A lot of us software engineers that came over recently have the same problem at the workplace/public spaces @ work.OSHA and other guv agencies say that one can speak in any language @ the workplace if the conversation is not work related and the participants can understand.
The average WASP @ work is not aware of the law and gives us grief about this all the time.This "Jesus hates you pagans" guy I knew always insinuated that we were talking bad about him when in reality we wudn't give a flyin' f**k about him or his pagan hating church and wud be talking about stuff relevant to us alone.

For some reason I always avoid speaking in Punjabi in public .. or if I do, I'll clearly repeat what I said in English. I guess all this suspicion is part of the reason why. How am I supposed to make fun of other people now?

I think it really stems from insecurity. if the students were speaking Spanish in the classroom, distracting other students or from the lesson, it would be one thing. But to simply have a conversation in the hallway or the bathroom, between friends... it just seems insecure to me.

My mom always hated when my dad and his friends or family would all speak in Hindi, because she didn't understand it and assumed that it was because they were saying things they didn't want her to know. Thus, we didn't learn Hindi at home probably in part because of my mom's paranoia that everyone would be talking about her... silly thing, insecurity...

i think there are shades to this. making this is legal issue is obviously sketchy, but, in terms of courtesy i think there are real concerns. speaking in another language by its nature erects a barrier and distance. i happen to know someone who was at a trade show in texas, and because she 'looked anglo' spanish speaking customers would always critique and talk shit about her products because they assumed she didn't know spanish. as it is, she had fluent italian and could understand spanish perfectly, so this was a fallacious assumption and eventually if the customers wouldn't stop talking shit about the products (mind you, they might be 3-4 feet in front of her space) she would tell them in spanish that 'no, that is isn't made out of cheap metal' (etc. etc.). i suspect that the problem of perceived lack of courtesy is less in the case of situations where an individual clearly has a difficult time communicating in english. i.e., if you have a situation where an old chinese or spanish woman who barely knows english asks a younger person questions in another language in front of those who don't know that language, i think people can connect the dots and assume that there is not intent toward exclusion or secrecy, it is at least expediency and most likely necessacity. on the other hand, the tendency for genuinely bilingual people to switch back and forth probably is more likely to set off alarms and anger, and this might be more likely to happen in the case of americans for whom spanish, english and spanglish are all first languages, and who feel comfortable and are habituated to switching between them at will and convenience.

a cross-cultural question, how does multi-lingualism work in india?

Thus, we didn't learn Hindi at home probably in part because of my mom's paranoia that everyone would be talking about her... silly thing, insecurity...

well, if you don't know hindi, how do you know she wasn't right? :)

also, might i add that here in oregon i have noticed that a lot of things in public places (i.e., library self-check out terminals, etc.) are going toward bilingual options. some of the hostility is probably derived from the reality of the fact that spanish is starting to become a necessacity for many jobs and public agencies are mildly accommidating spanish monolingualism (especially in blue-collar industries and social services).

razib,
sparing you my life story and some armchair psychology ;) I was told as much by family, and I know my mom's personality. Incidentally, I've been learning Hindi as an adult, and that's no easy feat.

wrt Razib's #6 comment, it was the same way in Florida and parts of Texas. While some citizens (the ones who have bumper stickers which say "these colors don't run" or "Toby Keith Rocks" or the Calvin-pissing-on-something decal) have issue with those who don't "speak American", most people seemed to just shrug and go "So? It's helpful, big deal..."

do you shake your head in that weird-ass way that i see in bollywood movies sometimes? what i'm asking is, is that a structural byproduct of the language, or a tendency picked up through cultural osmosis?

do you shake your head in that weird-ass way...?

I shake all kinds of things in weird-ass ways ;)

I dunno about you guys, but biliguality is fabulous. As a 2nd gen, I love the fact that i can talk shit about other people with my desi friends when we're out. Thats why i learned hindi...well that and to speak with my relatives when in India.

Honestly we live in a capitalistic society, if your dumbass doesn't understand, go to a fucking library, but don't tell me not to use knowledge i have which you don't. Sorry white boy, you've got enough fucking priviledges from being white, now you wanna stick me cause you dont understand the words comin out of my MOUTH? FUCK YOU

also Razib,

well, if you don't know hindi, how do you know she wasn't right? :)

It's helpful, big deal...

not to hijack thread (never happens), but i think there is a distinction though between bilingual signs on a library self-check out screen...and the reality that bilinguals are getting preference in many jobs. the fact of the matter is that there are certain jobs where you are going to run into A LOT of spanish speakers. thatz the factz. but as you said, learning a language is tough, and some people are too old to do it well, and some people are just bad at it after puberty (i am one of those, throw a diff eq or square matrix my way, but not shit with 'cases,' whatever that means).

This sounds a lot like Arizona's failed "English as the official language" program/law. Maybe I'm hypersensitive, but it sounds like national origin discrimination to bar individuals from speaking ANY of their native language. Plus, what does the school care, particularly if it's a social exchange? I used to think it was rude [to speak in other languages] in mixed company where not everyone could participate, but I just got over it. While I think everyone should reach fluency in English in their education, I also think Americans should have to learn foreign languages and achieve intermediate fluency. If you happen to speak another language at home, it's that much more awesome for you. This obsession with English just seems like proxy for other issues of inclusion and xenophobia.

My favorite non-English experience is when my mom switches to Punjabi to gossip/criticize in front of non-Punjabis. Except that she got so used to doing this she used to do it in the gurdwara, b/c of course NO ONE speaks Punjabi there. :)

well, i work in germany and its commonplace to hear a dozen languages everyday around you..there's a lot of turkish, arabic, etc goin around..initially it was alarming to be in such a stew but then i guess i got used to it..even my workplace is multilingual (german/french/italian/english/..)..though i definitely do feel strange when people in a conversational circle switch languages for no reason..i always thought it mannerless to use a foreign language in a gathering unless others understood it but people here seem to think otherwise!! i'd never imagine it would escalate to an issue of this magnitude..i mean there's a limit for being paranoid..

as far as india is concerned, there's always the common denominator:hindi to use when nothin else works..

This sounds exactly like what happened to me when I was in school - a couple of friends and I were fined for not speaking in English during our lunch break.

PS: I went to an "English Medium" school in India, and I know for a fact that ours was not the only one to impose only-English-within-these-walls rules.

This obsession with English just seems like proxy for other issues of inclusion and xenophobia.

yes, it is. but only to some extent. the cases that ennis points to above are outliers. intregrate over the full distribution of language speech and i think we could agree that spanish speakers don't live in fear of public opprobrium and rebuke. this is notable because it is somewhat exceptional in its insensitivity.

but I just got over it

well, no offense, but your personal preferences are not the standard by which public mores are determined. if you get enough people to agree with you, than they are. if not, well, they aren't.

hindi to use when nothin else works

i don't know if read this here, or heard it on the BBC or something, but i recall something about some north indian guy complaining that most people in tamil nadu didn't speak hindi (the gall!).

btw, let me offer that evolutionary anthropologists posit that language emerged as a facility of humans so that we could communicate transparently and efficiently in our groups. the tower of babel mythology does reflect the reality that linguistic variation tends to bespeak distinctions. this is not just ethnic, in many parts of the world the elites and lower classes might as well be speaking different languages. notwithstanding the overreaches noted above, i am certainly willing to declare that i dissent from the sanguinity of some toward toleration of dialectical opacity in public as a norm. to some extent, my rationale is the same as that for opposing black-moving-objects in burqas becoming acceptable in custom as well as law, what putative individual benefits are accrued are obtained at the cost to social exchange and interaction.

I'm not arguing that my personal preferences are the way the world should function or they way American society forms its standards of appropriate conduct, I was just commenting from my perspective. I may be simplistic, but I'm not stupid, thanks.

i think we could agree that spanish speakers don't live in fear of public opprobrium and rebuke. this is notable because it is somewhat exceptional in its insensitivity.

I can't agree with you, and maybe it's b/c I live in California, where people are beaten and ridiculed on a regular basis for speaking Spanish, or as the gringos like to call it down here, they "speak Mexican." I don't think this case is exceptional aside from the length of the suspension. As for the second case, I think the only thing unusual was that the police let Ax3 go after figuring out that the man who called in was nuts. And generally, I don't think it's useful for desis/Arabs (or any p.o.c., actually) to play oppression Olympics over who's going to get screwed most in America.

Razib - language definitely has social space, and even status, associations. I wonder how much of that is at play here. i.e. keep Spanish out of schools and on the streets and in the homes.

Another thing to consider - what exactly constitutes "English" in the above example. If some kids were to speak pidgin/ebonics would that not be acceptable?

I can't agree with you, and maybe it's b/c I live in California, where people are beaten and ridiculed on a regular basis for speaking Spanish, or as the gringos like to call it down here, they "speak Mexican."

i think this depends on the part of california. i've heard many more stories about what you are talking about from people who have lived around say, fresno, than san luis obispo. and FYI, my understanding is that mexican spanish is very different dialect from castilian standard. a friend of mine stupidly took spanish classes from a local woman who was from guadalajara before her year abroad in seville. once she got to spain, people looked like she was on crack when she opened her mouth, mostly because she spoke somewhat like the illegal peddlars and workers that are starting to appear there to fill manual occupational positions (from latin america).

Another thing to consider - what exactly constitutes "English" in the above example. If some kids were to speak pidgin/ebonics would that not be acceptable?

it hasn't in the past from what i know. this is just the recapitulation of an old argument. the irish american roman catholic hierarchy of this country spent decades wearing the german catholics down on the issues relating to their 'native' language schools in places like st. louis. world war I ended that.

on the issues relating to language, a friend of mine from athens, GA, told me that after high school a lot of his friends who stayed in the south picked up a southern accent. you see, athens is a college town, with many resettled northern families, so southern accents were not normative in his high school. but once they got out into the wider work world, it was necessary for them to fit in as 'folks.'

keep Spanish out of schools and on the streets and in the homes.

well, i won't defend the conduct above, but, i have very young siblings. when my sister was in 1st grade she was placed in an 'immigrant' class (without my parents' knowledge). this class consisted of about 15 children from spanish speaking backgrounds and 15 children from russian speaking backgrounds, and 2-3 others, which included my sister. one problem was that the pace of this class was at retarded level (this is how my parents found out that she'd been placed in a class for kids who were expected to have low english fluency). but another problem was that non-english speech was widely tolerated in this school, and my sister and her english speaking friends (1 chinese american girl, 2 native whites) had to make friends with kids from other classes because the russian and spanish speaking clique simply behaved as if they didn't exist during recess.

FYI, my understanding is that mexican spanish is very different dialect from castilian standard

Mexican Spanish is a different dialect than Castilian, but it is no more appropriate to call it "Mexican" than it is to call American English "American."

And people aren't just beaten up or harassed in Fresno (although this is a more comforting thought since the Central Valley is depicted as backwater, agrarian and hick) - you see this problem throughout California, particularly in areas with large Latin@ populations (LA, San Diego, South/East Bay Area). There's also evidence of this in Arizona and other border states.

Another thing to consider - what exactly constitutes "English" in the above example. If some kids were to speak pidgin/ebonics would that not be acceptable?

One problem was that the pace of this class was at retarded level (this is how my parents found out that she'd been placed in a class for kids who were expected to have low english fluency)

As someone who was also put in a non-native speakers class for 2 days in first grade, I feel like this problem is more endemic to how bilingual education classes are framed and approached nationwide instead of a problem with students and their fluency in a non-English language. Even today you see a disproportionate number of ESL students placed in special ed instead of seeing coursework and programs tailored to rapid advancement and education in English. This also used to help schools in some states buy time since traditionally special ed programs aren't held to standardized testing performance (thus you can inflate your scores by taking out ESL students, who generally score lower in the vocab/reading sections of these tests).

I speak hindi, gujarati and punjabi in public all the time (on the phone). Have never gotten grief for it and have never thought twice about it. Except once. This redneck assh*le started mumbling under his breath and making these weird noises (literally - "puk, puk, puk") every time I passed him (I was in a store) and I thought I heard the word "foreigner". My mind didn't register what was going on for a minute. When it did, I literally froze in my tracks. Went back to the guy and confronted him. Asked him if he was talking to me. Expected him to kind of back off and deny the whole thing. No way! The moron tells me "you people" can't talk in public like that! I can't describe in words the sheer and utter *rage* that filled every part of my being. I literally started trembling. And of course I didn't let him get away with it. Cussed him out, called him a f*cking racist and stood a foot away from him, stared him in the eyes and continued talking in Gujarati. Not a very mature way of handling it? Maybe.
I'm just glad I could resist the temptation to physically hit him.

above, i am certainly willing to declare that i dissent from the sanguinity of some toward toleration of dialectical opacity in public as a norm. to some extent, my rationale is the same as that for opposing black-moving-objects in burqas becoming acceptable in custom as well as law, what putative individual benefits are accrued are obtained at the cost to social exchange and interaction.

Because there are no cliques in high school, and everybody communicates in a public and transparent fashion, with no codes or exclusion. Right?

If this was really a primary concern for educators, they would do more to integrate their student bodies. Instead they do the opposite, but then complain when racial and linguistic subgroups imitate the dominant pattern.

Razib,

if you can't understand "No problema" then you've got other problems ;)

(the ones who have bumper stickers which say "these colors don't run" or "Toby Keith Rocks" or the Calvin-pissing-on-something decal)

i shudder...they actually have 'toby kieth rocks' decals? OMMGG.....keep my mother away from that stuff.

personally, for me, i feel as long as all languages are promoted equally in america, it's all good. i just have a fit when certain langues are stressed, and others are ignored. i'm begging my fmaily and friends to teach me hindi and punjabi, and i love it when they do speak it, even though most of the time i have no idea what they're saying. now, there are some places, where i can see the language barrier. when i was younger, my mother was talking to a woman whpo was part latino of some sort, and she didn't know a word of spanish. she was around others who told her 'speak spanish, we can't understand you.' she was also told by another woman that they were talking behind her back, and calling her various eufanisms (sp), and since she couldnt understand it, they got away with it. i'd taken to learn a small bit of spanish, because i've had to spend far too many trips at the welfare office in my youth, and others i know, as well as myself, have seen similar situations. so, it should be added that i don't care what language is spoken, as long as you're not using to purposely make soemone feel uncomfortable, whatever. i go to my local store and say how are you in polish to the one employee, and all my sikh friends greet me with sat sri akal.

Because there are no cliques in high school, and everybody communicates in a public and transparent fashion, with no codes or exclusion. Right?

ah yes, no, there are no cliques, i've never seen any! you got me!

just because there are preexistent fissures based on class, race and popularity does not mean that we should sit still and allow the formation of another axis of differentiation. for example, in the case above with my sister, the principle shouldn't have clustered all the putative children of immigrants in one class (this was an SES issue too, many of the russian kids parents were on welfare and the latinos were from working class backgrounds while most everyone else was suburban), he should have distributed them amongst the various 1st grade teachers (the 2 anglo girls were apparently there because of the arithmetic, there weren't seats anywhere else, so they got stuck with the immigrant 1st grade).

I feel like this problem is more endemic to how bilingual education classes are framed and approached nationwide instead of a problem with students and their fluency in a non-English language.

well, this wasn't standard bilingual education class. it was supposed to follow the curriculum just like all the other classes, but from what i gathered from afar (what my parents told me) is that there was a tacit policy of just stuffing immigrant kids together in one class and not putting much effort in keeping them up to speed, because if you split them up that spread the 'problem' (i.e., teachers having to take time out to help).

The thought of a school doing that is horrible, and it sad how many of our educators are getting dumber and dumber.

But I think that sometimes it is inappropriate to speak in a non-English language and sometimes I even find it annoying, especially when the person speaks loudly.

As far as the Arab speaker on the train, well I can't blame the cops for taking the matter seriously, but to prevent such incidents the liar who claimed he could speak Arabic and caused the whole mess should face some sort of charges - lying to the Police and causing public hysteria are crimes of some sort aren't they? At least haul his ass down to the precinct, cause him the same hastle and humiliation and then slap a tidy little fine on him. He'll think twice next time.

i feel as long as all languages are promoted equally in america

they won't be. there will be some languages that are privileged along with english. instead of a monopoly, you'll hae an oligopoly, and people will try to get into the game, like with the ebonics fiasco. back in 2001 the UC system was considering replacing the sat with the sat ii subject tests (i don't know if they did it), and black leaders cried foul because they asserted it gave latinos and asians (chinese) and an automatic advantage because they could use that as one of their 3 subject tests.

they won't be. there will be some languages that are privileged along with english. instead of a monopoly, you'll hae an oligopoly, and people will try to get into the game, like with the ebonics fiasco. back in 2001 the UC system was considering replacing the sat with the sat ii subject tests (i don't know if they did it), and black leaders cried foul because they asserted it gave latinos and asians (chinese) and an automatic advantage because they could use that as one of their 3 subject tests.

mm...that's sad. hmm......well, i still won't give up hope. i can't predict the future, so i still have think there could be a chance to it. maybe an unrealistic and improbable chance at this point, but anything's possible if we work on it.

Again, there's a double standard here, because some fissures are tolerated as "natural" (wealth etc) while one's native language isn't. I see your point about the potential of encouraging these divisions further Razib, but I think the choice made to tolerate divisions arising out of economic disparities and not cultural disparities is based on a capricious disregard for culture (aka prejudice?)

Just because there are preexistent fissures based on class, race and popularity does not mean that we should sit still and allow the formation of another axis of differentiation.

Living in Toronto, Canada, most of these US incidents seem almost hard to believe to me (which is not to say I don't believe them, BTW). Sometimes I feel like no one in this city has English as a mother tongue; speaking a language other than English in public here is the norm, although the diversity of minority populations here is such that there isn't one particular dominant non-English language in most situations. Even many of our public information materials (emergency info, waste-pickup schedules, etc.) is printed in almost a dozen different languages.
On the other hand, when I was a child (7-8 yrs old) I lived in the US (Minnesota) for a couple of years. Although I was pretty bright as a kid, I was put into the lowest-level reading group, only, as far as I can see, because I was from Canada (English-speaking Canada). Go figure.

Again, there's a double standard here, because some fissures are tolerated as "natural" (wealth etc) while one's native language isn't.

name a society without class divisions.

now name a society without language divisions (you can).

class is the basis of communist solidarity, but in practice, nations like russia had to turn to nationalism (democratic-centralism, blah, blah). nationalism which was rooted in language.

language divisions are tractable. germans were swallowed into the america body politic. latinos will be swallowed, it is matter of when, not if. class fissures, or fissures between butt ugly and attractive, or athletic and non-athletic, well, in the last two cases, go to god, and the first, go to greed.

The point is that they only get upset about one cleavage while ignoring the others, or endorsing them as being essential to high school.

how are schools going to erase class divisions? they can where they can (i.e., banning calculators on tests when they were expensive, providing vouchers for students who can't afford football fees, etc.). how schools going to erase divisions between jocks and pussies? i think there is apples and oranges going on here, some divisions are fundamental emergent properties from the natural variation within a population (even assuming that class has no correlation with any heritable traits, random fluctuations will lead to accumulation, or communist party membership, or 'good proletariat class background'). language divisions are not fundamental. they've always been eliminated over time.

Linguistic resistance is futile, eh? ;)

I wasn't actually appealing to the communist ideal. However, there are strategies that have been employed to downplay the role of economic background in schools e.g. uniforms/dress codes enforced to minimize the display/awareness of socio-economic background, which don't seem to have much importance in most schools in N America. Speaking of "God-given" attributes, I really think culture and language are as much a part of these as physical attributes.

Living in Toronto, Canada, most of these US incidents seem almost hard to believe to me (which is not to say I don't believe them, BTW). Sometimes I feel like no one in this city has English as a mother tongue; speaking a language other than English in public here is the norm, although the diversity of minority populations here is such that there isn't one particular dominant non-English language in most situations.

Toronto is the most diverse city in North America, maybe the world, and a very hospitable place. I've always felt more comfortable there than in New England or New Jersey. I happened upon a Liberal Party meeting in downtown Toronto and was surprised to see the numbers of Sikhs and Hindus participating. But from what I gather (anecdotally), ethnicities are melting quickly there (in Ontario). I think Canadian South Asians marry out at a much higher rate than Indian- Americans, the majority of whom marry other Indians (though usually without caste/regional considerations), and Pakistani-Americans, many of whom still marry their cousins.

And this is in a society (Canada) where the political regime openly celebrates multiculturalism and very nearly implemented Sharia law for Muslims. :-)

However, there are strategies that have been employed to downplay the role of economic background in schools e.g. uniforms/dress codes enforced to minimize the display/awareness of socio-economic background, which don't seem to have much importance in most schools in N America

they used to. in part the culture changed toward individual expression, and in part i believe there were civil liberties challenges (not on the constitutional level, but in concert with the zeitgeist the regs were dropped).

1) yes, SES variance can be ameliorated
2) but never eliminated
3) linguistic substructure can be ameliorated
4) and definitely eliminated

I really think culture and language are as much a part of these as physical attributes.

well, i disagree. so perhaps it is about norms & values. no shame as long as we know we wear different uniforms.

I think Canadian South Asians marry out at a much higher rate than Indian- Americans, the majority of whom marry other Indians (though usually without caste/regional considerations), and Pakistani-Americans, many of whom still marry their cousins.

i've cited statistics that shown 1.5-american born browns marry at rates of between 25-40% (i.e., 1.5 marry in more, american born out more) before. i've got to run, so google it if you are curious.

adios!

When Anna and I want to speak to each other without being understood, we use double "cryptography": she speaks to me in Malayalam, and I respond in French. Works like a champ :)

The funniest: we were at a coffee shop and I asked her a question, she responded in French. A guy asked us if were speaking ....Gujurati.

this fear of an alien tongue is somehow unexplainable..maybe shrinks out there know better..its everywhere - right from the tamils who agitated against hindi (btw its quite an interesting aside that south indians pick up hindi easily if they go up north while most north indians hardly try!) to the obnoxious french who answer in their language even if they knew english..

i've cited statistics that shown 1.5-american born browns marry at rates of between 25-40%

Wow! Thats higher than I whould have thought based on my experience with weddings. I must be living in a fucking ghetto :-)

notwithstanding the overreaches noted above, i am certainly willing to declare that i dissent from the sanguinity of some toward toleration of dialectical opacity in public as a norm.

say wha'???

speak english! :)

this fear of an alien tongue is somehow unexplainable..maybe shrinks out there know better..its everywhere - right from the tamils who agitated against hindi (btw its quite an interesting aside that south indians pick up hindi easily if they go up north while most north indians hardly try!

Well...the Sindhis settled in Chennai who have substantial economic interests in the state (and are the only non-Tamils who can get into the prestigious Madras Club) speak it mighty well.

Tamil linguistic chauvinism is really a sort of ethno-nationalism. Dravidianism (which is still the ideology of the major political parties in the state) viewed the Brahmans as invading, Sanskrit-speaking aliens. Hindi was the Sanskrit stand-in, and the vehicle of Aryan hegemony over the South.

i read the washington post article in its entirety... and the thing that i'm most proud of is this kid's dad:

Said Rubio: "I'm mainly doing this for other Mexican families, where the legal status is kind of shaky and they are afraid to speak up. Punished for speaking Spanish? Somebody has to stand up and say: This is wrong."

before i launch into my comment--i will say that i was a teacher for 2 years in Detroit, and that there are educators who just don't get 'it.' but there are also many that do and are trying to implement change in public and private schools.

Anyways,

I'm excited about this father's go-get'm attitude towards the school's stupid policy. I always felt that schools have always tried to capitalize on the passivity of immigrant parents.

I am absolutely positive that had a similar incident happened to me or my brother when we were in school, my parents would have automatically aussumed that the school was right and defered to their decision.

actually....wait let me think...oh yeah...that happened [not with my speaking hindi at school, but something else--where a bunch of students got in trouble and if you're parents came in and made a ruckus about the punishment--it was rescinded but if your parents didn't then you got a detention/suspension].

i guess my thought is that i feel that South Asian culture holds educators with a view that they can NEVER be wrong--even when they are.

So props to you, Mr. Rubio!

Ennis and badmash, I think you two are my new favorites :)

1) yes, SES variance can be ameliorated 2) but never eliminated 3) linguistic substructure can be ameliorated 4) and definitely eliminated

Regarding Latin@ integration, this argument presumes some kind of Latin@ homogeneity and also ignores the impact of race on integration. Latin@s are one of the most racially diverse groups in the US, and understandably folks who look more "Anglo" and come from historically rich families have had an easier time absorbing into white privilege than Afro-Latin@s who may have histories of poverty and slavery instead.

And, to answer your question, UC still uses the SAT I test - it was just heavily restructured and is deemphasized slightly in admissions in favor of the SAT IIs :)

In terms of Tamil frustration with Hindi, I actually think it's kind of well-founded. Don't more individuals speak English in the subcontinent than Hindi? Given Hindi's role in constructing the national ideal that India used in independence, I can see why folks would have the same frustrations with Hindi (as representative of this kind of national image) that they have with the contemporary image of an Indian put forward by the more Hindu nationalist types. And please don't construe that to mean that I think Hindi-speakers are nationalists! I just think it's important to reflect on the use of language in national projects.

... I don't think wealth inequality is a "natural" phenomenon simply b/c it's prevalent in most societies.

You must not have any lazy friends ;)

Regarding Latin@ integration, this argument presumes some kind of Latin@ homogeneity and also ignores the impact of race on integration. Latin@s are one of the most racially diverse groups in the US, and understandably folks who look more "Anglo" and come from historically rich families have had an easier time absorbing into white privilege than Afro-Latin@s who may have histories of poverty and slavery instead.

The Cuban-Americans (those who don't look African-American)are most likely to become white. The Dominicans most likely to become African-American. Mexican-Americans in the US are overwhelmingly of Indian origin (as I believe Razib stated on his blog) and live a stone's throw from their homeland. Even the Cubans live close. It is unclear whether Spanish will disappear easily among Mexicans, and since they have critical mass in the country, there is no reason for them to "marry out". (And I'm not saying this is a good or bad thing.)

Perhaps we are living in an era where multiple identities become the norm? Even India is extending a watered-down version of citizenship to PIOs. As capital is easily transmittable, so will be people, especially skilled people.

Or perhaps the American Hispanics are successful in creating a enduring third national identity, alongside black and white.

You must not have any lazy friends ;)

I do, but they all have trust funds ;)

1) yes, SES variance can be ameliorated 2) but never eliminated 3) linguistic substructure can be ameliorated 4) and definitely eliminated

Razib - nobody is talking about eliminating either SES variance or linguistic variance in high school. The question is how we deal with exclusionary behavior that stems from these cleavages.

Nobody objects to rich kids exluding poor kids from conversation, but they object to spanish speakers excluding english speakers from conversation. Neither of these is necessary.

People get all agitated about the "black table" but nobody asks the jocks to scatter and sit with the rest of the high school during lunch.

I went to a college that was committed to integration across all sorts of boundaries - freshmen were randomized, and while you got to choose your roomates afterwards, groups of people were randomly assigned to different dorms for the remaining 3 years so that there could be no "jock dorm" no "asian dorm" etc.

Put in sociological language - high school is about overlapping and reinforcing cleavages rather than creating and encouraging cross-cutting cleavages. That's why your argument is inconsistent.

Camille:

Ennis and badmash, I think you two are my new favorites :)

What took you so long? And who do we displace? Shouldn't I have been your original favorite as the only Sikh mutineer ;)

Shouldn't I have been your original favorite as the only Sikh mutineer ;)

Essentialism! Everybody needs to get in touch with their inner Sikh ;)

To put it harshly but truthfully, bilingual education is a joke. Take it from someone who has worked as a public school teacher in a high school with a student body 68% of which was designated LEP (Limited English Proficient). I'm going to make a controversial statement here, so I'm bracing myself for flames -- it's the ENGLISH-speaking (and, in my district, mostly African-American) kids who get shafted. They're the ones who don't have enough textbooks. Let me explain why.

According to the law, LEP funds (which are quite healthy) can only be used for LEP students. Meaning, any excess left over after distributing LEP funds CANNOT be used for students classified as fluent English speakers. Now, LEP students, at least in my school system, usually take as many ELD classes as possible. Many students' parents want their kids to remain in bilingual classes (which basically end up being taught ONLY in Spanish) so they can either A) make sure their kids don't fall behind in coursework, which the kid might if stuck in an English classroom when s/he isn't fluent in English yet. The sad truth here, though, is that bilingual classrooms often move more slowly in their coursework, for reasons I'm not clear enough about to speculate on. B) Parents who want to help their kids with coursework (this assumes they themselves are educated to the high school level, which many immigrants in our district are not) or, more usually, C) parents who don't want their kids to "forget where they came from." Also, more rarely, D) because they intend to take their kids back to the Spanish-speaking nation of origin (usually Mexico, in my district) after the kid graduates. (These are the parents who came here so their kids could get a "better education.") Now, there ARE parents who speak only Spanish who refuse, despite their kids' pleas, to enroll their children in bilingual classes, because they believe it's crucial to their child's success in the USA to be able to speak English. But for every one of those parents, there is another who insists his or her child be put in as many bilingual classes as possible.

So, we have overloaded ELD classrooms, but we have the funds to supply those classrooms with materials. What we lack are enough qualified, certificated LEP teachers, because in general we pay our teachers shit wages, and of course anyone who is flawlessly bilingual generally has plenty of other better-paying career options by virtue of their bilingual abilities. As a result, we also often get LEP teachers who speak Spanish natively but were raised in American classrooms, and so their Spanish is more like "Spanglish," and isn't grammatically sound at all. So the Spanish education in bilingual classrooms is also sub-par, and people like me, who formally learned Spanish in American classrooms, end up appalled at all the grammatical inaccuracies in the LEP kids' Spanish. So the LEP kids get screwed: substandard lesson plans, performed in substandard Spanish.

Meanwhile, the NON-LEP kids get screwed too. All those funds going to LEP programs, by law, CANNOT BE USED on fluent English speakers. So the money allotted to LEP, which otherwise would have been allotted to mainstream education, is lost out on by the English speakers. But the money allotted to ENGLISH-SPEAKERS must also, by law, be shared by the LEP students; to deny LEP students access to this money would be discrimination. Hence, English-language classrooms end up with less funding. Textbooks, multimedia materials, and sometimes even desks!, are in short supply. Now, kids whose parents can get them out of this crappy situation, DO get their kids out. But in our district, not everyone has the funds. And guess what ethnicity most of our English-speaking students are. Good guess! They are African-American and, to some extent, Southeast-Asian American. So LEP programs, which aim at aiding minorities, end up shafting the very kids they hope to help -- either through poorly (and incorrectly) taught LEP curriculum, or through creating a situation in which teachers of English-speaking kids cannot lay claim to the amount of funds which they desperately need.

Those crying for recognition of individual languages fail to realize that our public school systems (at least in CA) are overburdened already, and we don't have the funds to attract qualified teachers in languages like Hindi, Punjabi, Farsi or Arabic, though we certainly do have the funds for the kids who speak these languages.

It's all a mess, really. Any suggestions welcome, because reform is desperately needed.

"language divisions are tractable. germans were swallowed into the america body politic. latinos will be swallowed, it is matter of when, not if. class fissures, or fissures between butt ugly and attractive, or athletic and non-athletic, well, in the last two cases, go to god, and the first, go to greed."

I have to disagree with Razib_the_atheist.
Spanish is in a unique position in USA.First It is truly an international language.Second Latino's just became the biggest minority and the third and most important factor is that Mexico is a neighbor which supplies fresh Spanish speaking immigrants.
IMHO ,I predict the reverse will happen within 20-30 years.
Coming from Sri Lanka ,I can see more and more parralels to her situation despite the size.

Sinhala (which has roots in Sanskrit and Pali and considered a member of indo-aryan language family .Also it has strong influance from Tamil .Minor influances from Portugese and Dutch) is spoken by 70 percent.
The rest speaks Tamil.(Sri Lankan Tamil ,Muslims and Tamils of indian origin)Tamil Nadu is 20 miles accross polk straight and there was major immigration during British rule to work in tea plantation as cheap labor,too.Also have to consider that Tamil Language acted like an international language within the southern part of subcontinent in history mainly used for commerce.
Latino just need a majority concentration in some area of the country to keep Spanish as one of two languages in US.It might be happening in south and west isn't it?

Ennis buddy, you're not the only Sikh Mutineer.....A number of us here have quietly infiltrated the ranks ;)

Meanwhile, the NON-LEP kids get screwed too... But the money allotted to ENGLISH-SPEAKERS must also, by law, be shared by the LEP students; to deny LEP students access to this money would be discrimination. Hence, English-language classrooms end up with less funding. Textbooks, multimedia materials, and sometimes even desks!, are in short supply... They are African-American and, to some extent, Southeast-Asian American.

Shouldn't I have been your original favorite as the only Sikh mutineer ;)

Essentialism! Everybody needs to get in touch with their inner Sikh ;)

If this was really a primary concern for educators, they would do more to integrate their student bodies. Instead they do the opposite, but then complain when racial and linguistic subgroups imitate the dominant pattern.

This is a brilliant point. But it's also an argument for encouraging more integration, along racial, SES, linguistic lines, isn't it? Unfortunately, such integration often falls prey to "tracking" students by (mis-?)perceived ability: honors classes often somehow get filled with white students, etc.

(Maybe bi-lingual ed. plays some role in this, too, as Simran says. But seems to me that bi-lingual ed. may be necessary to keep Spanish speaking kids from getting "segregated out" in other ways -- falling behind, dropping out, getting shunted into remedial classes.)

language divisions are tractable. germans were swallowed into the america body politic. latinos will be swallowed, it is matter of when, not if.

This doesn't seem like a foregone conclusion. Language divisions in India haven't dissolved, have they? Isn't it also possible that Spanish will spread (as Chandare said), or that in 100 years we'll all be speaking some version of Spanglish?

I don't have time to sift through all the comments or write this up well, but here's a relevant link about a study done on bilingual education.. Unfortunately, the LA Times article cited is now archived, but I think this JHU press release covers the relevant info.

Matters of inclusion and exclusion aside, I think we all need only to look at our own parents to realize that multilingual education and a polyglot lifestyle is good for the brain.

i've cited statistics that shown 1.5-american born browns marry at rates of between 25-40%

I wonder if the 2.0 american borns have a higher rate of outmarriage than the 1.5's as some 1.5's are not as 'Americanized' as the 2.0s.

Aw, thanks Camille! =)

perhaps a simple solution to this would be a realtime natural language translator. Maybe then i'd be able understand some of the in-bred rednecks in this country.

perhaps a simple solution to this would be a realtime natural language translator. Maybe then i'd be able understand some of the in-bred rednecks in this country.

maybe we all just need a babel fish in our ears?

and then we wouldnt have this speaking a 'secret' language problem?

although...i definitely capitalize on my ability to conveniently speak hindi when i dont want whomever is around me to know my personal business.

perhaps a simple solution to this would be a realtime natural language translator. Maybe then i'd be able understand some of the in-bred rednecks in this country.

Mr. Cocopuffs:

It's called a universal translator; members of Starfleet, Klingon Empire, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. have used it very effectively.

I would also like to lodge a complaint. I am a card carrying member of the Redneck Anti-Deflamation League, and take offense to your 'inbred rednecks' comment. Rednecks may be difficult to understand, but that's because many are uneducated, have lost their teeth from aggressive Copenhagen chewing habits, are drunk, etc.

The inbred redneck population does represent a minority within our ranks, and they are difficult to understand PERIOD, regarless of how redneck they are. "Ugh, gggnaa, yawpaw, bleebedoo, ya-huuaa" cannot be deciphered by anyone. We, however, take no offense when you say that rednecks are difficult to understand. We are. Difficult to understand, for sure, but mistunderstood also. So next time, please leave the inbred references out. If you would like to address that particular community, I would suggest calling them by the appropriate term of 'retards', not 'inbred rednecks'.

Thank You,
GujuDude

ok sand niggers, i'm back.

this fear of an alien tongue is somehow unexplainable

no. see not by genes alone for psychological research on innate human 'groupishness' and the possibility of language as being one of the major drivers of interpopulation variance being far greater than intrapopulational variance (i.e., dialectal variation within english is dwarfed by differences with french).

i guess my thought is that i feel that South Asian culture holds educators with a view that they can NEVER be wrong--even when they are.

i think there is something to that, but surely the high SES of the 'first wave' of south asian immigrants would mitigate this? after all, there is a difference between dishwashers and M.D.s in their egos when faced with a high school principle.

Maybe I'm an idealist, but I think some radical policies and wealth distribution could do some good in this category, and I don't think wealth inequality is a "natural" phenomenon simply b/c it's prevalent in most societies.

inequality of wealth can be mitigated, but it can't be eliminated. see sweden. see north korea (kim don't live like starvin' cannibal!). also, there is economic lit. out there which suggests that envy and perceptions of inequality have to do with relative differences rather than absolute ones, and people can generate status and wealth signifiers of various sorts, not just market ones.

to make this short, role playing games that are predicated on total equality suck ass and no one wants to play 'em. on expectation, humans want to be queen bee and king of the hill. otherwise, we wouldn't be here (group selection doesn't really work people).

As far as linguistic difference being erasable, I think this is true and also deplorable. I mean, we could all mimic the Japanese in Korea, but I think most people who identify with classical liberal norms/morality would see this as disgusting today.

well, there is some evidence that homogenous countries tend to have the least SES inequality. pick your poison. and you are wrong about classical liberals, ben franklin hated the germans in pennsylvania with their foreign ways, and most of the founding fathers probably would have shipped blacks back to africa to maintain the pure anglo-saxon character of the nation. shame on them, but thatz be the facts.

the fact is that there is a two-sided game being played here. on the one hand, being with your own kind is good, you share norms, values, inside jokes. on the other hand, diversity is great for america. it isn't necessarily and either/or, but i definitely wish americans would share inside jokes. some people worry about integration, well, if people speak different languages, what do you think will happen? my position, which is a purely normative values based one is that anything that doesn't favor individual liberity and libertinism must fall. the rise of language based group identities is evidence of that, people are assimilating to particular groups, and those groups are now being encouraged by some outside of them to stay as they are. i found the moral of spanglish repulsive, instead of being like momma, girl should have gone to private school, exceled, and hired herself a nice white-assed maid from the boonies if that was what she felt like.

Nobody objects to rich kids exluding poor kids from conversation

bullshit. people with balls do. i've seen it. and i've seen good looking poor kids and butt ugly rich kids meet on a level playing field (two balancing parameters).

but nobody asks the jocks to scatter and sit with the rest of the high school during lunch.

at my high school they did actually. and by senior year the jocks collapsed in a haze of marijuana and class divisions and popular non-popular dichotomies disappeared to a large except (except for the notoriously ugly or crack-headed).

i don't concede the transparency of your points, and i don't grant that the parameters you are presenting are easy to decompose and characterize like something like language. perhaps i lived a very different life than most of you people, because i'm an egocentric fuck and i always felt like i was excluding all those dumb-ass jocks and not the otherway around. but that's the problem with extrapolating from personal experience. native language is something that can be quantitized. economic inequality can be too. but when we get into the realm of popularity, now that's a moving target.

but as i say, some things won't change. in the end, i don't think all cleavages have equivalent powers of destabilization for a polity. class differences do. religious differences do. language differences do. race differences do. popularity, jockness, etc. have a non-trivial effect, but these cliques often dissolve now do to social mobility. i guess you could rewrite the red vs. white wars in russia as nerds vs. jocks, i don't know, i'm skeptical. in the short term a meathead beating the shit out of nerd is devastating, but in the long term the ties of blood, language and socioeconomic deprivation bind, tie and cohere, and can be turned into a fist. cheerleading sqaud ain't gonna do it.

The Dominicans most likely to become African-American. Mexican-Americans in the US are overwhelmingly of Indian origin (as I believe Razib stated on his blog) and live a stone's throw from their homeland.

no, the genetic studies i've seen indicate white-european parity with a minor african genetic quanta. there is variance around the mean population values so, so many are mostly indigenous, some are mostly white, with many in the middle. there is also the confounding factor of a recent wave of un-hispanicized indigenous people from the far south of mexico. california mexican americans are generally 'browner' than texas ones from what i recall.

IMHO ,I predict the reverse will happen within 20-30 years.

IMO you have issue with basic extrapolation. assuming that races do not mix, non-hispanic whites are not going to be a minority in this nation until 2050. 20-30 years from now hispanics will be a majority in some states (cali, arizona, new mexico) but a large minority in much of the country. and i suspect on the language issue blacks will side with whites. if you want a language of trade, i'd go with mandarin, the chinese productivity is already kicking latin mexican ass.

honors classes often somehow get filled with white students, etc.

oh, and people with brown and 'yellow' skins. oh, i forgot, asians became white when we need to trot out the white-non-white dichotomy.

. Maybe then i'd be able understand some of the in-bred rednecks in this country.

you know, i like cracker jokes as much as the next guy, but let me speak up and note that there is brown, black and yellow trash but we wouldn't shit on them like we do rednecks. a redneck threatens you, and oh, they are racist fucks, but if a black mugs you, well, no stereotype please.

uncle-niece and cross-cousin lovin' browns need not throw stones from glass houses in regards to inbreeding.

Give the rednecks some credit; they made up 2/3 of my high school Spanish teachers. Their Spanish accents totally sucked (think Peggy on "King of the Hill"), but it warmed my heart that these native Texans took such an interest in a foreign language & teaching it to others.

Liz here. I'm about as white-bread-WASP as it is possible to get. I'm reasonably fluent in French, and my Spanish is, well, funky. I'd be expelled all the time, though, as we speak Spanglish all the time. "No problemo" being one of the more common responses around here.

Turns out the school district superintendent reversed the suspension and apologized to the student.

Relative to Simran's excellent comment, Joanne Jacob's new book, Our School, addresses in one passage the reality of bilingual education:

In theory, students will learn concepts in their native language and achieve proficiency in reading, then transfer their knowledge and skills to English...in reality, students...become semiliterate in two languages

Jacobs says the bilingual program had noble goals, but floundered on the poor curriculum in bilingual classes and the lack of highly trained bilingual teachers (forcing districts to rely on bilingual teachers' aides with high-school educations). The book as a whole deals with the first few years at a charter school, Downtown College Prep. The school also learned how to meet parents, many of whom did not speak English, and the parents' assumptions and preconceptions about education. If you are interested in the American public education system, I highly recommend it.

A second language as a private code: when I was a young woman studying in Europe, I'd get flustered when men on the street or the subway would make suggestive remarks. "Back off, buster!" didn't seem to do the job. At the time, I'd memorized some chants and song lyrics in Hawai'ian. Growling out something like "Ke kai moana nui la!" (The great big ocean) and glaring seemed to do the trick.

Camille wrote,

My favorite non-English experience is when my mom switches to Punjabi to gossip / criticize in front of non-Punjabis. Except that she got so used to doing this she used to do it in the gurdwara, b/c of course NO ONE speaks Punjabi there. :)

Camille's mother suffered a failure of code-switching -- that mental process that lets a person switch seamlessly between languages, dialects, or even "registers" within a language. It is what lets a person who uses a foul-mouthed register most of the time person drop all scatalogical language in an inappropriate setting (such as church), switching to church or formal register. It is a pretty interesting field. If you are interested, there's a code-switching forum.

There's an urban legend that goes like this (I heard it said of a Baptist church lady in Alabama):

One story is told of a pastor who tried to introduce a revised version of the Bible to his rigidly conservative congregation. "So what's wrong with the King James Version?" said one woman in defense. "In my opinion, if it was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us!"

Wikiquote attributes the root story to Miriam Amanda "Ma" Ferguson (June 13, 1875–June 25, 1961), who was the first female Governor of Texas (1924), who is reputed to have said it while clutching a Bible, about her reason for objecting to teach Spanish at school.

Other versions of the legend can be found at multiracial.com, victorious

Essentialism! Everybody needs to get in touch with their inner Sikh ;)

working on it.....

uncle-niece and cross-cousin lovin' browns need not throw stones from glass houses in regards to inbreeding.

Ditto.

It's called a universal translator; members of Starfleet, Klingon Empire, Romulans, Cardassians, etc. have used it very effectively.

i just stick a fish in my ear.

On a more serious note, with regards to a bilingual education, the school in India that I attended was very strict enforcing English as the language of conversation. Though punishments were never dished out, students were always reminded to speak in English while in class and hallways.

It was an English Medium school like some others, but many in the state, despite the language of instruction failed to plant a good fluency of it among the student population. This resulted in many schools pumping out students

become semiliterate in two languages

As students came of highschool age, the rules relaxed a bit, since the fundamentals were already in place by then.

Realistically speaking, Spanish speakers arrived in the Americas HUNDREDS of years before English speakers did. Not only that, English language and culture are FAR INFERIOR to Spanish Language and culture and thus, everyone should be punished for speaking English. There are invariably more Spanish speakers in the world than English. We're right, you're wrong, we're more you're less! ¡Español debe ser la lengua oficial del mundo!

i just stick a fish in my ear.

Is that what they call it these days?

It is just not polite to talk in a foriegn language publicly,if there is some one around who cannot understand what you are saying, Period. But, take it with a pinch of salt as every now and then we go into our private conversation mode be in Malayalam, Hindi or English ( well, these are the languages I speak). As long as we do not use an offending tone, I guess it is appreciated by some, not all. Along with the ethnic languages; mannerism and tone of voice also can stand out in Mainstream culture.
Hey, when you are in Rome, do it like the Romans.....not like how you do it in Jhumri Talayia. If you want to be accepted in to main stream you have to make an effort to assimilate. People appreciate ethnicity when you allow them to get past the blinders and misconceptions. One question I used to get asked all the time when I came to US 15 years back was: Do you guys ride on elephant backs? My reply would always be: Yes, but we also have a modern automobile industry which churns out state of the art vehicles.
It is your approach.....most local white/black folks are hesitant to approach a new comer because they are just as apprehensive as you are. I live in a black/white blue collar neighborhood were we drink "Old style" beer on friday nights and roast marshmellows on open fire. When we moved in here 5 years back no one acknowledged us. But we had an open house and invited the whole neighborhood to join us to celebrate our new home. 75% of the neighbors showed up and we had a good time eating, drinking and socializing. The rest became freindly in due course.

Mind you, deep inside my heart I know that I am a first generation immigrant who speaks with an accent and I know where I stand in this society. I am not taking anything for granted. There are going to be people who will never accept me. Just like I was not accepted, growing up in Bhopal ( being a South Indian). But this is my home now, just like my neighbors, whose ancestors came from Ireland 300 years back.

i've seen stranger things
I went to a sick school in india called Delhi Public School.
It's a private school despite the name.
They wanted to be more british than the british.
We were not allowed to speak any other language except english on the bus and in classrooms. The only exception was Hindi class.
We had a sick system of bus monitors class monitors. They were the kissas pets of teachers who were assigned this job.
Our principal carried a swagger stick with the school emblem on it!

GujuDude:

i just stick a fish in my ear.

Is that what they call it these days?

BABEL FISH!!! SEE ABOVE!

Ace: its gratifying to know that i'm not the only hitchhiker's fan.

IMO you have issue with basic extrapolation. assuming that races do not mix, non-hispanic whites are not going to be a minority in this nation until 2050. 20-30 years from now hispanics will be a majority in some states (cali, arizona, new mexico) but a large minority in much of the country. and i suspect on the language issue blacks will side with whites. if you want a language of trade, i'd go with mandarin, the chinese productivity is already kicking latin mexican ass.
Razib,
Ooooops looks I didn't make my case clear.
I didn't mean to say Latinos will become majority and Spanish will swallow English.
What I meant was Latinos will be sizeable minority(numbers higher than now).Spanish will be used as a one of the two major languages.Latinos will not be swallowed like German immigrants into the culture because there will be enough space to live and work using Spanish most of the time.They will have their own language and culture ,others will have to deal with it.If they become majority in a part of the country (several states ) we will see major political tention to secede if Spanish is treated differently than English (Quebec example)

and you are wrong about classical liberals, ben franklin hated the germans in pennsylvania with their foreign ways, and most of the founding fathers probably would have shipped blacks back to africa to maintain the pure anglo-saxon character of the nation. shame on them, but thatz be the facts.

Razib, what is this fascination with me being wrong? :) I'm not talking Enlightenment-era liberalism, for which there is a ton of literature about its ethnocentric racist ridiculousness. I'm talking about 20th century pre-neoliberalism political Liberalism reinterpreted in contemporary human rights rhetoric about the rights of the individual, etc etc. And then I suppose I could add some bastardized contemporary Communism to take care of the community/social/minority/economic rights component. Jeeeeez.

And I really want to know, what is this assimilationist model that everyone wants folks to integrate into? Should we all become Presbyterians and Episcopalians, speak Boston English and invest in skin lightening cream and own property in the Hamptons? Would that be wicked enough? I mean, which "Rome" are we talking about? At the rate in which American society is diversifying (linguistically, ethnically, regionally, however you want to categorize things), are we still going to play into the dominant society paradigm? And what happens when you live in a state that totally doesn't reflect the same demographics as the aggregate (e.g. NJ, NY, CA, TX)?

I'm going to go outside and speak Spanish and Punjabi to myself... TOGETHER! Just kidding.

Also a fun FYI for the folks, a lot of Mexican-Americans in the Central Valley of California are East Indian brown. Gettum Sikh sardars and Chinese Exclusion Act.

gujudude - hahah fuckin inbred rednecks....you crack me up, i guess gujus can be funny...yes i am trying to offend all sorts of people :)

razib - what the hell do you do with your life? i can't even read your entries anymore i want to stick a ice pick in my eye.

camille - i like your style, except that you're a trust fund baby...

Has anyone here ever gotten out of a confrontation with police by pretending to not know english???
Quite possibly the best reason to be bilingual...just start gibbering off in hindi with some heavy accented english words, and playing completely stupid. It's only worked once for me... the second time the cop busted me because he remembered me from a fraternity party where i was the chief negotiator(aka the sober brother at the party)...

Ennis buddy, you're not the only Sikh Mutineer.....A number of us here have quietly infiltrated the ranks ;)

You're right - there is an ambiguity between mutineer meaning all of us who are on this blog and mutineer meaning those of us who are on the masthead and who can post. I meant the latter. Maybe I'm a Mutineer vs. a mutineer. Or maybe we should all live in a classless society. What I meant was, mine is the only turban on the mastead, the only turban doing the posting ...

camille - i like your style, except that you're a trust fund baby...

When did I become a trust fund baby? Whoever's got my fund - turn it over! Is it b/c I'm lazy and have all this time to post on SM? ;)

Has anyone here ever gotten out of a confrontation with police by pretending to not know english???

Shamefully, yes. :)

razib - what the hell do you do with your life? i can't even read your entries anymore i want to stick a ice pick in my eye.

opinions your disagree with?!?! the horror...the horror!!!!!

I agree that people should be able to speak in any language they want amongst themselves. But when there are people in the group who don't understand the language, it is best to speak in English. It is no fun when you are the one who doesn't understand the language.

For instance, I work for a Korean company (in the US), many of the employees are Korean and speak in Korean even in business meetings. When a white guy complained some time back, the management just ignored him. At a major meeting last year, the CFO made a speech in Korean. There was no official translator. One of my colleagues would translate for me, if anything important was said. There are several Korean multi-nationals with offices/plants in the US. Soon there will be Chinese ones.

Desi,

I totally agree. Especially in a business setting the administration should try not to purposefully (or unintentionally?) isolate their employees.

At the very least if your company is going to conduct meetings in Korean they should have a translator or something...

but like i said... if we all had Babel fish in our ears, we'd never have this problem. =)

And unfortunately, being Sikh gets people nowhere with me - maybe I'm self-hating? ;)

Even if the Sikh in question has a good smelling beard? ;)

Even if the Sikh in question has a good smelling beard? ;)

Just b/c Pattie and I have whitebread names doesn't mean we engage in the same beard-sniffing activities! :)

FOBs shouldn't complain that they are asked to speak in English. You came to this country for money - You earn this money by working with others who are English speakers. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

At least with Desis, there is no hostility towards using the English language. Some Spanish speakers can spend their whole lives in an all Spanish speaking barrio in Nueva York without having to consider speaking English.

When the shoes on the other foot, you would complain as loud as the Americans. LOL. Usually when my brother and I are speaking in Bengali - we are speaking bad about somebody!

You came to this country for money - You earn this money by working with others who are English speakers.

How do you know that all immigrants come to the US for money? While the % of immigrants who are refugees is fairly low, a good number of folks migrate as part of family reunification, and depending on their country of origin, tend to be older and not part of the labor force or working age population.

At least with Desis, there is no hostility towards using the English language.

Here is one mama’s perspective: I speak exclusively to my child in Hindi, which I have really only perfected myself as an adult over the past 5 years. I think my son will pick up the English at daycare and school. When we are out and about I say stuff in Hindi and then again in English. I feel bad because most of our friends are not Hindi speakers, but at the same time I do not want to cave on my Hindi-only lessons for kiddo. This makes playgroups very interesting. Once I explain the goal and purpose of “Hindi only” people get excited and are supportive. Hubby and I decided we wanted kiddo to have Hindi. It is our gift to him to have the option to know something about his Indian culture with the words to express it.

I am not an American citizen and I could be considered a WASP (although I am Dutch and was raised a catholic... 8-)
I work in a multi-cultural (all kinds of europeans, some people from South-America and several Africans too) environment, and I actually joke about people speaking a language I do not understand. In public I don't actually care too much what language people speak, although I must say I don't like it when people speak a language I do not understand when we are part of the same group (socializing).

Before people start criticising others for speaking a different language, they should first learn how to speak their own language as best they can. Being from a family of academics, with a brother who is linguistically focused, a professorial father who has written two academic books and in the region of 50 academic publications and a mother who also, being an academic lecturer, is incredibly competent with linguistic skills and has also got a number of publications, including an academic book published, the emphasis on speaking English (Great Britain based English) correctly and accurately has been an important thing in my upbringing. I also am a Latin and French student and although I only have rudimentary knowledge, I can follow a conversation in French (and a little bit in Italian and Spanish also) as well as contribute some.

What irritates me in this discussion is the lack of accuracy and precision within one's own language whilst discussing whether other people can speak their own native tongues in your presence. I for one, would find it difficult to go to another country and speak only the accepted languages of the country. It matters not whether other people feel uncomfortable or not, but it is a matter of practicality, and if one is fluent in a language, there should be no reason why one should be prevented from using that language if one has the opportunity. Fluency can be lost if the language is never practiced.

There is one incident I shall name, I was standing waiting for a bus and I saw some people looking a little lost looking at the bus time-table. I went over and asked if I could help them. They spoke no English but were French speakers. I had enough French to be able to find out where they wanted to go and to tell them how to get there. In that situation, people might thing I was telling them where the best place to put a bomb is. What is the moral of the story? Learn other languages, it will allow you to help others and give you more of a chance to understand what people are saying. I have only had tuition in Latin and French, but I can take a piece of basic to moderate Spanish or Italian and translate it into English well enough to understand the general idea, and I would be able to follow the general idea of a conversation in either language (depending on the speed of the conversation)

In short, learn your own language before discussing other people's use of their language. Simple things are important; capital letters, noun/verb agreement, etc.

I always want my partner to say sweet nothings when I'm about to explode. Somehow saying it in Hindi makes the whole experience erotic.

But yet something tells me that hasn't happened in a long time

i guess my thought is that i feel that South Asian culture holds educators with a view that they can NEVER be wrong--even when they are.

Incorrect. While the culture as a whole does revere teachers for what they give to their students, my parents would have never tolerated any sort of 'special-ed' classes where it wasn't deserved. While they would've first mulled over the possibility that their child did need special-ed classes, they would've raised Cain had I or my brother put in one for no reason whatsoever except that we look "foreign". And it's not just my parents- I know *plenty* of other 'problem parents' for teachers and educators in the South Asian diaspora.

What it comes down to is how comfortable any parents feel with asking questions. Not whether they're South Asian or not.