Oh, got to protect that valuable US "culture"

[RB TexLa]

Sunday after arriving at the international terminal at DFW I encountered one of these idiots. We landed at the same time a flight of troops from Iraq or Afghanistan did and there was a group of people there to welcome them home. Some were veterans wearing their VFW hats or other military attire and some were non-veterans wearing bright red white and blue shirts. It was a white woman in one of the red white and blue shirts I had the encounter with.

After we got outside the terminal and were waiting for our shuttle to the parking area, a gentleman was asking directions in Spanish, actually he was asking people if they spoke Spanish. When he got to the woman near us, she simply turned her back to him and said "oh, God damn," to her friend before he could say anything. He then made his way to us, I told him I spoke a little Spanish and was able to give him the directions he was looking for and how to get to the DART bus, he thanked me profusely as I am sure he could tell some of the conversation took some work on my part to get all the directions right in Spanish, and probably for the fact that I was willing to help him in light of the previous people.

Then I heard the woman's voice again. Talking to her friend "see that is what's wrong, that is what's destroying our culture, I should not have to listen to people talking in Spanish in Dallas, this is America." Now since she was talking about me, I felt compelled to answer to her charge that I was "destroying American culture," I politely said "excuse me," she turned and faced me, and I said "I am a free human being and I will speak in any fucking language I want to speak in, you understand that?" She wanted to reply but right as I was saying it a hispanic serviceman and his anglo wife or girlfriend had stopped beside us and she said "hell yeah," as he nodded his head.

[Left_Winger]

1. I've experienced that type of crap before as well

I am a high school foreign language teacher and I actually encountered this statement during a parent conference.

"Why should my child have to take a foreign language to get a (college prep) high school diploma? The way I see it, if English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for us!"

Yes, I actually encountered this.

[Jed Dilligan]

4. What the hell is English?

In MY bible, Jesus is talkin' American same as you and me!

[MountainLaurel]

14. Good gravy!

Although I'm not surprised. When I was in library school, one of my classmates (a teacher fleeing the classroom because of NCLB testing nonsense) mentioned that in her school district, parent protests shot down an already-funded plan for a bilingual immersion school. The project got a lot of those same comments: "This is America! Why should American children need to learn anything but English?" And this wasn't completely in the backwoods, but in a district where the major employer is a federal scientific testing lab, complete with nuclear scientists and everything.

I was just stunned that anyone could think learning a new language was a bad thing.

[acmejack]

2. Hell yeah!

Another one!

Another one, I'll buy a beer for when you get down to Austin, that is! Good fucking work, RG! You are what is right with America!

[Jed Dilligan]

3. Come on, why don't you jump on the motherfucking bandwagon.

Yippee! We gonna git rid of all the Mexicans! Gubbmint checks all 'round! Yessireebob we can even have a Democrat in the white house in 2008 by resorting to good ol' fashioned nativist populism. It'll be so EASY!

YEEEEEE-HAWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


:sarcasm:

[bryant69]

5. This is not suspicious

DId you read the origional post? Or is this just a standard response to every thing these days?

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Jed Dilligan]

8. Um, you don't get the sarcasm?

Maybe I should add a tag.

[dogday]

10. It made me laugh

:rofl: and you probably need to add that sarcasm thingy, I know my humor is that way too....

[Solon]

6. We have a "culture", that's news to me...

Seriously, there is nothing in our culture that was developed in isolation, it was either an adaptation of immigrant cultural oddities, or just a combination of many different aspects of a lot of other cultures. Tex-Mex, Toasted Ravioli, and Fortune Cookies are examples of this, and that's only in food.

[XemaSab]

13. When it comes to the dinner table

I am a firm believer in globalization!

Even "native" European cuisine comes from somewhere else in many cases... pasta, tomatoes, potatoes, chickens...

:bounce:

[Igel]

15. Consider many other cultures.

You get cultural areas (and even linguistic areas) because of mutual borrowing and adaptation. Like 'race', 'cultures' are almost invariably impure.

A lot of US culture continues British culture, but with changes. Some changes were practices and attitudes adapted more or less to fit in with other practices. Some are still being adapted. Waves of immigration offer cultural practices; whether or not they get accepted is up to people. Most of the changes are plausibly different from what happened in their 'home' countries or would have happened in other cultures, and produce a result that's unique or nearly so.

But this is true of most cultures, at least most of the ones in Asia, Europe, Africa, and South/Central America. You have to get to isolated groups before you get practices 'developed in isolation', as that only those cultures are worthwhile. So much for French and Italian, Mexican or Canadian, Thai or even Divehi.

I ran into people in Czech summer school that assumed there was no US culture. The school grouped us by linguistic affiliation--Germanic speakers tend to have similar problems with Czech, for example, so it made sense. But after three weeks of being immersed in Czech culture (with limited Czech skills), it made social sense to us. Most Germans hung out with Germans, South Slavs hung out with South Slavs, British hung out with British, and Americans hung out with Americans. Even the Americans that thought there was no American culture (and were hankering to be exposed to an 'authentic' culture) did this, regardless of religion or ideology. In some cases, British and Germans or Americans and French had religion or ideology in common, it didn't matter. They said they were tired of being misunderstood, of having to explain cultural referents and attitudes; the Germans and French claimed there was no US culture, but that all Americans were alike, at least enough to be hard to integrate into their groups. Both sides understood that for all the differences, we had a common culture, one not shared even by the British attending school there.

Perhaps if there had been 100 Americans there instead of 15-20 of us, we'd have broken down into subcultures: NE, Californian, Pac. NW, South. But there weren't enough for that. Similarly, if there were only 2-3 of US, and a small number of British and Australians, we'd have emphasized what we had in common.

[ComerPerro]

7. God forbid we have to hear someone speak another language

[Jed Dilligan]

9. Especially at an INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT!

God forbid.

[formerrepuke]

11. Que inutil, idiota de mujer.........n/t

[AspenRose]

12. Oh, Man, that was beautiful. Thank you.

And for that serviceman: :patriot: Gracias....

Unfortunately I expect that attitude from folks in Dallas....:eyes:
thank God I grew up in San Antonio :-)

[StellaBlue]

16. "American culture"

:rofl:


Once again, I have to post this, as the Indigo Girls sum up my feelings on the matter nicely:

let's go road block trippin in the middle of the night
up in gainesville town
there'll be blue lights flashin down the long dirt road
when they ask me to step out

they say we've been looking for illegal immigrants
can we check your car
i say you know it's funny
i think we were on the same boat back in 1694

and i said
oo la la la la la la la la shame on you
they'll be dancing
la la la i said shame on you