One time, years ago, when I was a young lad in me 20’s, I worked at this place where the employer hired folks “right off the boat”.
It was a regular riot of languages - Polish, Laotian, Rumanian, Russian, Spanish, Vietnamese. He had ALL of these disparate cultures working there (for minimum wage of course) and it was a hilarious madhouse of broken English and f**ed up pronunciation...
I learned a lot working there, how to speak with foreigners, joking around, learning their views.
That was back in the 80s. Reagan was President.
Almost universally among these LEGAL immigrants was their absolute gratitude and PRIDE at being new Americans. I guess that made it easier for me to talk with them - especially this one particular gentleman from Poland - he’d gotten out right after the GDansk shipyard strike, had been a part of the group that was organizing it, and the security people were looking for him. So he escaped to here.
That’s how HE put it - he “escaped to here”. And he would always say “God BLESS Reagan...God BLESS Reagan!”
And one of the funniest things you’ll EVER here is when two guys from completely countries, with completely different languages, get into an argument with each other in broken “Engrish” and start yelling at each other, complete with the hands waving and gesticulating, each breaking into their native languages alternating with “Engrish” curses and swear words.
The Rumanian guys didn’t get along with the Russians (hate is a mild word in this case), and the Vietnamese and Laotian guys didn’t care much for each other each.
Sometimes, all me and the other native Americans (native as in “born here”) did was laugh all day long watching the interplay with these guys. It was a riot.
Somehow, every one of these foreign folks KNEW what “F*** YOU” meant, though... and pronounced it QUITE well!!! hahah!