English as a Non-Language
So here’s a hot topic where I live right now – should stores employ people who can’t speak any English? There are an increasing number of sales assistants who only speak Spanish and its getting to be harder for non-Spanish speaking people to get jobs, even McDonalds wants bi-lingual people. It has generated a lot of letters in the press: Anglos takes the view that this is America and the national language is (American) English and if you come live here you should learn to speak it; the Mexican view is that their culture is being suppresed and they should be able to do what they please. Of course it makes sense to hire bilingual people when your customer base is at least 50/50 English/Spanish speaking but I can’t see that it makes any sense at all to put a non-English speaking person on the front line.
But lets face it, in 20 years time California will be 90% Hispanic so maybe I need to drop the French (thanks British school education!) and learn Spanish.