Update: Judge says English-only is not “hostile”
Hey, well, whaddya know. A judge exhibited an iota of common sense and rejected that open-borders lawsuit I wrote about last week, which was filed by ethnic grievance-mongers who claimed an English-only policy at a Kansas Catholic school created a “hostile” environment.
Original post here. Story on the ruling here.
Now, if only the Catholic hierarchy would wake up and stop pandering to the anti-assimilationists.
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Wow, there is still hope for the USA.
That suit will be refiled by 2042.
Perhaps Judge Marten’s ruling will start a landslide in our favor. Thank you so much. English should be the national language and we must ensure that all who live here know how to speak it.
I am sure there is an appealate activist justice who disagrees and will reverse the ruling.
But what about the self esteem of all the
illegalundocumentedaliensimmigrants?We don’t want to huwt their widdwe feewings, do we? *sniff*
Outstanding.
I make a concerted effort to always remain a ‘cup-is-half-full type’, so I probably should just praise this victory for commonsense and shut up, but I have to say it: It’s really sad when something so basic…something that is such a no-brainier as this is almost shocking when it happens.
This ruling is clearly what the American public finds desirable. Why don’t you so-called ‘public servants’ follow the lead of this judge and do what the people who you work for wants you to do.
Remember: when in Philly, only eat JENO’S Cheese Steaks. They still speak english – proudly – there.
And, incidentally, the cheese steaks are the best in the world. Don’t be a wuss, get a “With and Whiz…” The people who DO speak english near you will barely understand what you’re ordering, unless they’ve been there before.
Non-english speakers? Fuggedibout it.
I believe that they missed the whole point:
Hello! They were in the school by choice!
If they didn’t like the policies then they should have left.
If I had been the judge, my 1st question would have been:
Is someone forcing you to send your children there?
And if they had answered no, then I would have said: “Goodbye”
If their argument had been “Our children can’t get a good education in public schools”
My answer would have been “Then sue the public schools”
My contrats to the judge for doing the right thing. It seems almost uncommon these days.
If that judge is Catholic, he best be watching his backside; they’re just as likely to excommunicate him for showing truth to power
White guilt is destroying all the values on which this nation was founded.
Yes, absolutely. American Bishops need to fall in line and obey US Law. Period.
We have to continue to stand up for what is right. This is a no-brainer, ENGLISH ONLY. It appears we have 33 years to take back America as we know it, let’s get to work folks. It will only get worse as time passes.
They have to quit pandering to criminals.
I guess the anti-American group trying to balkanize our nation didn’t shop around for the right judge. Thank God! Common sense (which is not too common these days) prevails again.
My grandmother, if she was still alive, would grab these morons by the throat and tell them to learn English. When she came here, she had to learn English and she spoke it very well. She spoke six languages.
These criminals need to be removed and I will gladly pay higher produce prices to get rid of the leeches.
Wasn’t there something a couple of years ago about the Catholic Church providing sanctuary to illegals?
As a lifelong Catholic, I only wish the leadership of the Catholic Church had been as quick to condemn and punish their pedophile priests as they are to chastise the United States over illegal immigrants and the Iraq War.
But I will gratefully accept the Judge’s ruling as a small victory for America and common sense.
Mooseman, well said! Three of my grandparents were immigrants. My maternal grandfather came here with his widowed mother at the age of eight, learned English (and a host of other languages), worked hard in school, graduated from Temple University in 1919 and eventually opened up his own successful corner pharmacy. And he did it all without government coddling in the form of handouts. He was nothing but grateful for the opportunities this great country afforded him.
Reminds me of the time (2002) the Massachusetts voters resoundingly (68%) voted out bilingual “education” from public school curricula after 30 years of being ineffective.
Yes, true blue, Kennedy country Massachusetts!
And this was after the other side virtually saturated the media with ads etc.
If it can happen here, it can happen anywhere.
Now if someone could just explain to me why it only seems that hispanics need bilingual “education”….
Now, can we make it our official language for once and for all?
1) Private School in KANSAS USA
2) Catholic School in KANSAS USA
3) Speak English in School in KANSAS USA
DUH
I must say, I’m a bit surprised. It’s a d*mn shame when the truth is so obvious and one still expects the judiciary to ignore it and spit in your eye. Glad I was wrong this time.
BruceB
Dito
That won’t happen any time soon, unless you are willing to add Spanish. IMHO both English and Spanish should become the official languages of United States. Also remember that more and more Americans speak another language other than English at home. I’m a U.S. citizen born in USA, my parents were also born in USA, but I speak German with my parents and French with my siblings. That’s because I’m also a citizen of Switzerland and France.
When U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten said: (It has divided a school, its church and congregation… It has divided the Hispanic community in its congregation. And it has touched a nerve in this community and across the nation.) showed his true social engineering colors and not for the common sense that a private English speaking school has the right to require it’s students to speak English. Marten just did not read his ACLU script. I know a place these Hispanics can go and speak all the Mexican they want and do all the jobs American won’t do.
Edelweiss #21, what you do behind closed doors is your business. What the American public does is it’s business. In English please. Ever wonder why the vast majority of Europe speak English. My step father speaks seven languages fluently and has never uttered a word to me in other than English. My kind of guy.
Why does the term bilingual mean only English and Spanish? Why not English and German? Or Hindi? Or Chinese? More people in the world speak Chinese than any other.
Ooops, I forgot. The discussion is not really about language at all.
Why are ALL OTHER nationalities expected to learn English?
The politics of fear.
45 years ago I dated a young lady who was born in Indonesia. Her family moved to Holland, than to the U.S. She started school in the 7th grade. In 2 years, at the end of her 8th grade, she received the outstanding academic award for english. 2 years perfect english. Will these nut cases stop with the excuses..
lgm
No s**t Sherlock. That is exactly why one language is important. You split the culture.
All four of my grandparents passed through Ellis Island. All four learned English. My parents grew up with English as their first language. A great set of stories about assimilation is “The Education of Hyman Kaplan,” by Leo C. Rosten, about an immigrant determined to earn his citizenship who hilariously struggles with American history and the English language but perseveres.
Yeah, so am I, but I came to this country not speaking a word of English. It took me only a summer to learn and entered third grade without a hitch.
However, I decided I wanted to become an American (i.e., called assimilation), speak the English language and succeed. And not the other way around — like the PC folks would like to have it. This country should once again revisit the idea of the “melting pot” rather than become a multi-cultural society that benefits no one.
Yeah, I did take yet another language in high school (French), but that was my own [elective] choice.
Just because we have a wave of Hispanic folks growing in population at an astronomical rate, it’s not a reason to cave in and force Spanish down everyone’s throat.
Would you rather get a college degree and have a job with Cisco or IBM?
Or would you rather stick to Spanish (which most “immigrants” do here in CA), and pick strawberries for the rest of your life?
LEARN ENGLISH. It’s the language of success, and that’s why many nations around the world teach two languages (their native language + English). You can’t succeed in this world without knowing English.
When I lived in Germany, I learned german. When I lived in Japan, I learned Japanese. I knew french before vacationing there multiple times. I live here now and I want to hear ENGLISH. I will NOT learn spanish to live here. I know many people who came here from other countries and now speak english very well. We seem to have a group of people who are too lazy, stupid or arrogant to learn english.
Moll,
Well put! I have always wondered why the term “bi-lingual,” which literally refers to the ability to speak two languages, is widely accepted in the United States as meaning “able to speak English and Spanish.” Could it be PC pandering to one specific group of people???
In California, election ballots are printed in 160 languages. The problem is in the translations. Some words will not translate no matter how careful you are. Words have meaning that shape the culture. Can we not keep our culture and let others keep theirs if they wish. Ask the people in the EU why they can’t come up with a satisfactory constitution.
Also, in Europe it is necessary to know more than one language due to the close proximity of other countries. While I certainly applaud any American who chooses to learn another language, the fact is, from coast to coast, English our common denominator.
Celebrate your heritage in your own home, on your own dime if you wish, but when we’re discussing both taxpayer-funded education and private education, English-only please. If immigrants wish to come here, they should also be willing to assimilate. Otherwise, stay in your own country.
In spite of the judge’ s ruling. There are still plenty of professional careers available even if someone lives in the United States, rejects this country’s work ethic and culture, will not speak English, and generally refuses to assimilate. The possibilities are endless. Here are just a few: day laborer, agricultural worker, Taco truck driver, gardener, busboy, dishwasher, janitor, maid, and Los Angeles city council member.
On September 8-11, let Congress know how you feel. Hold their feet to the fire here.
On August 16th, 2008 at 11:04 am, lgm said:
LGM, if those kids don’t learn English now, while they have the necessary supports available to them to make its acquisition complete and fluent, they will be sentenced to a life of hardship and poverty.
I’m glad the judge ruled on the side of sense.
When my great-grandparents came to this country from Germany, they had the whole family speak English–my recollection is that the kids were not even to learn German: they were in America now. I don’t see why things should be any different on that point.
Of course, my family planned on staying here. Maybe these everyone-must-learn-Spanish people think that either they’re going back or that the US is going to become a Spanish speaking country soon.
It is unfortunate that my church treats anti assimilators/illegals the same way as the Democtrats do albeit for slightly different reasons.One panders for potential votes while the other panders to keep the collection plate piled high.I am sure that this judge will be overruled faster than you can say diversity!
DBNin KY (#35) said:
Exactly right. This school did not seem to handle the basic issue well, but in the US, to get ahead, one must speak decent English–no matter what one’s race or ethnic background.
Good for that judge! Nice to see some folks with common sense still left on the bench.
When I was young, I worked in the fields with Mexican day laborers. I spoke some Spanish but lost it because the Mexican parents of my schoolmates made their children speak English. There was very little division.
Hey! lgm
I have been told you teach math. Try teaching calculus in one of the three Cambodian dialects.
Leave lgm alone.
He’s been having trouble finding cheap labor lately and he’s only trying be sure he has a constant supply source in the futher.
You may have something BruceB. The people who want diversity, are looking for a permanent underclass to feel superior to.
Lou Dobbs covered this case. The Hispanic kids are bilingual. Some were using Spanish on the playground to call non-Spanish speaking kids names, thereby causing problems. To put an end to the problems, the Cathlolic school issued a rule that only English would be tolerated on the playground. Some kids refused to abide by the rule and were told to take several days off from school as punishment for not obeying the rule. That’s when the parents sued for “discrimination.”
Seems to me the school was trying to prevent a big problem. The parents looked for a reason to sue; they’re closer to being liberal Americans than they realize! When something doesn’t fall your way, play the victim!
Where is lgm? Maybe looking for math terms in Cambodian.
My wife was a Chihuahua Mexico ranch girl before we were married. She learned English and passed the Naturalization Citizenship test in English.
My two sons (doctors) and daughter (business lady) started speaking Spanish as toddlers since I worked long hours away from home and since Spanish is much easier to learn than English. They all became excellent in English also in the first year of school.
I learned Spanish as soon as the Army sent me to the El Paso, Texas area. I noticed how much Spanish speaking persons liked my learning Spanish–they respected me for learning it and helped me out with it. Most English speakers also respect native Spanish speakers when they start learning English–a much more difficult task.
All my family has benefited by being bi-lingual in areas that use both languages. However, ENGLISH IS THE PRIME LANGUAGE IN THE U.S.A. and must be learned well by all educated persons.
John Bibb
It’s all well and good to go that route when a country is bound together by blood & nationality.
The USA is unique among nations, being the only nation whos people are bound together by a common idea, (Liberty & the Constitution), a common culture and language (the unque American Dream and English). Such ideas as your are deadly to the Republic. It cannot be stated strongly enough. These ideas undermine the root of our Identity.
When a people are bound together by a Thin Tangible, it is always before their face, always there in the room, in the culture.
When people are bound together by an Ideal, anything that dilutes that Ideal in the minds of the people will ubdermine the very fabric of their Commonality. They will eventually cease to be a single people, working toward that Ideal.
So we stand today.
And it has been done puposefully
Whether it was done and condoned by people who didn’t read the papers of our Founding Fathers, (the wellspring of our Culture and understanding our Freedom,) or they didn’t understand them or they actively wished our destruction is moot now.
What is now important, indeed absolutely vital if we are to survive as a Country of Freemen, is that each of us arm ourselves with knowledge of how we came to be, why our Government was so constitued, and what the Founders feared.
Then, if we truely love this Country, we need to valiently proclaim the Truth of our creation. We are going to be called bigots, fear-mongerers, homophobes, xenophobes and every other -phobe in the book. We will be threatened and persecuted. Hounded and pillaried. And more.
If this sounds melodramatic to you, look around. The 1st whiffs of smoke from the coming forestfire are there to detect. All the forces arising in world have a commonality: hatred of self-determination: Freedom. We are the wellspring, still. For those forces to succeed we must fall.
Well spoken Martin
Please remember the the language of international language of science, diplomacy and commerce is English.
oops!
Please remember the
the language ofinternational language of science, diplomacy and commerce is English.Martin
Don’t apologize for being melodramatic. My wish is that more people would take our founding documents more seriously.
Lgm:
I’m sure you, as a teacher, understand that things are easier to understand in a classroom if there is a common language for all.
If we didn’t have English as a common language to communicate with each other than how the hell does anything get done in the US? Do you speak another language, lgm? Is that what teachers are supposed to do now? How exactly fair is that to the predominant speakers of English in the classroom?
Lgm, you really can’t be serious. Have you ever communicated in another language to teach a concept? I’m fluent in Spanish, and have had to communicate in that language to both students and their parents to get anything done. That shouldn’t be a teacher’s job.
Your take is ridiculous to say the least.
This from the same church who probably insisted that you learn Latin for mass.
Bubububut I don’t know Latin. I smell a lawsuit coming.
Thank guys. This subject just pushes my buttons! And not because I’m monolingual. Dad’s a polyglot. When we were little, and Dad was learning a new language, he’d speak only in that language and respond to us, (in most cases) if we spoke to him in that language.
Thus, I learned Tagalog, Chinese (Putonghua), Cebuan, Japanese and some Italian… I was on my way to Basic during the Italian phase.
NOTE:
Thin Tangible = Thing Tangible
There are other spelling errors. Sorry.
Trying Dad’s LifeDrive this week…
The Old Man was nuts! Using Blazer for blogging is crazy! Dropped characters, no spell-checker, nuttin!
Never again. After today its back to the laptop! (these PDA things will never replace laptop! ;-p )
COMMON SENSE in the JUDICIARY??? Got to be an OXYMORON in there someplace!!!
I totally expect lgm to go to Mexico and show up at a Catholic school there and demand the teachers there teach his kids in English. If the Mexican teachers refuse I totally expect him to be outraged and file a lawsuit against the Mexican teachers and say the Mexican teachers are “devisive” and being “hateful”.
Until then, lgm can shove a sock in it because he is a deranged lunatic.
Well the Catholics and the other God-monging protestants need to actually follow the bible they say they support instead of pandering for contributions to keep their overpriced worship houses lit.
Maybe in this case the Catholic leadership will get it…certainly they went ape-sh%t in Italy when the Muslims said they’d overtake the Catholic church (more or less).
alaskangrizzly said:
“Until then, lgm can shove a sock in it…”
I usually don’t get bent outta shape about lgm comments, but the notion that somehow the policies of a private school can be “the politics of fear”… well I just got back from the gym, used one of my socks, please.
pandering to illegals that is
use one of my socks… that is
I maintain a very simple principle for maintaining English. If I go into a store, restaurant, or whatever and either I cannot understand the counterperson, or the counterperson cannot understand me … I leave. That’s it – I just walk out. Then I call the stores customer service dept or francise director and tell them that until they hire people who can understand English , I will not patronize them again. And I don’t. PB&J sandwiches are healthier anyway.
I’m tired of being expected to learn a foreign language to get along in my own country.
On August 16th, 2008 at 11:04 am, lgm said:
lgm, this is a sentence fragment. It’s a good thing that you don’t teach English. Now we know why you don’t want English-only, you aren’t very good at it!
So what happens in 100 years when the Muslims attack us and declare Al-Amriki is now under Sharia law? Should we add Arabic to the list?
This mindset is precisely the problem – divided loyalties. In Teddy Roosevelt’s day, this was tantamount to treason.
There is nothing wrong with speaking other languages at home, or even in parts of the community. However, English is the language of business, schools, government, and any other public institution. In what other country does the majority language group placate to the minority?
The issue dual citizenship, on the other hand, is far more troubling. In a post-9/11 world, divided loyalties are dangerous.
Perhaps lgm was using fill in the blank as in The politics of fear
a.) are practiced by La Raza, Mecha, and other illegal alien sympathizers.
b.) are practiced by pandering Democratic Party politicians.
c.) are baseless accusations made by liberals who can’t logically defend their positions.
d.) are all of the above.
Every language has a visual and a cultural foundation.
Bread may bring up images of whole wheat sliced loaves in my background. Other countries my not use yeast and have flat bread. We may refer to “bread” as money in American slang. Some countries don’t use wheat in their diet. Let us not exclude new words from other backgrounds but let us all SPEAK ENGLISH
lgm,
You live in the country of Mathematics, where Math is the only language spoken. I don’t speak it. My language is one of grammar and syntax. I want to live in your country and call myself a Mathematician, but I don’t wish to learn your language.
I do, however, wish to learn algebra. Indeed, as a resident in your country, I have a right to learn algebra without being required to speak Math. Since I don’t understand x and y, and I can’t make sense of pi, you must teach algebra in my language.
Go for it, sugar!
If I remember right, the nuns pretty well frowned on the use of Pig Latin also.
brooklyn red said (#59):
I don’t usually insult posters explicitly, but somehow taking “politics of fear” out of context, when that context is one sentence directly above, well, that’s just stupid.
Now look how the context justifies my “politics of fear” statement. Someone is afraid that kids who only speak English would feel bad if they heard kids who are so smart that they can speak more than one language.
To avoid that, they want to ban Spanish. And not only in the classroom (where it would make sense if instruction is in English), but everywhere else in school.
Now, suppose those same parents worried that their kiddies would feel bad if they hear kids talking about calculus? Would they ban calculus?
I guess you missed the part where some of the Spanish-speaking students were calling other student names in Spanish. This isn’t about English-speaking students fearing other kids who are so smart that they can speak more than one language. It’s about students using their ability to speak the language in which they were raised to set themselves apart from their classmates and insult other students with impunity.
Part of going to school is learning how to fit into society. These Spanish-speaking students used their ability, not gained through any inherent superiority in their intelligence, to separate themselves from society, i.e. their classmates, to insult other students without their understanding; insults that I’d wager wouldn’t have been offered in English.
In the military that would be considered prejudicial to good order and discipline. And before you start a rant about how a private Catholic school isn’t the military, you’re right. Catholic school is much stricter.
ECS
In the early 1980s, the top academic graduate at the Air Force Academy, was an immigrant from South East Asia. When he got to this country in the early 70s, he spoke no english at all.
The liberals will have us believe that minorities “don’t have the same educational opportunities” as whites. Bovine excrement! Here was a boy, new to the country, completely unfamiliar with the customs, and didn’t speak english. Think about that. In roughly 10 years he learned english, graduated from high school with high enough grades to attend a service academy and graduated from that as the top academic graduate!
But remember, “minorities don’t have the same educational opportunities.”
TEACH ONLY ENGLISH!
It’s obvious, lgm and I speak different languages.
Score one for common sense.
I’m surprised the Catholic Church even brought this up…usually the Church’s goal is Catholic first, American second (or not at all).
lgm, you can see how well these smart Hispanic students doing in American high school at this link. If these are the smart ones, God help us!
The problem here, Gertrude, is that these “smart” people yopu are using as an example are not fluent in both languages. They converse with each other in their native tongue and butcher the english language in class. Being an elite “educator” even you must admit that non-english speaking students make your job harder. Although there is the possibility that the liberal Kool-Aid has clouded your judgment.
I don’t believe in kow-towing to those who have had their feelings hurt but the solution to this problem is speak English and nobody gets hurt.
There’s another side to this: the insistance on the part of Catholic schools in South Louisiana during the ’50’s on English only led to a loss of Cajun culture
So don’t send your kid to a Catholic school. Entrust your little darling to teachers like Gertrude(lgm) and they can multiculture all they want.
no country has ever survived balkinization. Like it or not this nation is already there not just headed there. These parents knew going into the deal that English was required at school. The kid and the parents acted irresponsibly and then expected themselves to be rewarded…the gamble didn’t pay off…don’t like it move your kids to a Spanish speaking school where English is an elective (maybe they have some good schools like that south of the border?)
But this is the kind of thing that keeps them on the Democrat plantation: if they are dumbed down and dependent on government for everything, they naturally become Democrats.
You are so close, yet so far away from the problem, which is not kids that are “so smart that they can speak more than one language,” but rather, a group of immigrants that can’t seem to learn English. If they were as smart as you insinuate, there would be no need for bilingual “education.” Let these students show us how smart they are by speaking fluent English.
I was always taught that speaking in a language that others around you obviously do not understand was just plain rude.
I taught in a public school in Texas. We had a variety of students – Hispanic, Vietnamese, Indian, blacks and whites. In my classroom (4th grade) my homeroom rule was all students speak English during school. This was mostly because I knew it was the only time the kids would speak English and when they went home they would talk to their parents in ther home language.
But there were times when my 1st year ESL students (who knew no English) couldn’t understand something I said in English. I would then have one of my Hispanic students explain in Spanish and English and it really helped the kids learn. By the end of the year, everyone’s English was better.
Now, I was in a public school. And this was my experience. However, given that this is a private school – I don’t know how it is that the parents would sue and take it into the courts. If they don’t like the policy, they can take their kids out and transfer them to a public school or another private school.
ah, but don’t you see. Poor little Eidelweiss has been giving you the clue of the problem, although unless you grew up in the more “democratic” -and what I mean by that is democracy as opposed to our much wiser democratic republic- you don’t really know, although I admit it is creeping more and more into our culture.
There is a belief, a very wrong and dangerous one, that government and courts are all to protect the wants of the minority. Not the freedom of all, but the loud, obnoxious minority.
It is this premise that was taught to me in Canada, so I can only imagine the indoctrination a poor benighted little edelweiss. You have to forgive them, because they literally do not know what they do, even though they think they are the “smartest” around.
They are not, not when it comes to true freedom and responsibility.
Side note: My great-grandparents on my father’s side came from Sweden. We found some letters written by my great-grandmother not long ago, written after she has been in the America’s perhaps some 20-30 years.
It was in perfect, beautiful English. She came as an adult, lived the life of a poorer farm owner, but still managed to learn not only to speak English but to write in it.
I am so proud of her. She has far more character than what I see these days, with illegal immigrants thinking they have a write to change our country into another barrio for their particular existance.