Bilingual.

[Ethel]

The really funny thing, though, is that it could have been any suburb. There is no particular reason for the Chinese to have chosen Sunnybank – some of the original ones did, and more followed suit.

That's exactly how it works. There are Chinatowns and Little Saigons spread throughout the cities of California (and elsewhere too, I'm sure, it's just that California is the place I know best.)

I’m not sure how I feel about that. Technically, white, English-speaking Australians have no more right to be here than the Chinese or anyone else, save the original indigenous people. Still, many of the people who’ve moved into the area obviously have no intention of assimilating – they wish to continue to speak their original language, associate with their own countryfolk, eat their own food, ect. I tend to believe that people should be allowed to act as they like as long as they’re not hurting others, but given what I’ve seen happen between communities of different cultures in the same city, I wonder if it’s necessarily a good state of affairs. It's also undeiable that this will continue - white people have less children, on avergae, than non-white people (worldwide) and more and more immigrants to Australia will be from Asia as opposed to the traditional sources of migrants like the UK (which, incidentally, is still where most of our migrants come from). Maybe I’m just racist.

The original immigrants may not assimilate but their children will. 80% of the population of the University of California at Berkeley - the most popular campus - is Asian American. They didn't get there by not being able to speak English. One morning about 20 years ago I opened the Los Angeles Times and saw a list of the high school valedictorians for Orange County (the county just south of Los Angeles County.) Two thirds of the names were Vietnamese. I knew there were a lot of Vietnamese in Orange County, but that was certainly a marker of how successfully the younger generation had assimilated.

Personally, I loved living in a state with a large Asian population. There were fabulous Thai, Vietnamese and Chinese restaurants everywhere. In Northern California there is a chain of Chinese supermarkets called 99 Ranch - these were fabulous. Fresh, beautiful produce, excellent meat, fish and poultry, and lots of interesting things like rice noodles and fish sauce. I took up Chinese cooking because it's so healthy and delicious - now that I'm in Colorado, I really miss those markets.

I understand how disconcerting it can be to visit a place that was once familiar and find all the signs in a foreign language - it happened plenty of times in California. ("When did Garden Grove become Little Saigon? There's even a freaking freeway sign for it!") You get used to it, though, and in the end it gives a place incredible vitality.

The writer Amy Tan grew up in San Francisco's Chinatown. Her book "The Joy Luck Club" is a wonderful inside view of the immigrant experience, and the challenges of the American born generation. I recommend it highly.

[vison]

I've read many times that immigrants to America often did not want their children to learn the language of "the old country". I guess that's changed, at least for some immigrants.

The same thing was true here, to a certain extent. Many of our friends are European born and few of their children speak their parents' language. It's a shame, and now many of those now-grown-up kids say they wish they'd learned.

Vancouver is famously a multi-cultural city. The Chinese were here very early, and so was a small population from India. Yet Vancouver's Chinatown is fading away as the older people die off and the younger ones move to the suburbs. We have large numbers of new Chinese immigrants, but they no longer begin their lives in Canada in the safe haven of a Chinatown, they move to the suburbs directly: but as with Lord_M's example, the suburbs become a Chinatown of their own right away. Richmond, BC, is a classic example. The "new" Chinese liked it in the beginning because the word "rich" was in the name, and now it is basically a Chinese city.

In our area we have a large Indian population. Many of them are farmers from the Punjab and so many of the farms around here are now owned by Indian immigrants. Following their culture, they build these enormous mansions where the extended family lives. Some of the more devout Sikhs send their kids to religious schools, but most don't, most of the kids go to district schools and a lot of them aren't learning Punjabi and can't talk to Grandma and Grandpa which I think is a shame. But I do like having the Indian markets, it is a treat to the senses to walk in and just breathe! A large proportion of students in the Pharmacy school at UBC is made up of the children of immigrants from India.

I can't think, offhand, of an ethnic group that doesn't live here in the Lower Mainland. Though I went to school with a few Chinese and Indian kids, most people here didn't in those days. The influx of non-white immigrants has not been entirely popular with some. Of course, when I was a kid, anyone from Britain who wanted to come here could do so. Not true any more. Yet we have always had the Chinese and Indians, just not in such numbers.

Things can be very odd. We have a large population of Mennonites who fled the USSR to be here and part of Clearbrook is populated by these old ladies wearing babushkas, speaking Low German. During the Hungarian revolution a large number of Hungarians settled in Vancouver, having followed a professor of Forestry here and for some time the forestry school at UBC was dominated by Hungarians. We had a large influx of Vietnamese "boat people" since the local Mennonite churches made that their "mission".

I like this mix of people, myself. When I was in PEI a few years ago I found it quite depressing to see only white people! But I know that's not how everyone feels. Some people feel very threatened by different coloured faces, different languages, different styles of dress. (The only style of dress that bothers me is when I see women wearing the chador, that makes me grit my teeth, but that's another issue altogether.)

Still, I am wrong to call the people "Chinese" or "Indian", because they are Canadian. Their children soon lose any deep attachment to the "old country", which is sometimes a good thing. The Sikh separatist movement has faded here for that very reason, and that's a good thing. The previous generation funded, planned, and carried out the Air India bombing.

[Ethel]

The same thing was true here, to a certain extent. Many of our friends are European born and few of their children speak their parents' language. It's a shame, and now many of those now-grown-up kids say they wish they'd learned.

In college I was friends with a young Japanese American man. His mother had never learned English, but he was not taught Japanese - was in fact strongly discouraged from learning or speaking it. So he literally couldn't talk to his mother because they did not have a language in common. How sad is that? He was studying Japanese in college so that he could, one day.

I'm like you, vison. I loved living in a very multi-cultural place, than which there can't be many that surpass California. I loved the food, the markets, the huge variety of dress and art objects. My years in Silicon Valley were especially rich that way because of the large number of Indian, Pakistani and Chinese engineers. Some of the Pakistani engineers used to play cricket at lunchtime - I loved to watch them. Pakistanis playing the Raj's game in San Jose. C'mon, you have to love that.

The nearest supermarket to where I lived in Sunnyvale was incredibly diverse. It was just a regular old Safeway, but it stocked the foods of many nations because that's who the customers were. More than once I looked around to find that I was the only white, native-born American in the place. I know some people don't like that, but I thought it was wonderful. I loved seeing the Indian women in their beautiful saris.

I was glad that my son was able to grow up in such a multi-cultural place, and I think he liked it too. As I was in love with anything English as a young person, he had a passion for anything Japanese. We used to go to the local college every weekend to watch fan-subtitled anime straight from Japan. His favorite food is sushi. Multi-cultural places are not without their challenges, but if you embrace it rather than fearing it, it can add a wonderful richness to your life. So I found it, anyway.

Where I live now the ethnic mix is white, Latino and Native American. That's interesting too, but I miss the Asian flavor.

[yovargas]

So their English is broken and not perfect. So what? I think it's wonderful that they're trying.

It's great that you think so, but many Americans don't. My mom told me countless times of Americans treating her with condescenscion or annoyance once they heard her thick accent. It is deeply discouraging. Why try to "assimilate" when you'll never be accepted?

[Hachimitsu]

You know, knowing english but having an accent dosen't lead to acceptance either. Both of my parents have accents from St.Kitts. Not Jamaican. It is actually very different if people bothered to listen. Yov here is a from me to your mother. I totally understand what her experience must have been like. I still remember at 5 years old my mother spelling out her last name to some woman on the phone and this lady couldn't understand my mother's accent. (Grrrr.)

About the language thing and Quebec. As Alatar said this is a group of people who could very very easily lose some of their culture if they don't hold on to their language. Wasn't stopping the native peoples from a practicing their language a tool used in forced assimilation? Now many of those languages are lost, gone forever.

A friend of mine, her mother did not come to Canada until she was in her 50's. It took her 5 years before she felt comfortable enough to answer the phone. Just because they aren't instantly speaking the language does not mean they are not taking lessons and listening carefully to what english speakers are saying. Also, every time this language issue comes up I try and count how many languages I know. Oh yeah, one. I will say it is easier to learn a language when you are surrounded by people who speak the language you want to learn. I was surprised by how much of my french came back when I was in Montreal. I never met a person who did not want to make an effort to learn English while living in Canada. I have though seen many people complain about accents.

I have also wondered what exactly it is about people speaking a different language that bothers people so much. Me, I grew up hearing lots of different languages since most of my friends took ESL classes. Taught me how to read body language pretty quickly, also I can sometimes pick out words I recognise from the string of stuff I don't understand. Stunned some kids at summer school once. Body language gives away a lot of what a person says.

One time one of my Vietnamese friends actually spoke vietnamese publicly in class once and I do know some of the white students were startled. I am guessing they never heard it before or just was not used hearing a language they did not immediately understand.

I really wish I could have taken a french immersion class. Knowing more then one language has always been considered an advantage by me. My friends would envy me since I got A's and I envied them since most of them knew at least 3 languages. *shrugs*

[nerdanel]

For those Americans in this community whose heritage might include non-English speaking components, it's very important that you know: our National Anthem is for singing in English only. Thank you for your attention to this message.

I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English, and I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English.

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/04/28/bush.a ... index.html

I don't even speak any other languages, but I feel incredibly strongly about the idea that the National Anthem should be translated into and sung in as many languages as possible. Americans are members of every different ethnicity and race and culture out there, and I can't imagine a better tribute to American multiculturalism than people honoring their country and their anthem in different languages they speak, not just English.

I highly doubt that anyone's going to hold back from learning English because there's a recording of the National Anthem in some other language. This has nothing to do with multiple official languages.

[Frelga]

Here's an interesting and somewhat relevant article: http://www.lectlaw.com/files/con09.htm

Our nation was tolerant of linguistic diversity up until the late
1800s, when an influx of Eastern and Southern Europeans, as well as
Asians, aroused nativist sentiments and prompted the enactment of
restrictive language laws. A 1911 Federal Immigration Commission
report falsely argued that the "old" Scandinavian and German
immigrants had assimilated quickly, while the "new" Italian and
Eastern European immigrants were inferior to their predecessors, less
willing to learn English, and more prone to political subversion. In
order to "Americanize" the immigrants and exclude people thought to
be of the lower classes and undesirable, English literacy
requirements were established for public employment naturalization,
immigration and suffrage. The New York State Constitution was
amended to disfranchise over one million Yiddish-speaking citizens.
The California Constitution was similarly amended to disfranchise
Chinese who were seen as a threat to the "purity of the ballot box."

Ironically, during the same period, the government sought to
"Americanize" Native American Indian children by taking them from
their families and forcing them to attend English language boarding
schools, where they were punished for speaking their indigenous
languages. The intense anti-German sentiment that accompanied the
outbreak of World War I prompted several states, where bilingual
schools had been commonplace to enact extreme language laws. For
example, Nebraska passed a law in 1919 prohibiting the use of any
other language than English through the eighth grade. The Supreme
Court subsequently declared the law an unconstitutional violation of
due process.

Today, as in the past, "English Only" laws in the U.S. are founded on
false stereotypes of immigrant groups. Such laws do not simply
disparage the immigrant's native languages but assault the rights of
the people who speak the languages.

Highlighting is mine. As many know, I am highly biased here.

And I must second yov, living with an accent is no picnic.

[Túrin Turambar]

No-one should be forbidden from singing the National Anthem in a LOTE, but I don’t see why it shouldn’t be sung at public events in English. It was written in English and is designed to be sung in English.

[JewelSong]

I'd be very interested in seeing the translation. It's hard to make a good translation that scans well enough to be singable. Especially when the stupid thing is hard enough to sing in English...

"...and the rockets red glaaaaare, the bombs bursting in aaaaaaair!"

ETA: HERE'S a site with four different Spanish translations! (and none of them look particularly singable!)

[samaranth]

It’s an interesting co-incidence, but our Liberal party is proposing that people wishing to take out citizenship should pass a basic English test first. (However, applicants over 50 would be exempt.) Apparently this will the case in the UK too, from November. I am hoping that, if adopted, this does mean ‘English’. Under the White Australia regime there was a similar entry requirement, and it was routine for Asian would-be immigrants to be asked to take their dictation test in Gaelic or Welsh, or Latin, or any other ‘European’ language, dead or alive.

I take your point about, but I think it’s inevitable when you are migrating to a new country, to a new cultural framework, that you will look to settle in places where those who speak your mother tongue and who understand your cultural mores already live. Howeve, I’d suggest that as generations pass, and the children of the original immigrants grow up, are educated here and are generally bilingual, they become less enclave-like. For example, Leichhardt in Sydney, which saw a huge influx in Italian migrants post World War 2, became ‘Little Italy’, and still has that flavour but in a less exclusivist way than it was 20 years ago. Cabramatta, which has a very high Vietnamese population is also going through that transition between the old migrant culture and hybrid culture of the next generations.

There’s nothing particularly new about it. In the latter part of the 1800s whole Irish villages picked up and moved out here, and settled in close proximity to each other.

The official language here is English, but most Federal Government agencies will also provide their printed information (or point the way to a translation service) in the six major language groups: Greek, Italian, Arabic, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese. It’s an accessibility question, rather like providing TTY access for the hearing impaired, or web sites which can be ‘read’ by the blind, to ensure that important (often safety-related) information is disseminated.

I agree that from the point of view of officialdom it would be easier to govern in a single language. In our case it’s English, because that’s where we derived our systems of government and law. I’d say that it’s pretty well entrenched, at least for my generation. The last census showed that English is still far and away the predominant language spoken here, but this could well change as our migration patterns change.

We live in the inner city, and there are who knows how many ethnic and racial groups living nearby. I know a lot of my son’s classmates take classes on Saturdays to ensure that they are fluent in the (written and spoken language) of their parents as well as in English. There’s a consciousness of the need to respect the culture from which they came, not to completely turn their back on it once they arrive in a new country. That’s the ethos of multiculturalism here. Whether or not it actually, I don’t know, ‘works’ as part of a cohesive society is perhaps another topic altogether. There will always be narrow-minded people who hear an accent and think ‘different’, unfortunately.

Lord_Morningstar – I’d like to see someone try a translation of our national anthem, it may make it more memorable. It seems that only school children and footballers know the words for certain - at the dawn service in Sydney the other day I watched both Kim Beazley and Brendan Nelson (both politicians) totally fumble it. Of course, it was rather early in the morning.
______________________-
edited to remove superfluous 'here's

[nerdanel]

For the record, I WOULD tentatively support that the public sector remain officially English only. However, that's a tentative view, and I'm therefore even more open than normal to being swayed by good arguments to the contrary.

Frelga, I think that there is always a danger of "English only" laws being enacted or enforced deliberately to exclude non-Western European immigrants. However, I think there are other rational reasons for the government to maintain one official language, including efficiency, cost, and incentivizing immigrants to achieve baseline competency in English ASAP. And, as you know, people for whom Spanish (and in some cases French) is not a first language do not receive the same amount of help. There would never be translators and information freely available in my parents' first language (or my father's second, or third, or fourth...), which I guarantee that none of you have heard of, except possibly for Melly.

That said, there are two other things to consider:

The American private sector, at least, is not going to remain monolingual. Just think how often we already face the hardship of pressing 1 for English. They want to do what's best for business, which means providing a 2 for Spanish option right now, and may mean providing a 3 at some point in the future. With business options available in Spanish, and with there being quasi-insular Spanish-speaking areas in big cities in which non-English speakers can dwell, I'm not sure that the government "officially" doing anything will truly incentivize people who cannot or will not learn English.

Last semester, I did a clinical at a legal aid center maintained by my school in one of the more diverse, colorful neighborhoods of Boston. By unusual coincidence, the clients I worked with were all fluent in English, but one of them was the only one in her family who spoke ANY English. We had to interview her family members as potential witnesses for her case, and we spoke through a translator. They had all been here for 15-20 years, and in that time they had learned no more English than "Hello," "Goodbye," "How are you?" and "Fine, thanks." At the end of the interview, I asked them how hard it was for them to go about their day - shopping, work, car maintenance, childcare, whatever - without knowing English, and they said that in their community, they seldom came across speakers of English as a first language. They worked for a neighborhood business owned by first-generation Hispanics, they shopped at neighborhood stores similarly owned, childcare was family provided, and outside of that, they tried to make sure that a translator was available if necessary. Which, in that neighborhood, there was. (For instance, our legal aid center had two full-time translators - plus, every other member of the secretarial staff could translate if necessary.)

So, given the potential for insularity in the big coastal cities and the Southern border states - and my guess is that non-English speakers are more likely to be there than in Missouri or Kansas or Nebraska) - I'm not sure it matters what the government does, really (except in terms of its own efficiency/cost-saving needs). I'd need to know more.

My other point, though, is the national anthem. Of course it should be sung at official government functions in English, unless at some celebration of a foreign culture, in which it would be cool to hear it in both English and that language's culture. However, GWB seemed to be suggesting that it should only EVER be sung in English. The controversial recording was a privately released recording in Spanish. To me, for immigrant groups to sing it in their own languages as well as English is a powerful reminder of America as melting pot - if, of course, a workable translation could be had.

I'm thinking back to my own childhood - as I've posted (on b77) before, I tried to refuse to have anything to do with my parents' Indian culture growing up because "I was an American." I think it would've meant something to hear the national anthem not only in English, but in (one of) my parents' native languages. Just...a powerful display that being American and having a non-Western European heritage are not mutually exclusive. If this Spanish recording does that for some kids, I'm all over that.

[MithLuin]

nerdanel - you're right, if it's not Malayalam, I haven't heard of it

I assume that Bush was not speaking off the cuff - but the reporter just said that there was a version in Spanish out there, and what did he think of that? I think he was implying that if it was our national anthem, it should be, well, the same words and music - in English.

But that doesn't mean anything about private recordings. The national anthem is for playing at sporting events....and that should be 'standard' - I get annoyed when they have singers who try to change it up a bit.... just sing the song, already.

I saw clips of the Spanish recording being made, and I could not recognize what part of the song it was - they seem to have changed the tune radically. I'd have to hear the finished version, though, to understand. Anyway, while it is a neat idea, and I think translating songs and poems into other languages is fun, I don't think the result would be 'the National Anthem.' It would be 'the National Anthem translated into Spanish.'

But really, Bush's response was just supposed to mean "we aren't going to let up on these immigration laws" - he wasn't really commenting on the song or the music at all.

[Túrin Turambar]

I am hoping that, if adopted, this does mean ‘English’. Under the White Australia regime there was a similar entry requirement, and it was routine for Asian would-be immigrants to be asked to take their dictation test in Gaelic or Welsh, or Latin, or any other ‘European’ language, dead or alive.

I strongly doubt that the Federal Government would try to reinstate the White Australia Policy

For the non-Australians here, the White Australia Policy was enforced through a dictation test – applicants needed to write down a passage that would be read aloud in, as Samaranth pointed out, any European language. If the applicants were a nice family from Suffolk, they’d be given a simple passage in plain English. If they were from China or something, they’d be given a piece of Socttish Gaelic Poetry or an extract from a Croatian medical journal.

For the record, I believe that ‘I still call Australia home’ should be our national anthem.

[MithLuin]

And "God Bless America" should be ours, but you just get stuck with these things

The South had similar methods of blocking blacks from voting (before the Civil Rights movement). You had to pass a test on how the US govt. worked (or something), so they just gave you really hard questions if you were black.

[Parmamaite]

For the non-Australians here, the White Australia Policy was enforced through a dictation test – applicants needed to write down a passage that would be read aloud in, as Samaranth pointed out, any European language. If the applicants were a nice family from Suffolk, they’d be given a simple passage in plain English. If they were from China or something, they’d be given a piece of Socttish Gaelic Poetry or an extract from a Croatian medical journal.

that's abominable! I've heard about Australia's harsh immigration laws, but it's still shocking to learn more about them.

Here in Denmark right-wing politicians are also very concerned about immigrants who doesn't learn our language properly, interestingly they always talk about moslem immigrants. At my former job there were a lot of pakistani's employed, we even had some of the vital instructions translated into urdu. Most of them speaks fairly good danish, but one or two never learned much. Of course you should try to learn the language of the country you live in, as much for your own sake as for anyone else's, but for some of us learning a new language is very difficult.

I know a few americans who've settled here in Denmark, one of them still don't speak danish. He understands it, but he doesn't speak it, and he's lived here for at least 15 years. It's no problem cause all danes speak english. I've tried to speak danish to him, but that soon becomes awkward.
He doesn't seem to be keen on learning danish, on the other hand, his friends (myself included) like to practice their english skills, and it's kind of exotic to have a real american around, so we're not too keen on persuading him to learn our language.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

And "God Bless America" should be ours, but you just get stuck with these things

I'm sorry, but I could not let this pass. That would be about as blatant a violation of the first amendment establishment clause as I could possibly imagine.

[Primula Baggins]

And "God Bless America" should be ours, but you just get stuck with these things

I'm sorry, but I could not let this pass. That would be about as blatant a violation of the first amendment establishment clause as I could possibly imagine.

Well, to be fair, Voronwë, the last verse of the anthem we've got goes:

Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war's desolation!
Blest with victory and peace, may the Heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation.
Then conquer we must, when our cause, it is just,
And this be our motto: “In God is our trust.”
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!

I'm not saying that's appropriate either, in a nation without an established religion.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Well, this should probably be a separate thread, but I would argue that it is a matter of degree. Establishing "God Bless America" as the national anthem would be tantamount to saying "anyone who does not believe in God is not an American."

[Túrin Turambar]

For the non-Australians here, the White Australia Policy was enforced through a dictation test – applicants needed to write down a passage that would be read aloud in, as Samaranth pointed out, any European language. If the applicants were a nice family from Suffolk, they’d be given a simple passage in plain English. If they were from China or something, they’d be given a piece of Socttish Gaelic Poetry or an extract from a Croatian medical journal.

that's abominable! I've heard about Australia's harsh immigration laws, but it's still shocking to learn more about them.

The Immigration Restriction Act was actually the first piece of legislation that the Australian Parliament passed when the country came into existence in 1901. The reason was that it was something that everyone agreed on – they wanted to ‘test drive’ the system with something easy.

It was not bought about because of innate racism, but to protect the workers – it was feared that lots of industrious migrants would pour into the country from Indonesia or China and take jobs from existing Australians. As Alfred Deakin, one of Australia’s main founding fathers and early Prime Ministers pointed out, he didn’t want to exclude non-white people because of their bad qualities, but because of their good qualities.

The White Australia policy was progressively junked by Governments from both sides of the political spectrum from 1966 to 1975.

[MithLuin]

Right. Just like establishing "Maryland, my Maryland" as the state anthem means that anyone who doesn't believe in secession isn't a Marylander.

If "God Bless America" were chosen as the Nat'l Anthem now, it might send that message. But, if we happened to have it left over from, say, 1820, I don't think it would mean that. The reason it wasn't chosen is that it wasn't written until the 1900's. But if it had been contemporary to Francis Scott Key's poem (or predated it), then we might well have that as our nat'l anthem and think nothing of it.

Even the Library of Congress refers to the song as our "unofficial national anthem."

To bring this back on topic, the song "God Bless America" was written by a Russian immigrant to America (see the link above).