New Law in Progress

[Angelina77]

Well I'm really not sure I agree with the new "rule" goin round town. Someone (not mentioning any names) wants to pass a law that requires local buisnesses to add an english interpretation sign for stores etc. that advertise in another language.. What ya'll think?

[paul]

I think the law is unnecessary. Business' can decide if it's in their best interest have multiple languages. Is this law aimed at the various Asian languages or spanish?

[Angelina77]

Spanish here mostly in the Los Angeles area..

[paul]

Originally Posted by Angelina77

Spanish here mostly in the Los Angeles area..

I thought so. I'm sure like Diego, LA has a large Asian community so I wasn't sure if that was part of it.
Having said what I said previously, I know a lot of people have a problem with parts of Miami. Due to the high Cuban population, the complaint is you wont do as well if you don't speak spanish and/or have a Cuban connection.

[KoolChris]

Has the law passed? I certainly hope so. My feeling is that if you move permanently to a new country, your duty is to try to INTEGRATE, i.e. learn the language, embrace the culture, be interested in local authors, movies , books, history ...become local. You must want to BELONG, however hard it may be...
Otherwise, you're just basically colonizing the country.
So obviously, I agree with the law project. It's the least that should be done. The official language in this country is English, so storefronts, Billboard signs, and anything displayed to the public should be in English.

I remember being shocked, but unfortunately not surprised, when I learned a few years back that the mostly chinese majority in the Monterey Park (L.A. County) city council had demanded that meetings be held in mandarin or cantonese instead of english, obviously disregarding the fact that some members were not sinophones, or that they were now living in a supposedly english-speaking country.
The same abuse of hospitality could be seen in the need to institute English as the official language in Dade county, Fl. some years back as well.

[paul]

I haven't seen it here in San Diego or as a state law. Maybe LA?

[eddie]

By saying that town hall meetings would be conducted in a language other than the most common (English), we would be slighting other minority language. Some people say Spanish is the second language in certain parts of this country. What about Korean, French, Chinese, Arabic, or some other language?

The difference between immigrants of previous generations is that they assimilated easier despite having different primary languages. Yes, many were European but those people gave up allegance to Europe and quite often had to embark on the hardships of learning English.