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One thing I've noticed in Southern California is that wealth is a pretty good indicator of language. Once immigrants (of any national origin really) began to have any semblance of wealth and a steady job, ties to the community, etc. they start to speak English and integrate. Who know doesn't know English or only speaks limited English? The illegals and the brand new migrant workers who work really crappy jobs for low pay and have no real reason to assimilate. They haven't learned English yet, because why would they really? A lot of them view their stay here as temporary and they have nothing tying them to the United States other than work, but that can be found elsewhere if the need be. Once they have something tying them the country, they start to really assimilate.
I want to note, that I know there are billionaires who speak Spanish and there are plenty of wealthy and successful people in Central and South Ameica, etc. I'm talking about the United States. A nation, which despite having assumed large territories with Spanish speaking people in it, that was founded by English speaking peoples and the language of government is English.
The language of business is English both national and global.
Spanish will not take that over any time soon.
For me, learning another language has an intrinsic benefit, not because not employment opportunities or career advancement, (I am 64 so those are not a concern any more), but simply because of the exposure to another culture, the opportunity to read newspapers from other countries, perhaps even the beauty of the language itself.
I don't really care much for arguments about who should have to learn what- why would you not want to learn a language?
When the first Americans arrived, the only ones here were animals. They did not displace other nations.
European settlers robbed the Native Americans of their land through disease, trickery, conquest, or outright murder. No one seriously disputes those facts. Europeans "discovered" America in much the same way a carjacker might "discover" your SUV and send you to a "reservation" in a back road ditch.
Good analogy.
There were more than 1000 indigenous nations on lands within current U.S. borders with a single gene pool from Asia, 15,000 years ago. Some of them survived as intact sovereign nations within US borders.
Good ole slave- owning George Washington was the first President to force indigenous people to assimilate to European culture and Christianity.
So what? In reply to your first sentence. It wasn't their land to rob. No one owned it. The so-called natives were just as guilty of atrociousness to other tribes and the European settlers. Bad analogy, the SUV didn't belong to anyone. Bring yourself up to 2015. Those people are all dead now.
Settlers imported European laws that established property rights. First you take .......
I live in South Florida and there are entire cities who only speak Spanish. Try going to the DMV in Hialeah and trying to find anyone who speaks English there.
I live in South Florida and there are entire cities who only speak Spanish. Try going to the DMV in Hialeah and trying to find anyone who speaks English there.
Try going anywhere in Hialeah where ppl speak english.
Grab a clue. There were no "native" Americans. Their ancestors migrated here just like the Europeans did. The Europeans did not come here illegally. There were no immigration laws back then anyway.
Someone was here first, and it certainly wasn't the European settlers. And I'm pretty sure they took issue with the European settlers stealing their land. Just because there wasn't a law written onto a scroll by white people with quilled pens doesn't mean it was "legal".
I encourage people to learn additional languages. And I don't have a problem with helping immigrants to learn English and to facilitate their lives during the interim.
I live in South Florida and there are entire cities who only speak Spanish. Try going to the DMV in Hialeah and trying to find anyone who speaks English there.
These are the kind of comments where you know it's being written by someone who has no clue about a community.
Hialeah has TONS of second and third generation Latinos, mostly Cuban. Their Spanish is often terrible. Latinos in South Florida are Americanized just like anyone else within a generation or two.
Yet we native English speakers are being told to learn Spanish. Based on the above, why?
Who has told native English speakers to learn English?
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Good analogy. 
