The Neon Hippo

I thought the official language of the United States was English. I’m sick and tired of seeing everything in Spanish! I got my voter registration card in the mail the other day and it’s in Spanish, too. Enough, already! Even voting has to be bi-lingual?

I don’t know… when I was younger my family knew a lot of Polish immigrants. A few of them didn’t really speak English. They knew a few words and they were trying. It was mostly the elderly who struggled with it. Most first generation immigrants eagerly studied English and spoke it whenever they could. The second generation didn’t have the luxury of grade school classes in Polish. They had no choice but to learn English. This is America and the vast majority of us speak English. Period.

If you want to thrive in this country, learn the language. Or at least try. Come on, now… I don’t speak Spanish, but if I were in Mexico I wouldn’t expect them to print everything in English to make it easier for me. Let’s see… “Telefono”. I’ll bet they’re asking for my phone number. Nombre? That kind of sounds like number… maybe they want my street address, no, I remember a little Spanish that means name.  It looks like they want my name and address, so I’m going to guess that Cuidad must be city. You see… I could fill in much of it by myself, then ask for help with the rest. I’ve traveled in Europe and while many places have English signs, most do not and I didn’t expect them to cater to me. I didn’t know any Dutch, but most Dutch people know English, so it was no problem getting help with the stuff I couldn’t figure out, but how hard is it really? If you see signs on empty apartments all over town saying “te huur”, eventually you’ll figure out that it means the place is for rent.

Spanish and English are not all that different - it’s not like an American trying to read Japanese. It’s the same letters and numbers, many words sound similar or are spelled similarly enough to be able to grasp the basics that you need to survive. Get with the program! If I were to move to Italy, I’d expect to have to learn Italian in order to get by. In fact, I’d be eager to learn so I could fit in better and make daily transactions easier.

I have absolutely nothing against immigrants from any part of the world as long as they’re trying to adjust to living in our society. I don’t think we should be spending tax dollars on printing everything in two languages and especially not on bi-lingual classes in public schools. I wouldn’t mind seeing government funded “English as a second language” classes. I’d also encourage classes to help people adjust to our society and help earn them their citizenship.

If you don’t want to fit into our society, why are you here?