kid suspended for speaking spanish at school

[M.O.B.E]

Link

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Moi, je souhais toujours pouvoir commencer un fil (ou meme forum) francophone, meme si seulment ca forcerait Bouche a en apprendre un petit peu plus pour surveillir ce qui se passait la dedans . Malheureusement, il n'y a pas d'accents francais jusqu'ici, qui pourrait mener a des difficultes, et j'ai toujours des problemes a m'exprimer; neanmois, s'il y a d'autres qui auraient interet, peut-etre qu'on pourrait en faire quelque chose....

[meggo]

i am shocked. that reminds me (only tangentially) of the residential schools where the students would be punished for speaking their mother tongue.

as if people whose first language isn't english don't already feel alienated...

and:

"And there have been cases where schools want to ban foreign languages."

okay, certainly i'm biased being a language teacher (spanish, no less ) but honestly - what are these people thinking? are they so afraid that english is going to be lost? traffic signs in spanish? not to mention the disservice you're doing to anyone who has an interest in international professions, or even something so fanciful as wanting to be able to more fully experience the arts of another culture. can you imagine a world where no one knew more than one language?

pathetic.

edit: and fuck arnold schwarzenegger. (please pardon the crass)

Edited December 12, 2005 by Guest

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

My sense is that they're so wigged out that they're not totally on top of what's going on and they lash out at any instance of anything that they can't manage.

I get a kick out of all those 17th/18th c. writings that keep calling California a "wild and untamed land", even though the Spanish (not to mention all those folks that the Spanish had overtaken) had long since settled in.

[meggo]

i'm sure you're right. hopefully things will change for the better, and soon. gets my knickers right in a twist!

[M.O.B.E]

I think this one falls into the [color:blue]ONLY I[color:red]N AMERICA category.

[d_rawk]

Yeah, I remember watching CNN ... Lou Dobbs, I think ... not long ago, and they were talking about the 'spanish problem'.

Everyone talked about the language as though it were an epidemic on par with the plague. They talked about the possibility of there being 'two official languages' (!) someday in that country with great alarm. Not a single voice, call-in, or commentator ever thought to question whether it was something to be so terribly afraid of. It was just sort of taken for granted that this would be the Worst Thing Ever. (ok, 2nd worst thing to planes flying into buildings, presumably).

And it's not like it was FOX News or something ...

[ge-off]

mike moore said it in bowling for columbine, in that cartoon about how the USA became so great..

scare tactics work wonders for the "moral" of the country..

as long as the news is putting out things that the government is "concerned" about, it gives the appearance that the "government" is doing its "job"...

[ollie]

Yeah, I remember watching CNN ... Lou Dobbs, I think ... not long ago, and they were talking about the 'spanish problem'.

[stuff deleted]

And it's not like it was FOX News or something ...

Lou Dobbs might as well be on Fox. I find him pretty despicable.

[c-towns]

just because theres jalopenos in it, it doesn't make it mexican.

[c-towns]

thats a direct quote from Zajdlik meggo.

[d_rawk]

i'm sure you're right. hopefully things will change for the better, and soon. gets my knickers right in a twist!

Probably not, meggo. I don't begrudge you your Schwarzenegger lashing, but California is a pretty unique place. Most of the stuff is decided by voters initiatives, where small grassroots campaigns can get just about any ol' idea on the ballots. So when you vote, you vote on tons of things, many of them that you are completely uninformed about, and most that are practically next to impossible to repeal.

That is why California's education system is such a disaster in general. Voters initiatives tied the hands of governing officials to raise taxes ... so now the public infrastructure is starved, but nothing can be done to re-invigorate it. People see "cut taxes by x% and lock it in so that they can never be raised" and think "oh, that looks good to me (read: for me)", because they don't link their personal tax costs with the public good. Their children, and other people's children, and the society in general end up being fuckered for it.

Being a governor in California is meaningless, in a lot of ways. There's not really much you can do. Most stuff has been decided by narrow self-interest already. (the California example speaks a lot, I think, about some of the things that we have been talking about in political threads lately. And a lot about leaving the wellbeing of minorities up to the whim and fancy of the majority, which I guess is why I'm making this point here).

I remember doing a paper on the grassroots/direct-democracy precedent of California in first year, and being pretty appalled at the state of affairs there.

I looked into how this law started, and it was with Proposition 227 in 1998 (the grassroots "English for the Children" initiative). "With your help, we can end bilingual education nationwide in the near future."

(ps. can you tell that I'm procrastinating from my take-home exam?? )

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Interesting, d_rawk. CA has always struck me that way (ok, I've never actually been there, but). Leave people to act strictly out of their own self-interest, and you won't have a society worth living in.

[StoneMtn]

I once met a young lawyer from New York. We were talking about the differences in practicing law where she lived compared with where I live.

We started talking about citing cases from other jurisdictions, and how we cite British and American cases, as well as cases from other provinces. They, of course, don't cite British law at all, but she also told me that, "if you're from a state in the US other than California, and you have to cite a case from California to prove your point, you're just admitting that your case is in trouble. They have all kinds of wacky laws and cases there."

[AD]

d_rawk, isn't that system in california much like the systems in the cantons of switzerland?

ad

[d_rawk]

Not sure AD, but now I'm curious.

[meggo]

Being a governor in California is meaningless, in a lot of ways. There's not really much you can do. Most stuff has been decided by narrow self-interest already.

thanks for the clarification . i guess it's just that every time i hear about something arnold schwarzenegger has said/suggested it seems so out of touch and backwards. maybe that's the only stuff that makes the news. or maybe he really is ridiculous. or maybe i'm ridiculous.

as for stuff improving... i will hold onto my hope, however foolish . i just can't [don't want to?] believe that with the way spanish is growing in the US they'll continue trying to repress it. think of where you hear of native tongues being deliberately stifled - residential schools in canada, tibet, various indigenous populations around the world... they'll look like fascists. maybe this is just the new face of that country; maybe it's not even new and i'm being naive. maybe i use "maybes" too much and go off on rambling tangents which are frustrating to read. i am aghast. boo.

now get back to work, d!

[also - i appreciate the zeke quote ctowns, i miss that little guy!]

[Lazlo]

How dare these wetbacks crawl under the fence and assume they can bring their language and culture with them.

[Birdy]

i think if california serves to be a case of anything, it should serve as a good example to the negatives of large governments (voters initiatives!). People may be casting a vote in their own self-interest yes, but in the end, majority still rules.

i don't nearly know enough of californian law (except for the wacked three strikes and you're out policy).. i think i'll read into it.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

Granted, there are over 36,000,000 people living there, in an economy bigger than a terrific number of countries around the world, with not too much of a central organising culture except that people are supposed to act out of self-interest. Mind you, if the people in government are acting from a position of self-interest for themselves as individuals, and not as people who are supposed to be serving the public, then there are going to be terrifically unfortunate consequences.

I'm sure in part, though, my impressions of CA are grounded in having seen Chinatown as a kid.

[d_rawk]

'xactly. Plus, the initiatives exist in order to take power away from government, the state government is subject to such things as recall (how Arnold got in in the first place, mostly because people were upset that Davis wasn't doing anything ... of course, he couldn't do anything, because government is impotent in the state), and one of the benefits of (rep) democracy is that the majority doesn't rule, but that things are governed by the consent of the majority. Which is quite different, and is diluted the more that power is placed into individual hands.

[Birdy]

I'm sure in part, though, my impressions of CA are grounded in having seen Chinatown as a kid.

this is hilarious!

[Birdy]

d-rawk- again, i need to do some research here.. it's obvious you know more than i on the subject and as for DEM.. well i don't think anyone can compete with Chinatown.

i guess i'm just lost in your reference to the discussions about free will in the other political threads.. the consent of the majority on a voter's initiative still does not grant free will to an individual. it's still legislation, there's still a vote. i think before we go citing that society based on free will alone will go to shit and use the state of california as an example, it should be said that this isn't a society based completely on free will.. in a libertarian sense anyway.

Edited December 13, 2005 by Guest

[Im going home Donny]

amor del meggo l'el cuando usted dice el schwarzenegger ir la cogida misma! Usted va muchacha! Bueno sucio.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

and as for DEM.. well i don't think anyone can compete with Chinatown.

. No, you're right. There are better movies about unfettered will in advanced industrialised societies. And they even have Austrians in them too.