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But forcing me to learn how to speak properly is KILLING MY CULTURE, MAN.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
I fucking hate that. It usually comes from the same people who like to pretend that being a violent, misogynistic gangbanger is some sort of legitimate subculture.
For the record, I support bilingual education for immigrants. There's no sense in shortchanging a child's learning in other fields just to bang English into their heads. It's entirely possible to teach someone to speak English at the same time they're learning math and science in Spanish, Russian, Tagalog or whatever. And whatever someone wants to speak at home is fine with me. I also don't have a problem with immigrants or tourists speaking in their native language in public. No one is entitled to eavesdrop on someone else's conversation.
However, those things are not the same as someone who deliberately misuses English when their family has been in an English-speaking country for six generations. Accents? Regional or subcultural colloquialisms? Whatever. But bad grammar and spelling ARE NOT A CULTURAL THING. They are a symptom of several problems: poverty, poor education or a cultural lack of respect for education.
I understand that the school system is part of a larger "The Man" morass that a lot of oppressed subcultures fear and mistrust, but it's not going to do them any good to encourage that fear and mistrust. Legitimizing crappy language skills by slapping a Culturally Protected label on them is only fucking over people who really don't need to be fucked over any further.
This isn't about assimilation--there are plenty of legitimate cultural and subcultural distinctions. Improper use of the language is not one of them.
Ugh. This sort of cultural relativism is why I could never go into anthropology. And why I'm working my ass off to correct the problem of "all opinions are equal" in the media. Education, empiricism and expertise have to count for something, or we are well and truly fucked as a species.
