Why do we need English as our official language? Many say we don't. I say to them - go to the Jack-in-the-Box by my house in Mesa, AZ and try to order a simple meal... then we'll talk.
So, there I was in Jack-in-the-Box with no other customers around. It wasn't busy or hectic like a fast food joint sometimes is. But when I stepped up to the counter to order my food, the girl taking my order looked at me like I had 2 heads. She couldn't understand a thing I said. No, I wasn't speaking Chinese or some weird language. I was speaking English...in America...go figure. After several minutes of repeating myself and doing a bunch of pointing at the menu items I wanted, she finally had my order...a chicken sandwich, fries and a drink. Nothing complicated. But when I went to get my food, I got this huge chicken salad thing instead of a chicken sandwich. So I tried to tell her this is not what I ordered, and then she really didn't speak English. But I refused to take the salad so finally the manager came out. Great, I thought, now I can finally get my food and get the McF#ck out of here. But no...the manager didn't speak a lick of English either!
So how is it we're going to do business in 5, or say 10 years if we don't do something about illegal immigration now? Will Spanish become our primary language? It will at some point if we don't declare English as our official language. Just look at the rate illegals are coming here from Mexico, and combine that with the rate at which they seem to reproduce and it seems inevitable that Americans will need to learn Spanish just to get by. As a white American, I just became a minority in my state a few months ago. Now I can't even order a damn chicken sandwich without an interpretor.
I understand completely the dilemna. Having lived in Southern California for forty some years I ran into this problem from time to time. In addition to rudeness from service personnel which was unprovoked.
Posted by: Don | February 24, 2008 at 01:40 PM