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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNearly half of white Repubs say it bothers them to hear people speaking foreign languages.
According to Pew Research Center, 47 percent of such Republicans say it would bother them some or a lot to hear people speak a language other than English in a public place. Just 18 percent of white Democrats said they would be similarly bothered.
....
The new report comes on the heels of a Pew study on the nations demographic shifts. When asked about the projected makeup of the United States in 2050, some 37 percent of Republicans said that having a majority of the population made of up of blacks, Asians, Hispanics and other racial minorities would be bad for the country the highest share among any demographic group surveyed. Nearly 60 percent of Republicans said that a majority nonwhite population would weaken American customs and values, while an identical percentage predicted it would lead to greater conflict between racial and ethnic groups.
Republicans also stood out in that survey for their skepticism of interracial marriage: Just one-third said the fact that more people of different races are marrying each other was good for the country, while 16 percent said it was bad.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/05/08/nearly-half-white-republicans-say-it-bothers-them-hear-people-speaking-foreign-languages/?utm_term=.37ef143d9556&wpisrc=nl_most&wpmm=1
Quelle surprise!
Initech
(100,128 posts)dubyadiprecession
(5,737 posts)Puerto Ricans, Columbians, Cubans, Dominicans, Guatamalans and a few Mexicans.
Hialeah would offend them for sure. No English is spoken there.
Initech
(100,128 posts)We have lots of diversity here! But we also have a lot of MAGAs too.
hlthe2b
(102,490 posts)TheBlackAdder
(28,240 posts)pandr32
(11,637 posts)Great reply!
It sure does!
Mariana
(14,861 posts)Use too many words of more than one syllable around them, and they'll get uptight.
get the red out
(13,468 posts)Part of Trump's appeal, I'm sure.
Aristus
(66,503 posts)Recite Beowulf out loud in public in the original Anglo-Saxon. Then when one of these kooks protests, tell them you're speaking English!
SWBTATTReg
(22,191 posts)The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,943 posts)Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum,
þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon,
hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon.
Aristus
(66,503 posts)Oneironaut
(5,538 posts)SWBTATTReg
(22,191 posts)TruckFump
(5,812 posts)That most likely is unintelligible to tRump supporters.
tanyev
(42,660 posts)then theres no reason everybody else cant speak it!
Just like that 5 hour documentary we watched the night before Easter. Even the tablets were in English.
CatMor
(6,212 posts)nearly half of white republicans are idiots.
LonePirate
(13,436 posts)LuckyCharms
(17,469 posts)It's like "they" have an indisputable say on the languages of the world.
I think it all comes down to the fact that most of these people suffer from hyper-nationalism, while ignoring the fact that America in particular is just a huge melting pot.
GoCubsGo
(32,099 posts)Randi Rhodes was talking about this a while back. She lives in south Florida, where there are a lot of Spanish speakers, as well as French-speaking Haitians, many of whom are her good friends and neighbors. She recalled numerous incidences where white people got upset because they thought the foreign language speakers making fun of them behind their backs, when they're not even the subject of the conversation. It's always about them, even when it isn't.
customerserviceguy
(25,183 posts)Funny you should mention that, it is probably at the crux of what their problem is. They're aware that the European languages that their ancestors came over with were discouraged in public. Sure, folks spoke German, Polish, Italian, whatever, at home but out in the public square, the immigrants' children were strongly encouraged by their elders to speak American English.
It appears to be a sign of assimilation when a foreign language disappears in three generations.
Croney
(4,674 posts)I wish I'd learned when I was younger. I speak English and Spanish, and understand a little Italian. But oh to speak good conversational French!
Repubs think the world is only as big as their tiny biased minds.
GoCubsGo
(32,099 posts)I am mad because the opportunity wasn't available to me until I was at the age when learning a language was more difficult. Foreign languages were not made available to me until I got to high school. I went to a Catholic school, and we didn't even get to learn Latin. Which, for me, was a loss, as I went into Biology, where it would actually have been useful. I took Spanish all 4 years of high school. I wish I had started earlier, when it was easier to pick things up. As it stands, I can only understand bits and pieces of Spanish. I am very jealous of polyglots.
Irishxs
(622 posts)maryellen99
(3,790 posts)I would say 95% of his extended family are Trumpies. Their idea of foreign travel is Cancun and Caribbean cruises.
Oneironaut
(5,538 posts)Its weird. Why would anyone care which language total strangers around them are speaking?)
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Now, I wish I had taken Spanish back in HS.
emmaverybo
(8,144 posts)were created by, belong to, and represent only white Americans should be stripped of citizenship. They are white supremacists whose blatant ignorance of American history, past and current, threatens our democracy.
LeftinOH
(5,359 posts)..and I don't live on one of the coasts.. just little old Cleveland Ohio: Spanish (lots); Arabic, Somali, various Asian languages; they're all part of the fabric of the community. Those outrageous video clips in which sheltered white folks throw a screeching fit when their delicate ears are 'poisoned' by hearing people speak a language other than English are really baffling to me.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,943 posts)Spanish is everywhere, including on billboards, and we also have a very large Somali population (speaking Cushite) along with Vietnamese and Hmong - the second-most common language after Spanish. I hear Spanish all the time and see Somali women wearing hijabs every day (the young ones speak unaccented English, of course, but the older ones don't), and many government publications are in Spanish and Hmong as well as English. Ironically, the righties are also having hissy fits over a recent movement to restore the original Native American (Ojibway, mostly) names to some locations.
jberryhill
(62,444 posts)Oh, yah?
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,943 posts)You don't hear it much in Minneapolis.
ProudMNDemocrat
(16,849 posts)Firestorm49
(4,038 posts)kskiska
(27,051 posts)If they find themselves lucky enough to travel, they complain, "Why can't they speak English?"
Olafjoy
(937 posts)I was just talking to my husband about my experience with this. I live in AZ and work out at a gym with many white, wealthy retirees. I was sitting in a chair outside the locker rooms talking with a patient who felt more comfortable speaking Spanish. People coming out of the locker room would (I s@#t you not) stop and glare at me when they heard me speaking Spanish. I wanted to stick up my middle finger and just hold it there!!! Perhaps if I had been speaking Russian that would have been more acceptable? Surprised they didnt call ICE on me.
muntrv
(14,505 posts)highplainsdem
(49,091 posts)pronounce it if they read it.
Ohiogal
(32,144 posts)My best friends daughter (white) recently married a man who is half white and half African American. He is adorable and we all love them both. At their wedding, everyone was drinking, eating, dancing, together and we all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. Everyone got along smashingly well with everyone else. It was a beautiful sight. What is wrong with anyone who disapproves of this.
malaise
(269,253 posts)of the foreign speaker
nolabear
(42,001 posts)Im not kidding. Conservatism, racism, gun obsession, dislike for difference, all have neurotic fear of being hungry or attacked or driven out at their base. When someone speaks a language you dont understand they might be talking about you. They might be plotting against you or sneering at you.
Its a painful way to live. Its also extremely vulnerable to con artists.
Doodley
(9,163 posts)1/ There are two languages: American and Foreign. Those who speak Foreign do not possess the intelligence to speak American. Remember, we are superior to them.
2/ Foreigners, such as Mexicans are "rapists and murderers." They try to pull a "con job" by claiming asylum. Foreigners from Europe are "socialists and communists." Foreigners from Africa come from a "shithole country."
3/ Foreigners are as bad as Democrats. Call them names, split up their families, make sure they don't have health care, treat them like sub-humans, and we will make America Great Again.
HopeAgain
(4,407 posts)Mi Espanol is rusty - pardon any likely grammatical errors.
Ghost Dog
(16,881 posts)salvo la falta de letra 'ñ'
Jokerman
(3,523 posts)I live in the neighborhood of a large racing venue that used to host the F1. The bars and restaurants were positively ALIVE with languages that I barely recognized and certainly didn't understand.
It's the most "cosmopolitan" feeling I've ever had in this land-locked burg.
struggle4progress
(118,379 posts)Javaman
(62,534 posts)they think everyone is talking about them.
asshole repukes.
hunter
(38,340 posts)40% of schoolchildren here don't speak English at home. None of my immediate neighbors do, although most speak English, some fluently, some not.
The children next door are trilingual. They speak the language of whichever friends or family they are with. They speak English fluently with me. By the third generation children here in the U.S.A. are generally fluent in English.
I like hearing diverse languages in my daily life.
For much of my childhood I lived in places where 99% of the people were white and everyone spoke English. I fled as soon as I could and would never go back to a place like that.
wasupaloopa
(4,516 posts)can speak two languages. That is not the Anglo population though. We are so used to hearing Spanish spoken that English a rarity in retail establishments.
I envy the young people working retail who speak both languages without any accent.
Hekate
(90,959 posts)It's not even about rural vs urban life -- anyone in a rural/farming community has to be listening to Spanish on a daily basis.
JI7
(89,283 posts)what they don't like is when the kids and grandkids of those field workers, maids, restaurant dish washers etc do well in school, get good jobs, etc and compete with their kids and end up doing better than their kids ...........
and those kids and grandkids being able to fund a nice life for their parents and grandparents.
meadowlander
(4,411 posts)asiliveandbreathe
(8,203 posts)Nearly 60 percent of Republicans said that a majority nonwhite population would weaken American customs and values"
Hello???? Look at the white man, pos, in the white house... weaken American customs and values" - OMG.....
The Genealogist
(4,723 posts)Anyone who is different scares hem. They want everyone to look like them, talk like them, worship like them, choose mates like they do. They've had it embedded into their minds that anyone different is evil or beneath them. It is pathetic.
brush
(53,963 posts)where internationally many are bi-lingual and even multi-lingual.
So sick of how repugs have dumbed down education and the populaceintentionally.
JDC
(10,143 posts)The thought of learning another language is foreign to them. You should speak so "I" can understand. Rather than I should learn so I can understand.
It is the height of self-centered entitlement.
spanone
(135,919 posts)moondust
(20,019 posts)if they were required to take at least one foreign language & culture course in high school.
The Velveteen Ocelot
(115,943 posts)It was required when I went to high school back in the '60s but apparently it isn't any more, at least in a lot of schools. The reason I don't think it would make a difference is that most kids think of it as just another thing you have to learn in school, like algebra, and they learn enough to be able to ask directions to the train station or find a bathroom if they ever made it to that country at all. What the GOPers don't like isn't the mere existence of foreign languages and that people speak other languages in other countries, it's the fact that people who live in the U.S. aren't speaking English as they should because America.
moondust
(20,019 posts)that the biggest share of that 47% of white Republicans live in red states where they are born and raised in the Fox News/Republican/white supremacist/intolerant bubble. On the other hand, kids who grow up on the more liberal/tolerant coasts are often exposed to all kinds of diversity starting at a very young age; some of their friends and classmates may speak another language at home and sometimes at school.
Requring some foreign language & culture coursework in high school is one way to get some of those white kids to open their minds and realize that there is a big world out there beyond their bubble with lots of different kinds of people and they might as well get used to it. Teach tolerance.
ck4829
(35,096 posts)Evergreen Emerald
(13,071 posts)Unchbay razycay diotsiay
VOX
(22,976 posts)Or as they know it, Murcan.
Skittles
(153,258 posts)it reminds me how I want to be bilingual (that's in my top five things to do in retirement)