“Yo Soy El Army”
I saw that on a vehicle while I was driving out to Millington yesterday.
It’s an official Army-licensed product.
It made me sick to my stomach.
Say what you want about me being racist or whatever, but this isn’t Mexico. This is the U.S. And anyone who joins the army should speak English. If they don’t, they don’t need to be fighting for us.
If you haven’t seen it, this is what it looks like.
I’m not interested in any commentary here that’s centered around me being more open-minded about this sort of thing. And I’m also not interested in any sort of admonishments that “it’s just in Spanish to make them feel welcome…you have to speak English to be in the military, anyway”. I know that. But WHY are we catering to them? If you move to the U.S., you should be prepared to take on the TRADITIONAL nature of the country to which you move, and that includes the language. I wouldn’t move to France unless I knew some French. I wouldn’t move to Spain unless I knew some Spanish. I wouldn’t even move to England without learning the slang, for fear of being misunderstood. It’s called RESPECT for your hosts.
But here in the U.S.? Apparently we’re just going to bend over and acquiesce to whatever we can to keep from being looked upon as, oh, I dunno, hardasses or something. Y’all, it’s not hard-assed to insist that people who wish to live in your country learn the language. THAT’S WHAT YOU DO.
This is on par with the Scottish police apologizing to the Muslim community for that postcard with the dog on it. The more you give, the more they take. And no, I don’t care that I’m using terminology on par with “us vs. them”. It’s bullshit.
It’s one thing to learn another language in order to be able to communicate with other countries for trade and whatnot. It’s quite another to be forced to learn another language in order to communicate with folks who live down the street. Sorry, I’m not doing that. Kiss my ass.
You want to fight for us? You want to be considered an American? You learn and use English everywhere outside the home for all transactions. You don’t “presione” two for Spanish.
You press one.
Yup I couldn’t agree more. My grandpa came here from during WWII, learned english, and enlisted.
Of course back when he and my grandma came here it was unthinkable that you’d come to the U.S. and not learn the language.
Hear, hear ! I was in the Army with many latinos, and ALL of them spoke English. I picked up a bit of Spanish from them, but in no sense did I feel it was necessary to communicate.
‘Yo soy el Army’?? Whiskey. Tango. Foxtrot. Over?
The army needs soldiers. If they can get a few more with Spanish-language stickers, that’s fine, and less frightening than some of the criminal records that are now allowed into the army.
I don’t know about now, but we used to offer citizenship for foreign citizens who served in our military during wartime.
I’d expect to hear an uproar over “targeting poor minorities to fuel America’s imperialism” or somesuch.
(Clarification–I’d expect that from liberals, not from you…)
If you haven’t seen Avenue Q, or heard the soundtrack, the song “Everybody’s a little bit racist” covers this pretty well.
I know that a lot of people in tourist places in the Caribbean know English, because it gets them money. My dive instructor has been doing trips to different islands in the Caribbean for over twenty years, and doesn’t speak a lick of Spanish. But when you’re going to live somewhere, you should really learn the language. Otherwise you could get stuck in a situation where everybody’s insulting you and you wouldn’t have a clue.
I guess I look at it not just as respectful, but a necessary part of self-preservation. There’s a lot of words in other languages that sound a lot like ours, but mean something ENTIRELY different.
There are a lot of accommodations that are being made that are kind of ridiculous, from “Press 1 for English, 2 for Spanish” to trying to bend to every cultural variance. There’s a point where you are losing your own identity to avoid offending others. How soon is it before restaurants stop serving pork because it offends some people?
Phillip - “Look around and you will find, no one’s really colorblind. Maybe it’s a fact we all should face: everyone makes judgments based on race.” Yeah, I know that musical by heart.
It’s funny, that campaign would seem to go against the Army policy which states all official communications must be in English.
Seeing that’s an official Army product, I’d say they were in violation.
Well, according to the Mexican Gov’t, the majority of our army is made up of hispanic conscripts that are being used as cannon fodder in the Gulf.
Might as well take advantage of that.
Heh. According to the Mexican government, the high crime rate in Mexico is due to the smuggling of guns southward from the United States. You gonna believe that, too?