Posted on 06/28/2011 10:18:42 AM PDT by Justaham
He congratulated the graduating class of 2011, but one but one principal’s commencement speech actually offended some in the crowd.
The graduating class at Whittell High School has only 30 students. Just a few weeks ago during graduation their principal gave an encouraging speech congratulating his students and their parents.
“Class of 2011, I want to congratulate you for all your accomplishments this year,” said Principal Crespin Esquivel.
He then said the same thing in Spanish, making sure his commencement speech could also be understood by his Spanish speaking parents and students who make up the second largest group of the school.
“I figured why not do it in Spanish? I think it’s important for me to make sure all the families feel comfortable,” said Esquivel.
Maria: You never meant to offend anyone, correct?
Esquival: Absolutely not.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacramento.cbslocal.com ...
“criticized”? How about fired?
He is one of the Mexican first nuts.
English and Spanish both? No problem, a nice gesture, since a few parents or grandparents might not have the English. (But I was amused to see that “students” were also among the possible non-English speakers.) When they use Spanish and don’t provide English, that’s when I’ll be upset: I won’t learn a foreign language in order to be able to exist in my own country.
If they are not fluent in English, how the hell are they qualified to graduate?
If they didn’t learn English, what does it matter what else they learned? Why graduate?
Why not do it in jive?
I mean, we wouldn't want to offend anybody, right?
Hey. I give the vato props for not conductiing the whole thing en espanol.
/sarc
If his intent was to reach parents and other relatives who don’t speak English, good for him. If he’s admitting that, after 12 years in the local school system, his students can’t understand English, maybe he should resign.
Who cares? Nobody listens to graduation speeches anyway.
I agree the students should know English, but I have seen a lot of families where the kids are bilingual and the parents have very poor English.
In america, it is not my job to impress you Hispanics with my command of Spanish; it is YOUR job to impress me with your command of English! If we were in a Spanish-speaking country, the reverse would be true.
A few years ago I was a night-stocker at Wal-Mart. Our crew had about 30% green-card Hispanics. Supervisors came and went, until we got one named “Frank”, an Anglo.
The first thing he did was to speak Spanish to the crew, then turned to the rest of us and said, “For those of you who don’t speak Spanish - too bad!”
I surprised myself as I am pretty easy-going. No filters at all - I just blurted out “This is America. We speak English.” to the accompaniment of a half-dozen or so who pounded the tables in agreement.
“Frank” looked a bit nonplussed. Never got along with him after that. He’s still there.
THE ENTIRE GRADUATING CLASS AND ALL THEIR PARENTS SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP AND WALKED OUT!
When I graduated high school, there were probably a number of grandparents and great grandparents in the audience who spoke little or no English. I sure don't remember any of the speakers giving any remarks in German.
Ping!
“If they are not fluent in English, how the hell are they qualified to graduate?”
While I agree with you, I have to say that a majority of graduating high school students are functionally illiterate, and those are the ones who speak English. First came Dick and Jane, replacing phonics, and then came bilingual ed and multiculturalism, replacing English submersion. ...Kids these days are screwed from the get-go. They get a next to useless, state education, broken homes and pop culture in place of real culture. I advise parents to home school, and take responsibility for their kid’s education. No matter where their kids are schooled, parents should be the primary educators. Don’t count on the schools to do it.
There's no excuse here. The more frequent disparate languages are accommodated, the less incentive to learn English, greater drain on our economy and greater the risk of Balkanization and civil unrest.
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