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The U.S. has no official language, and no one who moves here is required to learn English. Especially in NYC, where so many neighborhoods predominantly speak a

The U.S. has no official language, and no one who moves here is required to learn English. Especially in NYC, where so many neighborhoods predominantly speak a language that is not English (Brighton Beach, Sunset Park, Flushing, Chinatown, etc.) Assuming someone speaking another language is both a “recent arrival” and working illegally is… something. Apparently it’s not xenophobic, but it’s not a good look.

dboreham 1y ago
There are communities of non-English speaking people here in Montana. They speak a form of German. Hutterites (kind of like Amish).
- yubblegum 1y ago
  Does the New York Times (which is a national paper) have a section in German language? Does it have one in any other non-English language besides Spanish? Why is Spanish singled out? Why was "bilingualism" being promoted so heavily? Meaning no offense, wtf has the Spanish speaking community contributed to American history to get this special perch? So yeah, there are all sorts of little pockets here and there, and grandpas and grandmas of various flavor speaking the old country's tongue but only one was promoted. The phenomena is obviously political in nature and to construe is as anything else, including "prejudice" or "xenophobia", is disengenuous.
  - the_gastropod 1y ago
    What’s the German-speaking population of the United States? What German-speaking lands in the Americas did the United States acquire through violent or financial means? > Meaning no offense, wtf has the Spanish speaking community contributed to American history to get this special perch? About half of the total land area of the US was formerly colonized by the Spanish. What “history” are you referring to?! And what “special perch”? > The phenomena is obviously political in nature and to construe is as anything else, including "prejudice" or "xenophobia", is disengenuous. This is innuendo. Say what you want to say, and don’t couch it behind a passive “political”. Who’s driving what outcome, and for what ends. Go on!
    - yubblegum 1y ago
      The historic arguemnt is lucidrous since NYTimes only recently published in a bilingual mode. Special perch is clear: this is a nation of numerious ethnicities with an equal number of distinct 'mother tongues'. The special perch is the recent push to normalize having an entire subset of the society speak a langauge that many of us do not speak and have no desire to learn.
      - the_gastropod 1y ago
        They’re not equal. There are more Spanish-speakers in the U.S. (and the world, for that matter) than there are German, Estonian, Russian, Croatian, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, … speakers. You’re ascribing some bizarre conspiracy to basic market dynamics. And again, this is pretty localized. Salt Lake City has less Spanish than Los Angeles. Flushing, Queens has more Mandarin than Spanish or English. It remains unclear who is being harmed here. And what solutions are you advocating for?
        yubblegum 1y ago
        What "market"? Did this "market" exist 100 years ago or not? If yes (and it did) then why haven't we been bilingual English-Spanish since day 1? There is conspiracy theory here - just pretty straightforward observation of facts.
        the_gastropod 1y ago
        The market for reading the NYTimes in Spanish… There’s also a big enough market for reading it in Chinese! (https://cn.nytimes.com https://cn.nytimes.com) Since these are online-only versions of the NYTimes, and immigration sources change throughout history, no. This particular market did not exist 100 years ago. However, the portion of non-English speakers has remained about the same since the 1910 census began asking about this. ~100 years ago, German was the most prominent non-English language spoken in the U.S., and there were over 500 German-language newspapers in circulation. Yiddish newspapers were common in New York. And Spanish newspapers were widely read in Texas. In Chicago, Polish newspapers were common. San Francisco had the Chinese World (世界日報) newspaper. Your idea that, 100 years ago, everyone spoke English, and we didn’t support non-English speaking is just flatly wrong.
luckys 1y ago
That seems to have changed in March 2025 via executive order, with English now being the official language of the US https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Stat... https://www.usa.gov/official-language-of-us https://www.usa.gov/official-language-of-us
yubblegum 1y ago
There are and have been pockets in immigrant communities where e.g. older members would live their entire lives in US and never speak a word of English. But conversely, no one expected the rest of us to know Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, ..., etc. But somehow now we are supposed to accept a sizeable subset of our nation to only speak Spanish. > Assuming someone speaking another language is both a “recent arrival” and working illegally is… something. Apparently it’s not xenophobic, but it’s not a good look. I do not care if it is not a "good look" by some standard. What I care about is cultural and value system continuity and national cohesion.
- stirfish 1y ago
  >What I care about is cultural and value system continuity and national cohesion. Good news! We share the value of "be cool about it, we're all just trying our best"

dboreham 1y ago

There are communities of non-English speaking people here in Montana. They speak a form of German. Hutterites (kind of like Amish).

yubblegum 1y ago
Does the New York Times (which is a national paper) have a section in German language? Does it have one in any other non-English language besides Spanish? Why is Spanish singled out? Why was "bilingualism" being promoted so heavily? Meaning no offense, wtf has the Spanish speaking community contributed to American history to get this special perch? So yeah, there are all sorts of little pockets here and there, and grandpas and grandmas of various flavor speaking the old country's tongue but only one was promoted. The phenomena is obviously political in nature and to construe is as anything else, including "prejudice" or "xenophobia", is disengenuous.
- the_gastropod 1y ago
  What’s the German-speaking population of the United States? What German-speaking lands in the Americas did the United States acquire through violent or financial means? > Meaning no offense, wtf has the Spanish speaking community contributed to American history to get this special perch? About half of the total land area of the US was formerly colonized by the Spanish. What “history” are you referring to?! And what “special perch”? > The phenomena is obviously political in nature and to construe is as anything else, including "prejudice" or "xenophobia", is disengenuous. This is innuendo. Say what you want to say, and don’t couch it behind a passive “political”. Who’s driving what outcome, and for what ends. Go on!
  - yubblegum 1y ago
    The historic arguemnt is lucidrous since NYTimes only recently published in a bilingual mode. Special perch is clear: this is a nation of numerious ethnicities with an equal number of distinct 'mother tongues'. The special perch is the recent push to normalize having an entire subset of the society speak a langauge that many of us do not speak and have no desire to learn.
    - the_gastropod 1y ago
      They’re not equal. There are more Spanish-speakers in the U.S. (and the world, for that matter) than there are German, Estonian, Russian, Croatian, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian, … speakers. You’re ascribing some bizarre conspiracy to basic market dynamics. And again, this is pretty localized. Salt Lake City has less Spanish than Los Angeles. Flushing, Queens has more Mandarin than Spanish or English. It remains unclear who is being harmed here. And what solutions are you advocating for?
      - yubblegum 1y ago
        What "market"? Did this "market" exist 100 years ago or not? If yes (and it did) then why haven't we been bilingual English-Spanish since day 1? There is conspiracy theory here - just pretty straightforward observation of facts.
        the_gastropod 1y ago
        The market for reading the NYTimes in Spanish… There’s also a big enough market for reading it in Chinese! (https://cn.nytimes.com https://cn.nytimes.com) Since these are online-only versions of the NYTimes, and immigration sources change throughout history, no. This particular market did not exist 100 years ago. However, the portion of non-English speakers has remained about the same since the 1910 census began asking about this. ~100 years ago, German was the most prominent non-English language spoken in the U.S., and there were over 500 German-language newspapers in circulation. Yiddish newspapers were common in New York. And Spanish newspapers were widely read in Texas. In Chicago, Polish newspapers were common. San Francisco had the Chinese World (世界日報) newspaper. Your idea that, 100 years ago, everyone spoke English, and we didn’t support non-English speaking is just flatly wrong.

luckys 1y ago

That seems to have changed in March 2025 via executive order, with English now being the official language of the US https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Stat... https://www.usa.gov/official-language-of-us https://www.usa.gov/official-language-of-us

yubblegum 1y ago

There are and have been pockets in immigrant communities where e.g. older members would live their entire lives in US and never speak a word of English. But conversely, no one expected the rest of us to know Chinese, German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, ..., etc. But somehow now we are supposed to accept a sizeable subset of our nation to only speak Spanish. > Assuming someone speaking another language is both a “recent arrival” and working illegally is… something. Apparently it’s not xenophobic, but it’s not a good look. I do not care if it is not a "good look" by some standard. What I care about is cultural and value system continuity and national cohesion.

stirfish 1y ago
>What I care about is cultural and value system continuity and national cohesion. Good news! We share the value of "be cool about it, we're all just trying our best"