We must continue to stress tolerance
I recently saw a billboard that depicted all Americans as immigrants. Before that, I heard some restaurant owner placed a sign at his drive-thru window that read something like, ?While ordering, speak English. You are in America.?
As for the billboard, good luck with that. Your ordinary American will not see themselves as an immigrant no matter how hard you try. I guess we?ve earned squatter?s rights or something.
The restaurant owner is trying, in his crude way, to state a fact: This is America and if you are going to live here, you should learn the language. If immigrants would learn to speak English, that would improve communication and go a long way to increasing tolerance.
If I were to move to a different country where the language was different, I would consider it a necessity to learn the language. I would do this by any means necessary. If classes aren?t available, then listen up and you will pick up on it.
Instead of stressing the need to learn English, food products have added Spanish to their labels. Adding Spanish to labels doesn?t bother me. Doing it this way would probably be easier for them than learning a whole new language. I understand that, but it won?t do much about the communication problem.
Not losing who we are is a concern to me. I believe, and will always believe, that being able to speak English, even a bare minimum, should be stressed as important if illegal immigrants are allowed to stay. This is an English-speaking country.
Please remember, they moved here and not the other way around. It is their burden to learn the language. However, I have often thought that taking a few Spanish classes would be helpful for me as well when it comes to my own tolerance. I would like to be able to discuss necessary topics with Spanish-speaking people.
Like this one: There is a teenage boy in our neighborhood who has taken to grabbing other children by the shirt and throwing them to the ground. When confronted by a parent, the boy repeats ?no speak English? and so do his parents. My son informs me the boy does speak English and often.
His parents seem nice to me and I honestly don?t think they can speak English. I think this is one way the child has found to get out of trouble. He is a kid after all. If I could speak Spanish, that would clear up the situation.
If the language barrier isn?t solved and the situation and tension continues to grow, I don?t see how tolerance can be improved, unless we develop a tolerance-increasing vaccine. We can add it to the numerous vaccines given to children. Over the years, if needed, people can get booster shots that would keep up the level of tolerance.
I know this probably won?t happen but just think of it, a nation full of people who live their own lives instead of trying to live others. Think of how much happier everyone will be if they concentrate more on themselves and less on others. Self-realization would soar. Maybe the character of some would improve if they had to take a close look at themselves.
Maybe as a side effect, the immunization would include tolerance of alternative lifestyles. We are striving so hard to increase tolerance of immigrants, legal and illegal, tolerance for our own people is minimal.
What does that say about us as a nation: ?You can live here all your life or you can move here from another country, but unless you act a certain way, talk a certain way or live a certain way, you?re not welcome.?
People can put up hundreds or even thousands of signs and billboards but tolerance will only grow with communication and understanding. Ignorance grows without it.
Lisa Hobbs is a reporter with the Standard. She can be reached at 473-2191 or by e-mail at [email protected].