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

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

#151

Post by OfSanguineFire »

thanhhaimai wrote: post #119
mrweasel wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm Vietnamese. The Vietnamese people you mentioned who escaped to the US decades ago were refugees. They were escaping a country where bombs were being dropped daily, famines were normal, and literally millions had died due to lack of food. The literacy rate was 3%. In other words, the majority of those poor folks are not even fluent in writing their main language. Many of them, including my relatives, expressed the…

This comment is interesting. What little I read about the "boat people" escaping Vietnam in the late 1970s was about comparatively privileged South Vietnamese fleeing the new regime that was out for revenge. So, I would have assumed high literacy from those demographics.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] »

financltravsty wrote: post #99
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.

It's quite easy to integrate into a culture when the culture itself is relatively young, and by virtue, relatively shallow in comparison to older cultures. It also helps that most Americans are not direct, so we can all pretend to get along. Whereas in other cultures, like Dutch, Oceaniac, Egyptian, etc., it would be made plain when someone has a problem with you. These are either positives or negatives depending on…

[deleted]

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

#154

Post by unethical_ban »

Ar-Curunir wrote: post #128
boringuser2 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

English is a foreign language to the Americas; would you say that it’s a net bad to have it be spoken here (and be an official language of the country?)

I chuckle every time someone uses the "everyone in America is a foreigner" angle as if it helps their position on supporting mass immigration.

Mass immigration didn't work out for the Native Americans. Why use that as a model to replicate?

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

#155

Post by morbicer »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #149
morbicer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not saying those regions only have bad people. Lots of good people, just some bad apples. But in USA you usually get whole families and not a bunch of young single men. That's one factor that de-risks the integration. The second factor is you get people that can afford plane ticket (likely more educated) and go through some form of border check.

I believe the vast majority of the Middle Eastern people in California are Persians. Again, that's a nationality that fares well in inclusion even in Europe.

I am all for immigration, we need it, we are an aging continent. But we should be a little bit more picky and cautious. And I am not saying we should not get any people from Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria or Horn of Africa, it's just often people coming from these countries have a risky mix of low education and culture that doesn't respect women or institutions.

And it's not islamophobia from me, that's why I specifically say culture, not religion. Persians are often muslims and fine, same for Indonesians or Turks.

Problem is we can't have meaningful and polite debate about it like I have with you - you get immediately labeled as racist or xenophobe. Thus the sad rise of far right groups in Europe.

On this note, I am sad that someone is downvoting/flagging you.

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

#156

Post by alexlur »

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]

Worked for Switzerland.

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

#157

Post by thrway63245 »

justrealist wrote: post #15
madsbuch wrote: post #6

Given that the US doest not have an official language, this rings a weird bell. Had the been England or any other country with an official language, it would have been something. In particular with the history of California and the proximity to Mexico, the opposite (that more than 50% speaks english) should be the story.

California was almost empty when it was annexed into the US. Disease etc. Immigration from the rest of the English-speaking US completely dwarfed what was left. Almost 100% of Spanish-speaking Californians have come in the past 50-70 years. Basically none have historical roots to California.

[dead]

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

#158

Post by ianburrell »

cinntaile wrote: post #104
mecsred wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you mean it "doesn't hint at that"? You're discussing the words that convey exactly that information? It's verbatim from the first paragraph in the article. > Nearly half of all Californians speak a language other than English at home, data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows.

Indeed they speak a language other than English at home, so not English. But people reply to my comment claiming this means that they also speak English at home. Where do people read that? Edit: It's a bit ironic I get downvoted for mentioning the strange wording, but clearly we don't agree on what it's supposed to mean.

People speak more than one language at home.

"speak a non-English language at home" = speak non-English language and maybe English "don't speak English at home" = speak non-English language and never English

It sounds like they didn't study English-speaking at home, just what other languages are spoken.

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

#159

Post by [deleted] »

bugglebeetle wrote: post #149
morbicer wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

[deleted]

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

#160

Post by bugglebeetle »

morbicer wrote: post #155
bugglebeetle wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I am not saying those regions only have bad people. Lots of good people, just some bad apples. But in USA you usually get whole families and not a bunch of young single men. That's one factor that de-risks the integration. The second factor is you get people that can afford plane ticket (likely more educated) and go through some form of border check. I believe the vast majority of the Middle Eastern people in Califor…

I’m originally from the Midwest and we have large populations of people from Iraq, Syria, and the Horn of Africa, as well as Palestine, which is a more recent target of bigotry. Look up Minneapolis, Minnesota or Dearborn, Michigan. Overall, those people are more discriminated against there than they would be in California (because the overall culture is more racist against anyone who isn’t white), but still there are almost zero issues with them being integrated into American life. The vast, vast majority of people in the world just want to have peaceful lives where they feel respected and useful and I think Europe is especially bad at giving people from other countries (including from the poorer parts of the EU) that opportunity.
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