The Doggy Diaries... gone to the dogs!

Press 1 for English

(Credit for the title of this post goes to one of my local talk show hosts, Jeff Katz.)

So tell me, why must I "press 1 for English?" I called one of my credit card companies on the telephone today and was greeted by an automated answering protocol saying "Press 1 for English. Blah blah blah dos blah blah blah Espanol." (I don't speak Spanish, so I can only make out two of the Spanish words spoken by the automated system.) Wait, wait, wait. This is America. I am an American. I live in America. English is the American language of commerce. English is the American language of the law. English is the American language of success. English is the American language of doing business. So why is my credit card company, and any other company that subscribes to the "press 1 for English" mentality, so willing to ignore that fact? It makes no sense to me why we continue to pander to people who immigrate to this country and then either flat out refuse to learn English or make little to no effort to learn English.

Why do we no longer expect immigrants to learn English? I have written a couple of other posts on this very topic (What Has Happened to the English Language? and What Has Happened to the English Language? [revisited]), but two pieces in the news today bring to light the fact that we have gone over the top in our utter submissiveness to waves and waves of Spanish-speaking immigrants who do not learn English.

The first story talks about the fact that new recruits and new hires to the police department in my city are now compelled to learn Spanish because of a new, mandatory department policy. The report from ABC 7 News gives a brief description of the training program.

Officers in training at the San Jose Police Academy are learning not only how to shoot, but how to speak Spanish as part of their jobs.
They're studying the basics -- numbers, the alphabet and key phrases they'll need in the field.

The report then goes on to note that officers are being taught a number of key phrases.

"Are you injured? Do you need a doctor? Do you need to go to the hospital? What happened? Could you describe the vehicle?"

Oh, it just sounds so benign, doesn't it? As if the officers are only being required to learn a few basic Spanish words and phrases to help them in their jobs. But think about this. Let's say an officer is called to the scene of a vehicle accident, and the people involved only speak Spanish. The officer goes through the basic laundry-list of questions he was taught to say in Spanish. Are we all together so far? Good. So tell me this ... how in the world is the officer going to understand a lick of what these non-English speaking people are telling him in response to his questions? If the officers are truly "studying the basics" as the author of the article states, then they are surely not going to be able to understand any "non-basic" responses given by the people being questioned.

I don't believe for one moment that the Spanish lessons are going to stop with learning basic letters, numbers and key phrases. No doubt within the next several months, or maybe within the next year or so, we'll be told that the San Jose Police Department doesn't understand enough Spanish to do their jobs, so they are going to be sent to Berlitz language courses for more advanced Spanish instruction or some other such nonsense.

This absolutely chaps my hide. We are now expecting our peace officers to deal with Spanish-speaking immigrants in the immigrants' language instead of expecting the immigrants to learn our language and become a part of this country. (Who else but immigrants would not speak English? Those born in this country learn English in taxpayer-funded public schools and would be able to converse with a police officer in English.)

Ironically, another unrelated article from CBS 5 News lends further support to the fact that Spanish-speaking immigrants need not learn English to get along in America because our business and service organizations are bending over backward to offer products and services directed to them in Spanish. The report from CBS 5 is about one of our local Humane Societies.

The Peninsula Humane Society & SPCA is reaching out to the Spanish speaking community by offering a six-week obedience class for Spanish speakers and their dogs this July.

Not only are the Spanish-language obedience classes low-cost, but all instruction, including the commands given to the dogs, will be in Spanish! What utter gaul these people have. It's not enough that the humans do not learn English, but now their dogs will be taught Spanish, too. So instead of learning "sit," little Fido will learn the Spanish word for "sit." And instead of "stay," Fido will learn the Spanish word for "stay." Damn, I sure as hell hope my tax dollars aren't going to support this program.

Besides, why are these people spending their time schooling their dogs? They need schooling more than their dogs do; people who do not speak English should be in English language classes, not in Spanish language canine obedience classes. It would be a better use of their time to learn English than to teach their dogs Spanish. This is not easy for me to say, either, because as you can tell from the theme of this blog, I'm a big-time dog person. What is not so evident from the blog is the fact that I am a major advocate of canine obedience, and I believe it is unresponsible of a person to have a dog that does not respond to basic commands. So for me to say that someone should do something else instead of taking their dog to obedience class is a big step for me. But that's how silly I think this Spanish language dog obedience program is.

I hate to sound morose, but I believe these news stories are just more proof that Americans are doomed to lose their country. To maintain a country, the people of that country must share a common culture, a common language, and be willing to defend and secure their borders. In this country today, we have none of that. We have allowed immigrants to come to this country and never become part of the American culture, so we therefore have lost our common culture. We all know that our politicians and the last several Presidential administrations have ignored our immigration laws and now stubbornly refuse to enforce them. Now, our language is gone.

I may be one of the last of my kind, but I will never learn to speak Spanish. And although I may become limited in the retailers I patronize, I will not knowingly do business with a company that I know panders to anyone who does not speak English. (Ahem ... that means you, Home Depot, with your Spanish-language signage all over the store, your bedroom antics with the National Council of La Raza and your support of illegal alien day workers.) I may pay more money to do business with those companies who still deal with their clientelle in English instead of Spanish or any other foreign langauge, but to me, the extra money is well worth the principle.