the room moonwalking.
Steve, G, not a good answer, but what’s up with the old dudes’ craptackularizing?
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