forgetting your roots

[InDaPocket]

we are ALL immigrants in America, save for the Native Americans

Native Americans are of Asian descent

[SideSwiped]

No, you missed it.
This boy and his father need not be 'Klan' members nor Neo Nazis.

How about I pose it to you this way?
Do you remember, or did you hear about a school in CA, in which, the board had decided to disallow the display of the American flag during graduation ceremonies? If not, you ought to check it out. Anyway, would I be right in saying that the faculty or school board is full of ppl that hate America and should all be prosecuted for high treason?

By calling or accusing someone or a group of ppl of something which you cannot possibly know to be true or not, are you not as bad seeming as they? Is not your view as narrow as theirs by jumping to conclusions? Maybe there is an underlying cause for such hostility.

Maybe their point of view was misconstrued, or they lacked the capacity to state it clearly. This is something we will never know.

I don't agree with them, I don't agree with a lot of people over many issues, but because I disagree, does not make them an idiot.

Besides, who was hurt in this incident? They didn't burn down the school, they didn't harass their neighbors, they didn't go out and threaten all immigrants they came accross. Just another case of misplaced anger and someones sensibilities being offended.

[SideSwiped]

How did you feel when you were finally able to say the Pledge in English, SS?

I felt proud, and I believe in the pledge.

On the side...........
I forgot something very important to this topic. What they did was wrong, but, they don't realize that all naturalized American citizens must recite the Pledge before receiving their citizenship papers, so, it really doesn't matter if for the sake of honoring a week of appreciation to this great melting pot that it was said in languages other than English.

[Snee]

Maybe their point of view was misconstrued, or they lacked the capacity to state it clearly. This is something we will never know.

I don't agree with them, I don't agree with a lot of people over many issues, but because I disagree, does not make them an idiot.

They likened it to hanging a cross upside down in a church ffs.

Do you know how wrong some people think that would be?


In essence they look down on all other languages used in the USA and that includes the official non-english ones.

The impression one might get from that is that they view people who don't have english as their first language as being of lesser worth. And that they don't feel other people have the right to their own language and an American citizenship at the same time.

Pride is all right, but this is stupid. And intolerant.


I do agree, in part at least, with the notion that there should be one official language everyone had to learn in school (English in your case), but that doesn't mean that speaking an oath in another language is somehow equal to heresy. Nor do I believe that one language and that language alone should be the only language allowed in public, bilinguality is after all a good thing, and something we all benefit from later in life.

And there really isn't that great a tradition to uphold that makes the official recitation of the same oath in the another language unthinkable, yours is a nation just a couple of centuries old, if there was any linguistic tradition that should be observed it would be the reading of the oath in a native american language, because the country was theirs so very long before it became yours.

[j2k4]

I felt proud, and I believe in the pledge.

On the side...........
I forgot something very important to this topic. What they did was wrong, but, they don't realize that all naturalized American citizens must recite the Pledge before receiving their citizenship papers, so, it really doesn't matter if for the sake of honoring a week of appreciation to this great melting pot that it was said in languages other than English.

I appreciate your pride in the pledge.

I understand how you might have felt assuaged and comforted by a recitation of same in your native language (which would be what, BTW?), but I hope at this remove you can likewise appreciate what may have presented to you as a "club" to which you weren't entitled full "membership" until you had passed muster by demonstrating a genuine interest in belonging, which you have done by learning the language and (I assume) becoming naturalized.

Corny as it may seem, I am proud that my country attracts immigrants who actually desire to integrate themselves, and also proud of people like yourself who actually do see the positive need to assimilate.

Well done.

BTW-I thought the aegis for the foreign-language recitation was "International Language Week", not an appreciation of the "melting pot"?

I don't recall mention of this; I will re-read the starter.

[j2k4]

....because the country was theirs so very long before it became yours...

...and someone else's long before that.

[Snee]

...and someone else's long before that.

Still, it was inhabited by what is today known as Native Americans (or more crudely "Indians") for much longer than the current (in majority) Caucasian population has been a majority there.

Looking by the ease and lack of afterthought with which they were replaced, would it be that unfair if the next wave of immigrants in turn replaced your language with their own, ie spanish, if the hispanic community becomes a majority?

Just thinking out loud now, mind.

[InDaPocket]

Still, it was inhabited by what is today known as Native Americans (or more crudely "Indians") for much longer than the current (in majority) Caucasian population has been a majority there.

Looking by the ease and lack of afterthought with which they were replaced, would it be that unfair if the next wave of immigrants in turn replaced your language with their own, ie spanish, if the hispanic community becomes a majority?

Just thinking out loud now, mind.

One of the big differences between then and now is the fact that Native Americans had no concept of ownership of land. Why fight for what can not be owned? Kids these days fight for ownership of shoes....

[j2k4]

Still, it was inhabited by what is today known as Native Americans (or more crudely "Indians") for much longer than the current Caucasian population has been a majority there.

Looking by the ease and lack of afterthought with which they were replaced, would it be that unfair if the next wave of immigrants in turn replaced your language with their own, ie spanish, if the hispanic community becomes a majority?

Just thinking out loud now, mind.

Most conquering peoples find themselves fraught with the need for much "afterthinking", SnnY, and fairness is, in the moment, a minor consideration.

Another difference is the methodology of the current "attack".

Out loud, then:

If assimilation/integration/time have their usual effect, to the extent the now-native and dominant Latino population finds itself communicating in English, what cockeyed brand of reasoning might possess them to harken back to their original language?

[j2k4]

One of the big differences between then and now is the fact that Native Americans had no concept of ownership of land. Why fight for what can not be owned? Kids these days fight for ownership of shoes....

He looks askance at the steering wheel of the thread, mulling a new heading...