Posted on 06/14/2007 8:22:57 AM PDT by SmithL
SAN JOSE -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger told hundreds of Latino journalists Wednesday that immigrants who want to learn English more quickly should shun various forms of Spanish-language media.
"You've got to turn off the Spanish television set," Schwarzenegger said at the 25th annual National Association of Hispanic Journalists convention, which included many who produce Spanish-language material.
"It's that simple. You've got to learn English," he said. "I know this sounds odd and this is the politically incorrect thing to say and I'm going to get myself in trouble. But I know that when I came to this country, I very rarely spoke German to anyone."
The Republican governor, an Austrian immigrant, was responding to a question about how to improve Latino academic performance.
Schwarzenegger said tutoring and after-school programs are essential. But he emphasized that immigrants should avoid a diet of Spanish-language books, TV and newspapers in order to learn English, calling it a "drastic" but necessary step.
Schwarzenegger last year angered some Latino leaders by observing that Mexican immigrants have problems succeeding in the United States because "they try to stay Mexican." He hammered at the same point Wednesday in San Jose, saying that immigrants from Germany or France have an easier time learning English because they do not have many outlets to speak their native tongues.
"You're just forced to speak English, and that just makes you learn the language faster," Schwarzenegger said. "It is much more difficult and much more challenging when you are ... let's say, Latino. Because you have so many Latinos, as I see at the Capitol in Sacramento, there are so many Latinos who speak Spanish all the time, they speak to each other in Spanish. So it makes it difficult to perfect...
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
HATE SPEECH!!! Ah-nold’s askin’ fo trouble!!
/sarc
But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American...There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all.
We have room for but one flag, the American flag... We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language... and we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
- Theodore Roosevelt 1907
That’s Arnie, always ready to call it like he sees it, no matter who may be bothered by it.
Bully!
And by the way their wealthy counterparts in Latin America send their kids to private English schools!
And probably the only republican able to say this.
lol..!
I am done with “dialing 1” for English. Comcast can kiss it.
My grandfather came to the US speaking Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese. And he listened to the radio as many hours as he could to learn English. He never spoke Spanish, his native language, outside of his home. And by the time we started school, he banned the speaking of Spanish all together. We were Americans. We would speak English.
Assimilate. That was the goal of the immigrants in my grandfather’s day.
I'm glad Arnold said this - no other Republican in the state would even be listened to.
Wetbacks? Any wetbacks in Arnie’s home state are visiting his wife.
Arnold is right.
</sarcasm>
MALDEF crying racism in 3...2...1...
Uh oh aaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhnold, la raza ain’t gonna like this one little itty bitty bit................
A little aside...
My wife is a school teacher in a fairly heavily Hispanic district. She took an ESL (English as a Second Language) certification course in order to get a bonus at work and presumably communicate with her kids in Spanish. On the first day of class, and without any hint of irony, the teacher said “Today is the last day that we will speak to each other in English - from now on Spanish only. The best way to learn a language is to immerse yourself in it.”
Public education at its finest.
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