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¿No hablas inglés?

shake3

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This story isn't exactly "today's news," but it's pretty interesting: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tm...0050214/ts_latimes/learnenglishjudgetellsmoms

Frankly, I think it's a good idea to have the mother at least start learning English, since she will be making life particularly difficult for her child if she doesn't. I agree that forcing a speaker of a language totally unrelated to English (Mixteco) to be able to speak fourth grade-level English within 6 months is a bit over the top, especially since failing to do so means the mother could lose custody of her child. And the order to use birth control is ridiculous. Still, Judge Tatum is not giving the impression that he will be too strict on enforcing the ruling. In the Lebanon Democrat (Jan. 26), he admitted that he would not take away the mother's custody of her child for not using birth control, and he only said she "could 'potentially' lose custody" for not demonstrating satisfactory English skills by the set deadline.
Is Tatum following the law? The expert quoted in the Yahoo! article certainly didn't think so, but keep in mind that she "was not familiar with Tatum's orders." I'm not saying that she's wrong; I'm just pointing out what the article did. Also, Jerry Gonzalez, who is representing the mother in this case, said in the aforementioned Lebanon Democrat article, "As a juvenile judge his job is to determine if the woman is an unfit parent or if this child is in danger of substantial harm"; interestingly, a Constitutional law expert quoted on FNC's coverage of this story felt that there is indeed a reasonable basis for calling the parent "unfit." So maybe Tatum was doing his job after all.
For the most part, I think Tatum did the right thing in having the mother learn English, even though some parts of the ruling may have been a little excessive.
 
For the most part, I think Tatum did the right thing in having the mother learn English, even though some parts of the ruling may have been a little excessive.

I agree. Requiring birth control exceeds those boundaries. But, I am unsure if it were an order - or advice.

But, her child was not immunized and it was because she did not know English. Which is illegal.

Most recently, it was an 18-year-old woman from Oaxaca, Mexico, who had been reported to the Department of Children's Services for failing to immunize her toddler and show up for appointments.

Ignorance is no excuse. This judge is trying to help.

It goes on to say: "I know if I was in Mexico I would make an effort to learn Hispanic."

Here here..:applaud

Welcome to Debate Politics!! :)
 
I'm not sure the judge's time requirements are realistic, but the spirit of the ruling seems dead on to me.

We, as a nation, speak english. It's our national default setting. Critical services are provided in english and if spanish is available, it's a matter of good fortune.

Anecdotal example:

I know a fire fighter who came across the spanish language barrier while trying to communicate to hotel guests that they couldn't stay in their room while the fire alarm was going off. The lack of english skills created a serious safety risk for the mexican family AND the fire fighter. That is unacceptable.
 
Would not equating Spanish to Hispanic be like American English to Cajun?

The same language, but sometimes hard to interpet.
 
I the progressive / liberal ONE feels the judge also did the right thing .
And as far as he went to FAR well that's the great thing about this country's court system we have the RIGHT TO APPEAL !! The judge know exactly what he's doing

freedom69
 
Freedom69 said:
I the progressive / liberal ONE feels the judge also did the right thing .

Perhaps you are not as liberal as you think. :eek:
 
shake3 said:
Your common sense must be rubbing off on him ;)

The thing about sense, Shake, is that it's anything but common.

Particularly amongst the Rabid Right! :mrgreen:
 
I've seen Americans posting here that you don't have an official language. This is problematic, surprising, and rather negligent. Institute one.

If you come and live in France, you learn French. There are no concessions made. It's essential to your functioning if you want to live here. Personally, I think that's reasonable. If you choose to live in a foreign land you make the effort to learn that country's official language.

So hurry up and get English instituted as your national language; if you leave it too long, as I've said elsewhere, you'll have Spanish as a national language.
 
Urethra, sometimes - you make perfect sense!

I do not see it happening anytime soon unfortunatly.
 
Urethra Franklin said:
I've seen Americans posting here that you don't have an official language. This is problematic, surprising, and rather negligent. Institute one.

If you come and live in France, you learn French. There are no concessions made. It's essential to your functioning if you want to live here. Personally, I think that's reasonable. If you choose to live in a foreign land you make the effort to learn that country's official language.

So hurry up and get English instituted as your national language; if you leave it too long, as I've said elsewhere, you'll have Spanish as a national language.

It's a good thought, but some people just can't operate in a foreign language. I'm one of them. I took several years of Spanish starting in the seventh grade, a couple of years of Latin, quite a few years worth of Adult Education French. I play Petanque with a large group of Francophones. I do not understand very much, although I think I could pick up French if I lived there. I can read and I can speak, but I can't understand spoken replies. My wife on the other hand was exposed to French Canadian as a child and she can understand, but not speak. Together we made out rather well the last time we were in Paris. :lol:
Same thing with Spanish. I vacationed during January in Acapulco for more than twenty years.

OTOH, my daughter is fluent in five languages, which she has spent no time at all studying.
 
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Kenneth T. Cornelius said:
It's a good thought, but some people just can't operate in a foreign language.
Then that's probably a big clue that they shouldn't live in a foreign country. I agree with Urethra that we should make English our official language, even though without official status it will still be our society's common language. Making it official would help solidify it in people's minds.
 
Kenneth T. Cornelius said:
It's a good thought, but some people just can't operate in a foreign language. I'm one of them. I took several years of Spanish starting in the seventh grade, a couple of years of Latin, quite a few years worth of Adult Education French. I play Petanque with a large group of Francophones. I do not understand very much, although I think I could pick up French if I lived there. I can read and I can speak, but I can't understand spoken replies. My wife on the other hand was exposed to French Canadian as a child and she can understand, but not speak. Together we made out rather well the last time we were in Paris. :lol:
Same thing with Spanish. I vacationed during January in Acapulco for more than twenty years.

OTOH, my daughter is fluent in five languages, which she has spent no time at all studying.

I hear what you're saying, but it's rather different when you live somewhere.
If you choose to live in a foreign land, you need to be prepared to learn the language of that country. I have a problem with people living in France working for anglophone companies who make no effort to learn the language. Or people in the UK who demand public information literature in Bengali and Urdu because they've kept their wives locked in the house for the past 40 years unexposed to English. Most people, when they're exposed to a language every day, pick it up, especially if they're making an active effort to learn as they should be in that situation. If they genuinely can't do it, that's sad, but genuine refugees aside, they should then ask themselves what the hell they're doing in that country.
 
Urethra Franklin said:
I've seen Americans posting here that you don't have an official language. This is problematic, surprising, and rather negligent. Institute one.

If you come and live in France, you learn French. There are no concessions made. It's essential to your functioning if you want to live here. Personally, I think that's reasonable. If you choose to live in a foreign land you make the effort to learn that country's official language.

So hurry up and get English instituted as your national language; if you leave it too long, as I've said elsewhere, you'll have Spanish as a national language.

I agree with that. Plus I can't have us instituting a different national language. I'm too dyslexic to learn another. I know, I've tedir.
 
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