Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

axios.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

141–150 of 203 posts

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#141

Post by morbicer »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #32

Whenever I see Europeans railing about the destruction of their cultures by small number of immigrants, I want to point to California and be like “you’re doing it wrong.” Pretty much within one generation, everyone here is bilingual, fully integrated, we all enjoy each others company, culture and food etc.

I am risking getting flagged to oblivion but I perceive that there are immigrants that integrate better than others.

Asians and south Americans integrate well. Not just in USA, in Europe as well. My country accepted over 500k of Ukrainian refugees into population of just 10m. They integrate outstandingly.

I am not one of the haters that would claim that immigrants are "ruining our culture" but I see issues. Example: the support Hamas gets in certain communities.

I would be interested what would Americans say if a huge influx of North African and Middle Eastern people arrive to USA.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#142

Post by tgv »

plaguna wrote: post #33
tgv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's the other way around. I don't think anyone has yet declared their motives to riot, but the perp has been identified as Algerian. It's also true that the rioters probably knew this.

Source?

Various socials pushed it quite quickly. The more mainstream media are reluctant, but the others print it like there's no tomorrow.

https://www.newsweek.com/ireland-dublin-stabbing-algerian-ma...

https://humanevents.com/2023/11/23/breaking-protests-erupt-i...

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#143

Post by tgv »

loeg wrote: post #37
tgv wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, it's the other way around. I don't think anyone has yet declared their motives to riot, but the perp has been identified as Algerian. It's also true that the rioters probably knew this.

> the perp has been identified as Algerian The BBC says otherwise: > It is understood that included false claims that the attacker was a foreign national. > Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen in his late 40s who has lived in the country for 20 years. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-67514960

> Sources have indicated to the BBC that the man suspected of carrying out the attack is an Irish citizen in his late 40s who has lived in the country for 20 years.

Do you really think that's saying otherwise? It's almost a confirmation.

Statements like this pour oil on the fire. "See, you can't trust what the BBC says."

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#144

Post by blululu »

niemandhier wrote: post #96
caslon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning one language is hard. Only 46% of American native English speakers have above a 6th grade reading level. 20% are functionally illiterate. https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFou...

Most of Europe speaks at least two, and most of Switzerland 3. I think this might be an effect of the American education system.

Learning language is not that impressive as a cognitive/educational feat. It is mostly a simple matter of practice. School reform is not going to change this. Case in point, Canada where schools are good and French is mandatory struggles to actually teach anyone how to speak French. For Europeans the standard second language is English which is pretty straightforward as a result of globalization. Adding a third language that is spoke by everyone an hour train ride away is not that much extra.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#145

Post by demondemidi »

mrweasel wrote: post #133
bhpm wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like WHY? Did you grow up with formal education? Did you grow up in a place where girls were encouraged to learn? If either of these is true, your starting condition is miles ahead of the starting conditions for many, many immigrants who came to the US. It sounds simple, but in order to learn something, you have to first believe you “can.” Can in the sense that you have the ability and that you’re permitted to. My…

It's amazing that this is being studied, but it's some rather weird reasons. You have people who migrated to the US in the 1950 - 1980 from Europe, they didn't care about losing their ability to speak their native language. It's alway interesting to hear a Dane that moved to the US 50 - 70 years ago. Their language is frozen in time but still fairly good.

Both sets of my grandparents came to the US (New York) from Italy in the 1920's. They learned very broken English, and discouraged my young parents from speaking Italian. All four grandparents felt this way. My parents aren't sure of the reasons, they were just told not to speak Italian outside the house.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#146

Post by bhpm »

demondemidi wrote: post #145
mrweasel wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing that this is being studied, but it's some rather weird reasons. You have people who migrated to the US in the 1950 - 1980 from Europe, they didn't care about losing their ability to speak their native language. It's alway interesting to hear a Dane that moved to the US 50 - 70 years ago. Their language is frozen in time but still fairly good.

Both sets of my grandparents came to the US (New York) from Italy in the 1920's. They learned very broken English, and discouraged my young parents from speaking Italian. All four grandparents felt this way. My parents aren't sure of the reasons, they were just told not to speak Italian outside the house.

Your grandparents were trying to protect your parents from the racism they encountered as immigrants in the 1920s. It was vicious, inexcusable, and largely forgotten due to the success of Italian assimilation in the US.

Jacobson’s “Whiteness of a Different Color” goes into this in detail.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#147

Post by D13Fd »

boringuser2 wrote: post #75
dopeboy wrote: post #22

I grew up in one of these households. My grandmother didn’t speak English so my dad mandated Hindi be spoken in the household. I think it was a net positive in my life. I pick up phrases and sounds from new languages pretty easily. I didn’t do great in my English classes in HS but am a pretty good writer now. From an assimilation pov, I think it’s pretty important to grow up speaking whatever language you do alongsid…

[flagged]

Both, easily. I wish I could give my kids that advantage.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#148

Post by samtho »

niemandhier wrote: post #96
caslon wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning one language is hard. Only 46% of American native English speakers have above a 6th grade reading level. 20% are functionally illiterate. https://www.barbarabush.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/BBFou...

Most of Europe speaks at least two, and most of Switzerland 3. I think this might be an effect of the American education system.

Europe and United States have nearly equal land area of just shy of 4 million square miles. There are 24 official languages of the European Union and English as the lone, defacto language of the USA.

Why would anything else be expected from the American education system when, for example, you can travel the entirety of the US and most of Canada and not have to worry about finding someone who speaks English. The education system in the US is trash for a few reasons, but only teaching English to all is not one of them, and I say this as someone who lives in the US and speaks a few languages.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#149

Post by bugglebeetle »

morbicer wrote: post #141
bugglebeetle wrote: post #32

Whenever I see Europeans railing about the destruction of their cultures by small number of immigrants, I want to point to California and be like “you’re doing it wrong.” Pretty much within one generation, everyone here is bilingual, fully integrated, we all enjoy each others company, culture and food etc.

I am risking getting flagged to oblivion but I perceive that there are immigrants that integrate better than others. Asians and south Americans integrate well. Not just in USA, in Europe as well. My country accepted over 500k of Ukrainian refugees into population of just 10m. They integrate outstandingly. I am not one of the haters that would claim that immigrants are "ruining our culture" but I see issues. Example:…

I’m not going to flag or downvote you, but this is a very typical European mentality. We have large numbers of immigrants from the places you cite and they integrate fine. I think there are ~1 million people of Middle Eastern descent in California and again, zero issues. At some point, people have to recognize it’s their own culture’s biases that create the social conditions that prevent integration and not the fault of the people themselves.

Re: Almost half of Californians speak a non-English language at home

#150

Post by beej71 »

mrweasel wrote: post #46
olalonde wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know but my wife used to play mahjong in SF Chinatown and almost no one spoke English, including some people who had been in the US for over 30 years. It was a bit surprising.

The next town over from me have a large Vietnamese community, the older generation frequently only speak Vietnamese, relying on their children and grandchildren to help them navigate in society, doctors appointments, interacting with the government and all those things. I'm continuously surprised that someone would refuse to learn the language of a country they lived in for almost 50 years... Like WHY? Seems rather r…

> Seems rather rude in some sense.

If I were busting my ass at a job just to make sure I could pay rent and keep food on the table for my kids, I probably wouldn't have much energy left to learn Vietnamese, either.

Post reply on HN