all of you should watch your tongue's .

 

By 2050, going by census data, the country will be 40% Hispanic. The question is, is it going to be 30% illegal aliens?

 

Yes let's be respective……

 

I haven't noticed much in the way of disrespect. Mayhaps I overlooked someone's post. If one finds it disrespectful that I claim Native American status, I don't know what to say. Being born and raised in a country makes one a Native of that country. That's not even arguable.

Perhaps an illegal alien should respond to this post and we can get a FIRST HAND opinion.

And... if you are offended by these postings, then please, rather than insult or make an angry remark.. please, please, please ... give us some facts that prove us all wrong.

 

The biggest problem I have with the illegal immigrant is they have made it very difficult for those that are legal, which is my case. I have lived and worked 5 years here in the US on a work VISA (had it before I even move here) and am in the process of getting my green card. You would be amazed at the fee's and the forms that are required to get this. My wife (an American citizen) has to deal with more paperwork and issues than I do so I can get a green card.

My biggest issue is if I came here on a boat and claimed refuge status the government will pay all cost, put them on welfare, and deal with all the paper work. I have paid taxes and fees like everyone else living here legally and I cannot collect on any government benifit for another 3 years after I get my green card, which takes about a year to get. That will make it 9 years of me paying in before I could collect anything like SS, unemployement, ect.

I'm not trying to sound bitter as I understand the paperwork and fees, but it does bother me a bit that when you do everything legally you are in worst shape than those that are doing it illegally.

 

i'll be nice....

1) a native american and an american are two different things. a native american can be an american but an american does not have to be a native american. i differentiate becuz i am an american and i am part native american.

2) i dont live in a city named over 100 years ago when the area was under spanish control. san antonio is like los angeles in that respect but my town was taken over by illegals and we have spanish on our road signs, in our city buildings and police station etc, all becuz the poor illegals, they should come to the law for help even though they're illegal. *rolling eyes*

3) you come to my house, you speak my language. america is our house and our language is american english and has been since we fought for our independence from every other country that influences our version of english. simple. i don't go running around to other countries expecting to live there bla bla if i dont know the language becuz that's disrespectful. visit is one thing, live is another. especially when illegals and legals alike both refuse to speak american in public. that's rude.

you come over illegally through the desert or some such idiodic idea, you get what you deserve when you die of thirst and heat stroke etc. i have friends over legally that even have younger siblings who are american born. that's great. they made a life and did it legally and are better for it i'm sure. my good friend chano speaks the best english he can but when he doesn't know something, he says it in spanish and tries to explain and then i tell him in english if/when i figure it out and he bothers to try to learn all these things. i respect that. i don't respect someone who wants a free ride.

i've seen chinese on instructions before and that's becoming more and more prevalent mostly becuz the crap we're buying is being sent to other countries as well and it's cheaper to run one copy and box it all together then to run seperate copies for seperate countrys and risk sending the product w/o the correct language overseas. that's a biz move (that i better understand having just gotten a job in distributing.)

so the yankees are finally complaining now?? you think having to read chip bags in spanish is bad? get over it. move down here for a little while.. and while you think southern accents are too bad to understand, respect that we're speaking english instead of texmex or spanglish.

 

Mujibar was trying to get into the USA legally through Immigration.

The Immigration Officer said, "Mujibar, you have passed most of the
tests,
but there is one more test. Unless you pass it you cannot enter the
United
States of America.

Mujibar said, "I am ready."

The officer said, "Make a sentence using the words Yellow, Pink and
Green."

Mujibar thought for a few minutes and said, "Mister Officer, I am
ready."

The Officer said, "Go ahead."

Mujibar said, "The telephone goes green, green, green, and I pink it up,
and
say, 'Yellow, this is Mujibar."

Mujibar now lives in a neighborhood near you and works at a Verizon help

desk.

 

Bdox, that is so true. I got a call suposedly from my bank the other day wanting to verify my account. Well, naturally being suspicious of the call, I refused to answer any questions. Actually, I could not understand the caller. When I told her to have my rep call me, she sorta blew a fuse. I did not understand a word she said after that. I still have not heard from my rep.

 

Not to nit pick, but I am also part Indian. I'm hoping that the implcation is NOT that white, black, yellow, etc, Americans are Native of NOWHERE. I fully understand the "politically correct" statement of Native American as directed towards Indian tribes. But I think to be even MORE politically correct, they should be called The Indigenous Peoples of America. Every one of us born and raised here, are Native to this country. Unfortunately, even the illegal alien's babies are legally US citizens, when born here.

I'm wondering now.... guess I'll have to start another thread so as not to hijack this one any more than I seem to already have.

 

That's OK fordlover. We all came out of Africa in the beginning.

 

Like I said, I was being facetious with my statement to try and get peoples' dander up, and I'm going to continue too.

I speak North Americanized English with what could be called a "northwestern" accent, with rather hard (crisp?) consonant pronunciation; I think there's a rather large germanic influence to my accent. Accents in the Pac. Northwest are considered by-and-large to be a very neutral sounding English, much like mid-western speak. Clear pronunciation and little drawl or odd inflection lends itself to being very much like the English that our European fore-fathers may have spoken, and it's my experience that British and other English-speaking Europeans have a much easier time understanding midwesterners and Pac. Northwesterners. And we all know that the American founders were western Europeans.

So I would think it logical to say that really, the neutral North American accent is the most original accent in the country. As such, if you come to my house with a very southern drawl, or any other unintelligible manner of speech (be it due to the entire language or differing English dialect), you are really being disrespectful. You CAN shed your southern accent and learn to speak a more American dialect, and if you're going to live in America, and speak to the rest of us Americans, I think it's something to look in to.

(But maybe it's really not that big a deal........... )

 

go_racing84 Here in Oregon, we feel about the rest of the US the same way the rest of the US seems to feel about illegal immigrants. We get Californians doing 64 in the fast lane, southerners with accents you can't understand, all these people moving here and taking up land... we were here first. It's a big problem.



Things really are different in the Pacific Northwest- in more ways than one. I've posted this before, but recent aggressive enforcement of immigration regs have put the INS in direct odds with a number of local communities- some small, one the largest city in the state. We're an agricultural state, once you leave the metro areas. Strawberry farmers and orchard growers lost millions this last year because of the lack of field workers. Care to guess why?

These issues aren't always as clear cut as they would seem on the surface. A lot of it depends on where you live.

 

I think forcing me as an American who speaks English (which is the national language of the United States at last check) being forced to purchase items from store shelves made by US companies that are now using English as a second language on the labelling is wrong, period. I think this is a matter a principal and I feel this way regardless of whether I know enogh of the other language to read the packaging. The point here is very simple, when you come to a country to make it your permanent home respect the citizens of that country enough to learn the language. Remember that if you find yourself in a vehicle accident with someone who has lived here for 10 years and can't communicate with you, or the next time you try and order a hamburger from someone in the US being paid US dollars to take your order who does not speak English I'll stop here before I make a moderator mad.

 

Your bank is likely outsourcing their telephone support overseas, likely to India. I've been noticing this trend for quite some time. Used to be just tech support but now I occasionally get someone I can tell is overseas calling other companies now too. When you think about it there is one advantage - India's day is our night. When our phone support people go home the busines can keep a 24 hour support by switching the calls to India, during their day time.

 

(Facetious mode off.) Being from Roseburg, it really is hard to grasp the racial issues that go on in other areas. Roseburg and Douglas County are about as white as white gets, and though we have a remarkably even-sided voting demographic (not 50/50, but nearly as many liberals as conservatives), we are still very predominately white.

My grandmother and a couple of cousins live in Woodburn where, well, I've heard Woodburn called New New Mexico, if that's any indication of the basic ethnicity. The first time I went there and could barely understand the guy pumping my gas at the Arco... a little bit of culture shock. And maybe if I grew up there I'd feel differently. I don't know.

I do know that maybe I'm a little more idealistic due to my youth. I don't know about you guys, but I am EAGER to move out of my home area (which I have inhabited for all the lovely 21.15 years I've called this big blue orb my home) and away from the land of Pure White Snow, so to speak. Honestly, if a half of my town of 4500 people moved away and Mexicans, or Swedes, or -gasp- New Jersey-ites moved in, I wouldn't be that perturbed.

I DO understand that this thread is about illegal aliens, and that changes things a little. I also understand that it's very hard not to be racist when a majority of crimes seem to be caused by a certain ethnicity. However, associating things like instructions not being in English, or poor spoken English with people somehow being inferior or bad... that seems really rather prejudiced to me. And that's just my opinion from over here in Whitesylvania (which is neither derogatory or positive, just my observation.)

I will add as well that I'm an English major who has a penchant (that's how you can tell I'm an English major, I drop the word penchant once in a while ) for Victorian era English literature and Industrial Revolution-era American literature. English as a language is evolving and always has been. It's my observation that like most systems in the world, when two languages are thrust together when no war is going on (i.e. we aren't getting our heads lopped off for speaking Spanish), those several languages start to level out into a third language. So much has changed in American English just since the Industrial Revolution, with the introduction of huge amounts of Irish, German, and even Chinese in to our common language. Yes, we think of English as our heritage language, but remember: if you went back in time 200 years, your English would be VERY different from theirs. In 200 years, their English will be VERY different from ours. That -to me- exemplifies the "melting pot" greatness of America.

So that's where I stand, on, um, whatever I just wrote. :-)