My wife is Chinese, she was born in Taipei, Taiwan and moved to the United States in 1973. When she came to this country she did NOT speak one word of English. She spoke what I called “Pigeon English” a word here and there, this and that, but nothing that was fluent. She learned English the hard way, sitting in the living room and watching Sesame Street with our boys, Big Bird and the Letters.
Over the years she has become quite fluent in the language, she taught herself to read, learned “Hooked on Phonics” and has computer programs to hone and increase her word skills. She speaks a total of five different dialectics.
In other words, “she knows Karate and a whole bunch of other Chinese words!“ I am immensely proud of her … Like the commercials are fond of saying …. “Baby, you’ve come a long ways.“ By the way, she says “English is easy … You just make it up as you go along!“
So don’t give me this guff about Mexicans not being able to pick it up, or some Cuban that has lived in Miami for 25 years and needs an interrupter on the news in order to be understood. It is all crap, if you want to live in this country, and you want to blend in, you learn English.
It is not our problem because you are too lazy to try and we should not have to print it up for you so you can get by. Now I realize this isn’t making me any friends, but hear me out.
Cup Cake is also a U.S. Naturalized Citizen and she votes. She went through the entire process, history, politics’, took the test, swore the oath and was indoctrinated into the American way of life, and the day we went down and watched her swear in, was one of the best days of my life.
Many a night we spent at the kitchen table with the books, learning what it is to be an American. The Constitution The Legislative Branch, Congress, the fifty-states … All of it, one day at a time.
On one family vacation years ago, we found ourselves in San Francisco, California. Before the oil whores shut us down we were able to take the boys and leave Oklahoma during the summer and show them the finer things in America. One summer we were in San Francisco, and we spent the afternoon in Golden Gate Park. They have a fantastic zoo there, aquarium, Japanese Tea Garden; you can get lost there, spend the entire day and never see it all.
As it is with most families around lunch time we started to get hungry.
I spied a Hot Dog stand and suggested that we all get a dog and some cokes. We trotted over there, and when we got up to the stand I noticed a “oriental looking” guy behind the counter who appeared to be in charge. Cup Cake looked up at him and in English said, “We would like four hot dogs and three cokes, one Dr. Pepper.”
Then something I consider very strange happened.
The operator of the hot dog stand (what we refer privately refer to as “cousins”) said to her in Chinese … ##@#!~%%*# (I don’t speak Chinese sorry) … and repeated the order back to her in that language. So Cup Cake said back to him, in English, “Yes, three dogs, three cokes, and one Dr. Pepper.”
Again the cousin says to her ##@#!~%%*#- ##@#!- and she says, “Yeah right, everything on them.” He then says, ##@#!~%%*# she again, answers in English. The order is then filled; we retire to a couple of benches to enjoy our lunch. While we are sitting there I look at her and say, “Baby, can I ask you something?“
So she says to me, “Yeah?“
“I noticed when you were ordering all that, and the cousin answered you in Chinese, you always answered him back in English. Why did you do that?“
She smiled that smile that I have grown very accustomed to and said, “This is America, WE speak English, he can speak English too.“
Home grown and proud, that’s my girl. Believe it or not … You have a choice in the matter. It is still fashionable to be an American in this country. Just ask my wife, she’ll gladly tell you.
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I’m married to an Englishman. I live in the UK. What would I be if I didn’t speak English? Handicapped, that’s what.
That said, I don’t feel British and I don’t plan to be nationalised. My EU citizen function is about enough.
Comment by Assentia — November 21, 2008 @ 6:31 AM
I have never understood how we can refer to ourselves as a “melting pot” if we continue to refer to people by defining them as “something”-American instead of simply “American”. It also seems to me if you can’t speak/read/communicate in/understand the language of a country, it is pretty easy to be mislead and lied to about any issues that may (probably do) affect your life.
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It is all part of political theory, Political Correctness, the dumbing down of the masses. I call it the Big Lie.
Comment by Judy in CA — November 21, 2008 @ 2:01 PM