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ShadowOfGed
Travels via TARDIS
 
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Earthsea
 
2005-11-19, 21:29

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
It's a question of identity.
That's a very interesting point; I'd forgotten about that aspect. I totally respect any individual's desire to retain a cultural identity in the United States. I don't think, however, that learning English and using it for everyday interactions prevents that. Sure, it takes more time, effort, and knowledge, but... it's been done by a large number of other cultures here. The Chinese, Japanese, and Indian cultures are the best examples I can think of; I know several people who have roots in those cultures. They are all perfectly normal and speak English pretty well (for the most part---there are some exceptions), but they participate in activities in their off time to retain the heritage they brought with them. That's a far cry from what I see out of most of the Mexican immigrants I encounter, and it's a shame, I think. They do have a rich culture, but integrating better with ours would really help things along...

Part of this is because they're often overworked, and don't have the time or resources to commit to learning English or maintaining a cultural identiy through any means other than just the Spanish language. This is another subject, addressed below...

Quote:
Originally Posted by chucker
Well, that overhead would only apply to the US Southwest, mostly California. A bilingual community, however, must be the decision of a public vote, and hey, having lived in Québec for a few months now, I can tell you it doesn't work particularly well.
Hmm, I'm from North Carolina. They actually show up a lot of places. They do things like construction work, farm work, and the like around here. I thought I'd heard that we actually have one of the larger immigrant populations in the country, and we're not even remotely close to the border---what we do have is a large farming economy.

It actually bothers me sometimes... I feel like they're exploited for their willingness to work lower-wage jobs. In fact, they're often paid under the table. Sure, prices of various food products would go up if they were officially on payrolls, but I'd be willing to pay that extra price at the grocery store if I knew it meant that all workers involved, from farm to store, were legitimately paid, and paid decently for their work.

Then again, the subject of wage equality is a sore one for me. I think that a lot of people (police, fireman, teachers, construction workers, farm hands, etc) are not paid what their services are worth. I work as a software tester and make more (as a co-op, not even a full employee) than a lot of them will ever earn on an hourly basis. Their jobs are much more important to our economy than mine, even if IBM does make more profit off of their products. That discrepancy gets to me, because I shouldn't be earning more than them. My services just are not as important as theirs, and it's unfortunate that our economy doesn't reflect that the way I feel it should. OK, I'm done.

Apparently I call the cops when I see people litter.
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