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Sunday, April 13, 2008

Babel Fish? No Thanks

I'm not big on "country music" but this song ...
this "Country" song ... I can relate to.




"In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person's becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American.There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people."

~ Theodore Roosevelt ~
1907

7 comments:

Sherry said...

I did a post about this a few weeks ago at Sage & Thyme..because the guy who came to fix my water heater had such an accent that I couldn't understand a word he said...what does that say?!? AND I had someone comment that my post "bothered" her...good grief!!!

Anonymous said...

AMEN!

Anonymous said...

You know where I work so I 110% agree. Amen Sister

B.S. said...

Yep, I think Teddy was on to something. I personally can't imagine moving to another country, even temporarily, and not learning the language to the best of my ability. The language comes with the territory.

Hugs,
Betty

Anonymous said...

Amen, indeed. As the daughter of immigrants who made a point of learning English and becoming U.S. citizens as soon as they could, this is a particularly touchy issue for me. And where do I live now? In Florida, where Spanish is spoken ALL OVER and we even have a law that interpreters have to be provided at polling places for non-English-speaking voters! Aarrgh!!!

Anonymous said...

Absolutely....Amen!!

Memphis said...

Amen, sister!