shalafi , 10 days ago

They’re not here to be Americanized.

That part rings true, depending on the group it seems.

This is obviously anecdotal. Your experience may vary, and if so, I’d like to here it.

My wife is an immigrant, as are all her friends. Filipinos are very well integrated here. They have good jobs, run successful businesses, speak perfect English, all that. Hispanics on the other hand…

She supervises a cleaning crew of Mexicans and Hondurans at a hotel. They’ve been here for years and none of them speak a lick of English, she says they flat refuse to learn. She brought a good friend kayaking with us, fun Honduran guy that walked two months to get to America. I admire that! We could hardly communicate, but my wife speaks Spanish/English pidgin well enough.

When we got home I was telling her how much I like the guy but I was surprised he couldn’t use the most basic words. I was really surprised when I found out he’s been here for five years. FFS, he won’t even say “yes”, doesn’t know the word for “year”, super simple stuff.

Another anecdote; Dated a Jamaican women from south Florida back in the day. We were talking about the Hispanics down there and discussing why they won’t learn English. She stated there was no reason for them to do so. They have entire communities where no one speaks English, nor needs to. I argued that English would give them a significant leg up in America. She argued that they were quite successful and happy without it. That was a new viewpoint for me.

Living in Chicagoland was a mixed bag from my experience. Seemed most Hispanics spoke enough English to get by, and in any case, they seemed more integrated into America than they do down here in Florida. Went in a check cashing place and the cashier was snotty because I didn’t speak Spanish, but that was an edge case I think. My best friend up there was a Mexican guy who was all about getting his kids educated. LOL, miss that guy terribly. He talked like Yogi Bear. :)