> But why don’t they embrace Mount Pleasant? “Don’t get me wrong,” says Heaton, who’ll retire from the legislature in 2019. “The only thing that upsets me is if they’re coming, they need to blend. I don’t need ‘barrios.’ I don’t need these certain sectors where everything is still the way it was where they came from. If you’re going to meld, then meld.”
While it's a good thing that he wants the population to assimulate, it's disturbing that he considers the lack of English to be a problem.
Many countries require you show proficiency in the country’s native language to acquire citizenship.
The desire to assimilate as well as having the ability to communicate with your fellow citizens should be mandatory for those who a pursing naturalization.
Of course, but they're talking in the language that they prefer to use. Why should they speak in English with other Spanish speakers when they're more comfortable in Spanish? Now it'd be a problem if they tried to speak to a random cashier in a grocery store in Spanish.
Over the holiday, I went through some old family stuff. There is a certificate attesting to great-grandparents' marriage from a church in Indiana ca. 1881. The document is entirely in German. Both parties had been in the US for several years by then. Now, their children grew up speaking English (and Platt-Deutsch), and any of their grandkids who knew German learned it in school.
Interesting from a historical perspective, but an anecdote doesn’t make for good input when setting public policy, especially with it being almost over 140 years ago.
>> Many countries require you show proficiency in the country’s native language to acquire citizenship. The desire to assimilate as well as having the ability to communicate with your fellow citizens should be mandatory for those who a pursing naturalization.
My point was that the use of Spanish/German/Chinese/whatever in conversation with other native speakers of that language does not per se indicate unwillingness to acquire English or communicate in it, or reluctance to assimilate. I did not intend to say anything about public policy.
>> Many countries require you show proficiency in the country’s native language to acquire citizenship. The desire to assimilate as well as having the ability to communicate with your fellow citizens should be mandatory for those who a pursing naturalization.
My point was that the use of Spanish/German/Chinese/whatever in conversation with other native speakers of that language does not per se indicate unwillingness to acquire English or communicate in it, or reluctance to assimilate. I did not intend to say anything about public policy, and really I don't see that I did.
While it's a good thing that he wants the population to assimulate, it's disturbing that he considers the lack of English to be a problem.