>
> Eduard,
   I can understand your personal frustration.  I don't like rudeness of
any kind, in part because it can have such negative impact.
   In the U.S., I think the marketplace tends to straighten these things
out. It's customary for the paying customer to be "right", and the
business that accomodates their needs will flourish. If I owned the
business, I would hire a bilingual clerk precisely because I could sell
more books that way. It's the rule of the marketplace.  Even people who
have advocated English Only for government business have been careful
to say they don't want to constrain profit making enterprises or
constrain advertising to target consumers.  If Pepsi can sell more
pepsi by marketing in Spanish, they will do just that.  It's the
American way.
   Were they buying books in English? That would seem to me a sign that
they were headed toward increased literacy.  If buying books in
Spanish, one would expect a Spanish speaking clerk.
   The fact that we have always been a nation of immigrants has meant that
language differences have always been a part of it, but I think the
long term trend has always been toward English and the long term
contributions have always been very positive.
   My mother's parents were fluent in French and not so fluent with
English. They settled in a community of French Canadian immigrants in
Rumford Maine, where my grandfather worked in the paper mills until he
retired. My mom was bilingual, in part because she came at age two. The
nuns in her Catholic school taught Kindergarten in French and eased
them into English over the first few grades. Her children (I include
myself) know very little French. I assume my grandfather did much
business in town, much of it with people who could talk to him in
French. He was such a funny, easy going guy, so I find it hard to
imagine him being rude to someone who didn't know French, but I assume
it was a factor in where he spent his money.
   I work alongside very capable and caring Latinos. They are proud of
their heritage, but deeply concerned with the success of young people
within their own community, which they certainly understand has
everything in the world to do with literacy and with English.
   The Latino community will continue to be a growing force in American
public life, and I'm not at all worried by that.

Craig

Craig
> On Wed, 24 May 2006, Craig Hancock wrote...
>
>>Your own fears and concerns have been with us throughout American
>>history, and to this point they have always turned out to be
> unfounded.
>>The big enemy hasn't been lack of ambition in the immigrant groups,
> but
>>the hostility (and outright discrimination) of mainstream America.
>
>
> Craig,
>
> I am a first generation immigrant, too, so my concerns are related to
> those intollerant immigrants who expect Americans to speak immigrant
> languages. My first job in the United States was in a bookstore, and
> half of the people who visited the bookstore were Latinos. Those
> people scolded and insulted me quite often because I did not speak
> Spanish, as if it was my obligation to speak their language, and not
> *their* obligation to speak English. Now, who was with the problem?
> How many languages do you speak? Are you going to learn all the
> languages spoken by the immigrants who come to the United States,or
> stay with your English? Most countries have a lingua franca, if not a
> national language. What should the United States government do? Force
> its citizens to learn the languages of its immigrants?
>
> Quite often the American government has been blamed for the failure
> of the immigrants to learn English: "The government has not provided
> the funds," "The government did not give me a job," "The government
> did not leave the milk at my door in the morning," etc., etc. People
> forget that the United States is not a socialist country. We, the
> people of this country, have the obligation to take care of ourselves
> and do what it takes to succeed if we want so.
>
>
> Eduard
>
>
>
>
>

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