Quote:
Originally posted by Replaced_Texan
The Pew Hispanic research center says that by the third generation, Spanish is forgotten all together. I went to school and promptly lost my Spanish, which was my first language. How many immigrant kids do you know who speak their parents' native tongue as well as they do English? This a made up problem, and the knee-jerk solution is to threaten something like the VRA which has real value.
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I am all in favor of bilingual households and holding on to one's culture and heritage of origin, including the language of your ancestors. I live in an area where there are many Spanish, Polish, Arabic, and numerous Asian and Eastern European language speakers, many of whom speak only their native tongue in the home.
Our school district has a good-sized at-risk education program, complete with a number of schools particularly for at-risk students. The program isn't for crack babies or kids who were born with fetal alcohol syndrome. It doesn't have a lot of gang members. Illietracy in general isn't a problem. The at-risk population is almost exclusively made up of kids who hit first grade, or enter the system at whatever grade, with little or no grasp of the English language.
When culture begins to threaten your childrens' ability to grow up and achieve in school, it's time to think about speaking more English.
