I'm currently watching Sports center & there doing a story about today's baseball game with the Rays being played in Cuba with Obama in attendance. the first sitting president to do this since 1928. But that's not my beef. During the show they've interviewed many past & present Cuban players & the word I keep hearing is INTERPRETER, which leads to my vent. You spend half to three quarters of a year doing your job in AMERICA, you earn millions & millions of dollars doing that job in AMERICA, You enjoy & live a very comfortable life in AMERICA. Now with all that you would think that you could at least learn the English language. I'm not saying that you need to sound like a road scholar, but just enough to where you don't need to have everything explained to you through a INTERPRETER. If I'm taking a job in Japan or Puerto Rico & plan on living there & earning my living there for most of the year, I'm going to learn the language. It really pisses me off when I hear an athlete whose been playing the game for 5-10 years or longer & STILL using an INTERPRETER to have things explained to them. Okay, that's it, I just needed to vent. I now return you to your regularly scheduled program.
...I recall having a similar conversation with yb on the rspn board a few years ago about Cano. He said was a definite candidate to replace Jeter as Captain when Jeter retired. I asked how he could be considered as a Captain when he wouldn't be able to communicate well with many of the players because he hadn't bothered to learn hardly any English even though he had already spent many months and years in the US. ...I said that Cano could have easily taken classes or maybe used something like Rosetta Stone to spent more fluently in English. ...yb said I was a racist for saying that...I shit you not.......I laughed.
That's why I admire someone like ex NBAer Yao Ming who spoke out about leaning the language where he's making his living & even made light of it through a few very humorous TV commercials he made. I mean hell, its to your own benefit to learn the language WHEREVER you're making your living.
In Caly 96, we voted to eliminate several languages printed, on every State Form, ie DMV handbooks, Voting ballots, etc. It was costing the state some exorbitant amount of $$$. (same year Cannabis became legal medically, same year we voted to not allow Felons to sue in the act of creating a Felony or Misdemeanor.... The Bill to turn all State Docs., into English ONLY, failed by a 68% for, .... now, we got 24 different languages on all state forms, go figure... 1- 59, This made me recall this: the infamous Andrew Breitbart on calling one a racist, at the :50 mark-
RIP Andrew.... The English thing is a huge issue that ties back to diversity politics and the tolerance agenda. Prior to 1960, every 2nd generation American was fluent in English and least likely to be bilingual. This was because the parents learned English as a second language and wanted their children to assimilate. Immigrants were more likely to be shunned until they melted into the pot. This is why language/culture themed neighborhoods originally existed, as a mutual learning center. Once the liberals highjacked our culture they removed the levers of assimilation and these neighborhoods grew in size to become racial/cultural exclusion zones. Activities designed to bring us together faster had the opposite effect. This is often the case of social engineering because the left never properly weights the variable of time. It takes generations for cultures to evolve. And we've been on the cultural express elevator to hell for over 50 years. We need to build back pauses in the process....immigration reform with a cornerstone of English as the only official language as a prerequisite to stay in the US. If it means making examples of high profile athletes, then so be it.
I remember once getting close to throwing down with and individual over the language issue. Should be placed into law that English is the official language of this country. I learned Spanish while in High School, aced Japanese when there, did a good bit of Korean, and some German, Vietnamese had an attitude. I figure that if I, an occidental can learn an Oriental Language, those not native to this Country can learn English as well.
Still scratch my head when I'm reminded the country has no official language It's almost as perplexing whenever I hear all the do-gooders invoke and apply Constitutionial "rights" to possible, potential immigrants who are foreign nationals. I can see it now, half the population of Somalia (or Japan, or Sweden, whomever, lol ) filing a class action suit allowing them to emigrate into America.
