I am getting really tired of all the criticism that is out there regarding immigration. Here in Oklahoma, we have recently passed the strictest anti-immigration laws in U.S. history. OK, there actually illegal immigration laws, but nobody cares about that. They (the majority) assume that because a person is Hispanic, they must be illegal. Get over yourselves people! Not everybody breaks the law.
My husband traveled to the U.S. from Peru in early 2004 with a traveler's visa. We married within a year and applied for U.S. Resident status shortly after. Before we met, he was taking ESL classes. While we dated he was taking ESL classes. Throughout the majority of our marriage, including currently, he has taken ESL classes. So for the four years he has lived here, he has been progressively studying English and communicating with me and my family strictly in English. He still hasn't mastered the language and probably won't for many more years. He has suffered during interviews and jobs and had to temporarily quit school because of this. He gets mocked at, jokingly of course, by people at work. He has been discriminated at on numerous occasions by employers/employees, school administrators/instructors, and various people in the community. He perceives himself as being looked at wearily when he enters the elementary school daily to pick up the kids, as if he shouldn't be there. (Our school district has a 2% Hispanic rate of students.) He's frustrated.
I'm frustrated-and fed up with it. People who gripe about the various language options, people who think English should be the only language-official language, people who have no patience for those struggling to learn the language--think about this. If you lived in a foreign land and wanted to buy a home, wouldn't it be nice to have the option to speak English with the banker regarding the details of your mortgage loan. Wouldn't it be critical to speak English through the phone when you had a discerning question regarding your credit card bill instead of having to translate in your mind, hoping the issue was being resolved, but getting frustrated that the other person on the other line was not being patient with you and not understanding the severity of your problem, and not knowing how to communicate this in a more effective manner? 'I would learn the language first,' you may think to yourself. OK. So your spouse's job relocating you to a foreign country should give you enough time to study first? Your children going oversees to college should put it off long enough to become bilingual? You're desire to live near your family shouldn't exist until you learn the foreign language? You're desire to live somewhere better should wait? How long? How many years? Do you really think you can master a new language first?
Give these people a fair chance. What's the problem with pressing a button to hear the options in English? Is this not a country with freedom and choices, based and thriving from immigration? Quit being so judgemental! Get over your egotism and have some compassion for your fellow Americans, including the ones in the process. They don't all live off the government. They don't all live in the poor house. They aren't all uneducated. They have dignity. They have pride. They have education and families and lives just like the rest of us. They deserve a fair glance from their passing pedestrian, just as you do.
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