Does one have to know Spanish to live in Miami? (Hialeah: mover, hotel)

[doncorleyone]

Originally Posted by sav858

How long did it take you to secure a job? And if you don't mind me asking, what type of job is it? Is it a service or hospitality type job or is it a professional office job? I'm basically curious if spanish isn't preferred as much for more professional jobs.

all the service / hourly jobs are in Dade where you must know spanish or another language (plenty of immigrants haitians / cubans/ nicaraguan/ jamaicans ect)..... all the Professionals (such as myself) work in Broward (ft. lauderdale).. you dont need to know spanish in broward.. and there is better paying jobs there... so i suggest that you get a decent car and find work in broward...

The job market here LITERALLY sucks!!! there is a housing / foreclosure crisis going on. Crime has gone bananas... PERSONALLY i would advise you to wait untill things cool off down here... set yourself up for a professional career.. or be a cop! lolol the police are ALWAYS hiring. (that should tell you something!) the cost of living is very similar to san diego.. so you really need to do your math for this... but if you are up for it... you will adapt easily since u are from SD.

[rogerbacon]

I just want to respond to the OP and say it is encouraging to know there are still people like him out there. It measn America still 'works'. He is an example of how the Melting Pot is supposed to work. Parents come from anywhere, speaking anything, and then the children are aclimated into American culture and speak English and (presumably) consider themselves American. If we had more of that and less of the Balkinization of America the future would be bright.

[MiamiRob]

roger but that happens all the time in Miami. In my case my parents came from cuba in the early 60s but dad was fluent in English anyways, me & my siblings all speak English without accents though we are bilingual. Now my nieces & nephews barely speak Spanish as it is save for one niece which is a shame in a way because I feel they are missing out on part of their heritage.

[vpcats]

My son was born in Peru but we moved back to NY when he was 2 years old.
He learned Spanish because my grandmother used to baby sit him and she didn't speak English. Besides, I am bilingual, his father is bilingual, why shouldn't he be bilingual.

Anyhow, in time he didn't need any more babysitting and my grandmother moved to Florida. He pretty much forgot all his spoken Spanish, even if he could understand some of it if you didn't speak too fast.

He lived in PA, MI, CA, and now has been in Miami for about 4 years. To this day, he can't understand a lot of the slang and much less if you speak fast but he deals with a lot of South Americans and Spaniards in his business and he has done very well knowing enough Spanish. He has gained a customer base that maybe others might not have gotten.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by rogerbacon

I just want to respond to the OP and say it is encouraging to know there are still people like him out there. It measn America still 'works'. He is an example of how the Melting Pot is supposed to work. Parents come from anywhere, speaking anything, and then the children are aclimated into American culture and speak English and (presumably) consider themselves American. If we had more of that and less of the Balkinization of America the future would be bright.

Thanks, I do wish more hispanics would assimilate and learn the language, which is kind of why I never bothered to learn spanish; I felt if you come here you should learn english. My family, both mom and dad, are very American b/c we've been here a while, I think I'm something like a 3rd or 4th generation immigrant. I'm 1/2 Mexican and 1/2 Filipino so I am pretty "ethnic" looking but culturally am as american as they come, nobody alive in my family speaks spanish or tagalog. I've gotten a little crap before about not knowing or being a part of mexican/hispanic culture, usually from other mexicans but it's just not me, I didn't grow up that way. I am American and very proud of that.

I grew up in a white upper middle class suburb that was 90% white and most of the people i am around are white. So I thought coming to Miami would be a cool, new experiance b/c I would be around latin/hispanic culture more so since there seems to be a higher percentage of middle and upper middle class hispanics than in CA and it's more widespread there than in Southern CA. Most hispanics here are generally working class and the wealthier ones tend to be very assimilated.

[Marlin331]

Assimilation in Miami works very similarly to how it works in other parts of the US. Speaking Spanish does NOT mean that you are non-assimilated; in fact, many of the people you see speaking Spanish with their friends, in stores, etc. are fluent in English. Most young people of Hispanic origin living in South Florida are American born, and although many speak Spanish at home with their parents, most choose to speak English with their friends. By the time these American-born Hispanics have children, these children will likely grow up to speak little Spanish. It's a complete crock of crap to suggest that Hispanic people in Miami don't go through multi-generational assimilation like other ethnic groups do and have done for years. Sure, old Colombian grandmothers don't really learn to speak English well, but neither do Vietnamese grandmothers in California or Italian grandmothers who recently moved to New York. The perception that Hispanics do not assimilate - or even worse, refuse to assimilate - is a media-driven lie.

To the OP who is accustomed to living in areas that are 90% white: if you are a professional living in a nice area, you will probably still live in an area that is 90% white. Virtually all professional Hispanics down here are white; wealthier areas only have a small presence of mestizo/mulatto Hispanics. Even Hiealeah (people like to make fun of it for being a lower class area, but in reality it is lower-middle class) is majority white. There really aren't many Asians here, and the population of Native American-looking Hispanics (ie: what a typical day laborer in California would look like) is very low. It really is an interesting place in that the demographics (race, income, nationality) of the Hispanic community are distinct from almost anywhere else in this country.

[doncorleyone]

everyone has a right to their own language... But damm if you come to america.. at least know how to order a #2 in english at mcdonalds.. i'm black american.. and i absolutely looooooove my latin neighbors.. as i think both races have so much in common than any other 2 races... heck.. even my wife is dominicana.. but i find it very shameful and offensive if someone has been living here for 5+ years and cant (AND REFUSES) to learn a lick of english.. but STILL wants to earn a citizenship here..
you wouldnt go to Canada and not learn French-Canadian (or english lol).... or you wouldnt move to italy w/o learning italian.??.

im from new jersey / New York metro.. and all dominicans and puerto ricans of all ages can speak english no matter what neighborhood. but unfortunately its not like that with cubans, & Nicas, ect; in Miami... so in miami- dade you will be FORCED to learn another language in your own country.. that's "MUY TRISTE" VERY SAD! lol

[vpcats]

nah, nah, nah. I don't believe that every person who doesn't speak English, doesn't because they REFUSE to learn.

You know people sometimes have something called financial hardship - you can't afford certain things. Or you are medically indigent - you can't pay for healthcare. Well, some people are language challenged. They just can't learn. Not enough to carry on a conversation fluently. It happens as you get older, it happens because of a host of other physical or mental disabilities.

So don't just point blank say they REFUSE!

Also, I lived in NYC too. As a matter of fact I lived in Washington Heights for a while. An area that went from Jewish to Cuban to Puerto Rican to Dominican. Who told you they all speak English?

[TannerMan]

Originally Posted by doncorleyone

all the service / hourly jobs are in Dade where you must know spanish or another language (plenty of immigrants haitians / cubans/ nicaraguan/ jamaicans ect)..... all the Professionals (such as myself) work in Broward (ft. lauderdale).. you dont need to know spanish in broward.. and there is better paying jobs there... so i suggest that you get a decent car and find work in broward...

The job market here LITERALLY sucks!!! there is a housing / foreclosure crisis going on. Crime has gone bananas... PERSONALLY i would advise you to wait untill things cool off down here... set yourself up for a professional career.. or be a cop! lolol the police are ALWAYS hiring. (that should tell you something!) the cost of living is very similar to san diego.. so you really need to do your math for this... but if you are up for it... you will adapt easily since u are from SD.

Are you kidding me!? Miami-Dade has just as much if not much more "professional jobs" than Broward. Look at the traffic patterns, where do most people work? And crime has not gone bannanas. So far you have made pretty ridiculous comments. About how hispanics "refuse" to learn English?! And you dont have to learn another language to live here, Im a prime example of that, I speak no spanish IN HIALEAH!

[doggiebus]

Look yes you can live in Miami-Dade and not know Spanish or on the flip side know English. Depending on ones career, you may need to be fluent in both English and Spanish. But there are jobs that you can get that only English is required. So it depends on ones field.

Now when it comes to going to restaurants and shopping, yes many people do speak both english and spanish, but time to time you may run into someone that doesn't speak English. That can be frustrating to a none Spanish speaking person. Employees that interact with customers should be able to speak English, just incase a customer needs help. For the most part, spanish is the dominant language that you will hear while at the grocery store, or at Home Depot (doesn't matter what part of the county you are in), at Macys, going to dinner, etc. As 60%+ of this county is hispanic. Many (not all) hispanics prefer to speak spanish first before English.

I agree that people should learn the English language. I understand that some people can learn languages better than others, but there are many here that just don't put forth the effort to even try. I know that for a fact, I have been told by people, I am just to old to learn, or I don't need to know English in Miami. It should be a requirement people learn the English language to become a citizen. BTW, my mom just became a US citizen a few years ago.