Went to Social Security office in Texas and didn't hear English spoken for 30 minutes

As a Spanish American I understand the gripe people have with government workers only speaking Spanish while handling public business, but I absolutely hate people who take it upon themselves to tell citizens speaking publicly among themselves that they have to speak English. It takes a special kind of asshole to do that, but there is always some who feel like it's their responsibility.

it's funny that the existence of a mosque could be seen as a sign that everything america stands for is ending, when america has always stood for religious freedom.

btw, us Spaniards have been speaking Spanish in america longer than anyone spoke English here :-)

Since we are on the subject and since there is probably no chance of me ever creating my own thread about this...

I am dying to know...

How is it that the Chinese, 'Persians' and Armenians somehow fly under the radar when it comes to all of this?

I can assure you all that the reason that the 'Chinese Ghost Cities' go uninhabited is because all the Chinese expats are living here.

It is interesting to me that while we are all here debating Spanish and how it is affecting English, it is obvious that something good is happening because we find Spanish words working their way in to common English usage.

How many Chinese and Farsi words do you know?

Yeah, I thought so.

Is it because our new Americans from South and Central America seem to place a larger financial strain on 'our' country?

Should we not embrace that. I can personally attest to my Irish ancestors being a huge strain on the American economy.

Meanwhile, I work in the medical field; I can't tell you how many times I have seen Persian folks drive up to have their Mercedes valet parked so they can go in for their compensated medical treatment, at the finest facilities on the West Side.

Or how about the flyers up all over my campus that have the basics in English and the rest written over in Chinese, in red pen?

I don't know, it seems sometimes we would gain more ground by focusing on what seems to be an almost biological basis for the self-segregation that we see all around us every day.

Oh, and we all know that the South and central Americans did not invent Spanish, right?
Vernacular Mexican Spanish still has Quechua in it.

?

reply to post by Cornczech


I escaped from El Paso 3 yeaars ago. At that time you had to make an appointment at the main Social Security office to ensure an English speaking SS employee was available.
If you go to the Main US Post Office over on Alemeda Street a day or two after welfare checks are posted you will see people leaving the post office with US Government 'flats' full of checks, get into Mexican plated vehicles and drive to the bridge to cross into Mexico. I complained to the post office and nothig was done...
The Texas drivers licnse office up close to Trans-mountain. I went in there one day and heard the security guard telling Mexicans to go to the Social Security Office, apply for SS, even though they would be denied, and to bring the paperwork back to the drivers licnse office and use it for proof of residency. I went home, wrote several letters to the Texas Department of Transportation and finally got the people involved fired.
THe SPRINT store on Mesa...went in there one day to pay my bill. Over the counter was a sign stating, "we accept Matricula Consular" and ID furnished by the MX government to MX citizens for any name, DOB or information. When I went to pay, I presented my US Government Military ID card...and was told I could not use it as ID! I returned home, called a senior SPRINT person I knew who arranged for a chat with a vice-president. Two days later I returned to the office on Mesa. THe manager, clerk and sign were gone, and my military ID was welcome.
The Home Depot on Mesa. To this day I will not shop nor recommend any Home Depot store. On Mesa, you would be ignored for MX customers.
The Walmart on Mesa. When I returned from Afghanistan, we had three carts ($300.00+) and a wheel chair. The people in front of us had beer and soda under their cart. When they departed, I pointed out and told the cashier what had happened. She did nothing. The 'security/greeters' did nothing. By the time I got to my truck I was furious. So I went back and talked to the manager...he did nothing. So I went back home, contacted Walmart and enclosed a copy of my $300.00+ date time stamped receipt, explaining everything that had transpired. I received a very prompt and concerned thank you. Less than two weeks later there were police/guards at every door and they did a top to bottom shake up of the Mesa Street Walmart.
And then there is the congressman for that area. He is known as "50 Cent" as when he was early in his Border Patrol career back in the 1970's, he would watch for law enforcement and other Border Patrol over near Bowie High School. When it was safe for the illegals to cross the street and get into Bowie (a safe haven for illegals), he would honk his horn. For this he received '50 cents per illegal. He does not like the nick name. He is the best congressman Mexico can buy.
And one last thing. I ws part of law enforcement. It was a very unusual day when we did not get 10 to 20 hits on illegals using US citizens SS numbers and identity. We repeatedly contacted the SS office...but guess what. Nothing was ever done. So the moral to this story is check your credit report and check if anyone is using your ID.
I realize this is a rambling note, but if everyone in El Paso stood up for their rights and not Mexico's, it would be a great place to live again.

reply to post by mahatche


HHHHMMMMMM, did not realize the border spanglish was considered Spanish. Spaniards do not think so...

Originally posted by gambon


the Americas is more than the USA , it is a continent!so saying a native american is someone born in the USA is just plain wrong they could be born in mexico and be American or anywhere on the continent.An american is someone born in the Americas.

A citizen of the USA is born(or adopted by) in the USA

The term is used to describe, for the most part, people with tribal ancestry that live in the United States of America. The term was coined to make people feel guilty for being here, since, supposedly, they were here first. Of course, even that isn't accurate, as Kennewick man and many other similar remains prove.

Someone born in Mexico is a native of Mexico.

Originally posted by buster2010

Originally posted by LadyGreenEyes

Originally posted by Djayed
reply to post by xedocodex

 

I agree, with this type of logic on this thread we are the ones who should get kicked out and let the Native Americans have their country back. But most Americans like to ignore the genocide and torture of millions of Native Americans when we came and took over their country.

On a side note, I always wondered what "America" or whatever it would be called would be like if the Native Americans were able to thrive as a cultural and become a nation instead of individual tribes.

What country? They didn't "become a nation", as you even pointed out. They were scattered tribes, with many languages, that fought each other as often as not. They are not "Native Americans". A native American is someone born in the United States of America. Call them Amarinds or something, if Indian won't do(and yeah, these days, that can be confusing). But can we please toss out that utterly racist and elitist term "Native American"?

I really don't understand how anyone that ever studied the early history of this continent can pretend that all these many tribes were the same people. Such a claim is out of touch with reality.

Have you studied any history of this nation yourself? The only reason why they are called Indians is because that idiot Columbus thought he made it to India. And the early settlers were just too lazy to learn the different tribes so the name stuck which is viewed as racist. I'll skip your obvious lack of knowledge about genetics of how all the different tribes can be one race.

One, I already addressed the term "Indian". You even quoted that portion of my post. So don't act like you didn't read it. I suggested Amarind, or some other term, that doesn't try and place them above other citizens of this nation. Two, I stated they were not a united NATION. I didn't say anything about race. Reading comprehension an issue?

It's amazing how we just don't learn. Every time we have a new wave of immigrants we always claim they're going to destry and supplant our country. We've seen it with the Irish. We've seen it with the Italians. We've seen it with Eastern Europeans. we've seen it with the Chinese. Now we're seeing it with Hispanics. Every time those fresh off the boat have trouble integrating with our culture. Now this isn't an absolute statement some adapt admirably. However, generally we don't see an integration until the first generation is born here. Take my great grandmother for example. She emigrated from Croatia to Cleveland. Even up to her death she at best spoke extremely broken English. The same was true of all of her friends. Now it's rare to find people who can fluently speak the language of the Old Country even though there's still a strong Eastern Eruopean population in the area. So why do people think anything different will happen in areas with a large Hispanic population?

reply to post by Xoanon



I know I didn't include them because, they all speak english in my area (or should I say american?). Where I live, the majority of immigrants are Hmong, Chinese and Indian. They learn their parents native language first, then they are taught English. I should say, the parents and grandparents are immigrants, not the children (adult children as well). It can sometimes be hard to understand them, especially the Hmong people, but they make the effort to integrate. I live in Wisconsin, so I know it isn't the same everywhere in America.

Their native cultures are fascinating, and in the case of Hmongs, I grew up learning about them because of their large population in the area I grew up in. In fact, when I was a kid everyone in my apartment building was Hmong except my family. So I got a lot of exposure. However they've always made an effort to be part of the American culture and learn the language to be understood. While I think the hispanic culture is also fascinating, I've never in my life, in Wisconsin, seen as many people of one race segregate themselves and refuse to join in on American cultural norms, and especially refuse to learn the language of their new country.(I'm aware America doesn't have an official language, seems to me it was always assumed to be our bastardized english and redundant to make it a law.) Now, I'm just going from my experiences in my state from my own travels around the state in my lifetime. Your mileage may vary.

Originally posted by daveinats
reply to post by mahatche

 

HHHHMMMMMM, did not realize the border spanglish was considered Spanish. Spaniards do not think so...

where did i say anything about border spanglish?

You want them to speak english because thats what the majority in america speaks.

Dont you realize they are using that exact same logic? In that area the majority must speak spanish or they wouldn't waste their time. SAME EXACT LOGIC as you.

Me

And the children of those parents did not get to enjoy this land of bounty that their parents worked so hard to build for 10 minutes before the gates were seemingly opened and hoards of 'foreigners' with no apparent real interest in becoming American flooded in and started treating our country like a smorgasbord.

Yep, I quoted myself. I'm that bad.

Listen, really, look at it like this...

Let's take the example of Disneyland. This will probably be especially meaningful for Californians of a certain age.

So, there we all were, it's the 1990s, our parents, the children of WWII veterans, had just pumped the economy up to historic strength and power.

They had all been taken to Disneyland and watched it grow, and then they took all of us to Disneyland, and we watched it grow too. And we all had big plans in our hearts to take our own children to Disneyland someday and share the tradition.

And we were sleeping really, and dreaming, but that's OK right, thread...

Because that is how # gets done, people fall in to a place where everything becomes dependable, and why should it not have been; we had proven that we were the greatest country on earth, and that was a dream too. But how can you not forgive the dreamers? It is what we do, we gang up and all dream the same dream and out of that we build cultures. There is no blame in that.

If there is blame to be laid anywhere, well, can it be pointed out that any party or parties may have intentionally exploited this quality in human beings to further their own agendas? if so, we should place the blame there.

Would it have been better if in the 70s we were prepared for this somehow? How could that have been orchestrated?

Anyway, so we were dreaming, and we were dreaming that we would take our children to Disneyland, to have the same experiences that we did as kids.

And when we got there....

There were 500 times as many people, crawling all over the park. And none of them knew the ropes or cared to learn the ropes. And when we would reach out to them smiling, with a rope, we got the finger.

That sucks.

People are fuming over it and it's not going to go away.

It just creates more resentment and it saddens me.

Originally posted by Cornczech
Hello Ya'll!

I am sure this post may SEEM "racist"...but...
I went to the social security office today to FINALLY change the last name on my social security card..(yes..it took me over 15 years to change my last name after my divorce to Mr. H)

So...I get a number...A48...I wait for 30 minutes and my number is never called.....I hear Spanish over the intercom...but never English...I wait and wait...finally I complain....the people at the FEDERAL SOCIAL SECURITY OFFICE are calling ALL the number in SPANISH!!! I complain...maybe they should call the !@#$%^&* numbers in ENGLISH..you know, the PRIMARY language of the USA? (or so we think)

Not ONCE, In over 30 minutes did I hear English spoken in an AMERICAN government facility! When I was FINALLY called....the woman spoke to me in...SPANISH! I refused to acknowledge her until she spoke English.....so...my point?
What the heck is going on in America? There is even a MOSQUE in EL PASO!!! I NEVER would have imagined this....when I grew up in BFE East Texas..there was not even a CATHOLIC church, (most of the people in my old town were Baptists)
SO...what are ya'll's opinions on the destruction of our culture...and what are ya'll's opinions on how "political correctness" has destroyed our American culture.....

Or am I really a "racist" because I resent that I couldn't even understand what was being said inside an American government facility because I only speak ENGLISH....

Your not a racist because you want people to speak English in America. Your a racist because it offends you that the land of the free has welcomed cultures, races, and beliefs of all kinds. You also a Traitor to the American ideal.

"Our" culture hasn't gone anywhere, It's not being destroyed, It's not going away. It just has to make room for other cultures as well. Christianity and other "whiteyisms" are not being destroyed cause there's a Mosque in El Paso now.

reply to post by Cornczech


@OP If you ever say something and have to pre-condition it with "this may seem racist, but",
then its a fairly good bet it's racist. otherwise you wouldn't need the disclaimer.

reply to post by Cornczech

I took a lady to the Family and Childrens' help office (or whatever they call it here) in Lexington to receive Food stamps. She and about 7 others were the only ones in there out of about 55-60 there that even "seemed" American. The parking lot was full of SUVs with with insane clowns and mucha lucha stickers and decals, mexican flags on the bumpers, and typically both the (man wearing cowboy boots some with nice hats and some just regular looking) and the woman both were there with usually 2-4 children each. They ALLLL had smart phones, iPhones mainly. I thought to myself if I say anything about what I saw there it would be misconstrued as racist. I have actually forgot about it until now. I saw your thread. I don;t care so much about the speaking English thing, I care about the legality thing. We are a nation that is governened by rule of Law. It is suppose to be to protect the few weak from the many strong in some instances (2 wolves and a sheep decide what is for dinner.) But now it is the few rich who need protection from the robbed many. They gave us all shelter. I really do believe GW Bush wanted many to have homes. I think he wanted to do that in the spirit FDR wanted a chicken in every pot (yeah it was that bad then and now a chicken ain't good enough for some poor) and I believe when he opened the possibility opportunistic and exploitative wolves took the sheep to the bbq pit)

At the moment I thought to myself I wanted to do some research into how many are receiving food assistance, how many assumed illegal aliens, how many unemployed, how many registered work visas are there from Central America, and I don't mean how many Mexicans, I mean people.
I like Mexican culture somewhat, I like the food somewhat, but I really like their dancing, and their family values. I was looking to see what effect they have had on menial labor and manufacturing if any or how many illegal immigrants verses how many known Americans have jobs. I do not agree at all with illegal immigrants from any country coming here and qualifying for any assistance or jobs over Americans first. Illegal Immigration effects Hispanics, Blacks, Greeks, Canadians, Italians whoever that are Nationalized or Natural born citizens, in short each and every American and our children and childrens' children. It effects us all not just whites or blacks or whoever.

It is total bull-%$#@ to go into ANY government building and here nothing but Spanish. If there are Hispanics in this country who are unable to read, write and speak at least basic English, they need to get out of the country! For well over a hundred years immigrants were required to learn English to pass naturalization, why should anything change now.

Text: Naturalization requires that you have a: Basic understanding of the English language, including the ability to speak, read, and write simple common words and phrases, and Basic knowledge and understanding of US history, and the US form of government, which is known as "civics

immigration.lawyers.com...
www.newsmax.com...

DAAAAAAMMMMNNNNN!!!!!! OH NO YOU DEE-INT!!!!
Same cr@p happens here in Colorado. I spent 3 weeks in Europe (mostly German speaking Countries) I never once forced people to speak my language. When in someone else country, perhaps TRY and do as the locals do? Whatever, you're gonna get a beating here, but I see what your saying.
Now bring out the socks full of oranges!

The Chinese are smart. Have you noticed that everywhere they go, one of the ways that they preserve their 'culture' is by commodifying it for everyone else. They sort of package it for consumption. Take it from me, it is not easy for an outsider to have a candid experience of Chinese culture.

That's kinda why there are 'Chinatowns'

I personally do not struggle with understanding anyone from anywhere. I just don't and it has 0 to do with sharing their language. I think it's attitudinal but everyone is different. I say that because I don't want to second guess those that are really struggling around this point.

But let me offer you this, not complainin' about the Chinese or anything, but South and Central American cultures are just not like that. You get it all over yourself. maybe folks should be judged more on their openness in that respect. I have always experienced South and Central American culture at exactly the level at which I am willing to participate and enjoy myself and others.

I bet that is true everywhere.

Anyway, you all sure have given me a lot to think about. I have good days and bad days with this stuff like everyone, but I sorely want more good days and I expect my participation in this thread will help me with that.

I also wanted to add, that we folks from CA and TX should have compassion for those that live further away from the real action, it's easier for us because we have been doing it longer.

And finally, remember this one...




War

"A branch that doesn't bend, breaks."

-Unknown

P.S. Nah, I'm stayin', things just got good.

Originally posted by Druscilla

Originally posted by wingsfan

Originally posted by Druscilla


Adapt. Learn. Evolve.
Become better.

Tell that to the immigrants, the onus is NOT on us to accommodate them!

Oh the agony.
I wonder how much you travel abroad?
Would you expect anyone to accommodate your English bias in Russia, Sweden, France, China, anywhere else around the globe?

Quick; December 21 is about to happen and you may be forced to immigrate to a non-English speaking country to survive. How many languages do you speak?

What's the poorest country you've ever visited?
What's the richest country you've ever visited?

Be thankful for what you DO have as due some accident of birth, you just happen to have been born in a country where through some warped sense superiority and entitlement you feel it necessary to impose your values on anyone and everyone you consider as 'lesser'.

You're an idiot as since they are HERE and not in Mexico, they should speak and accomodate us, idiot. No we would not expect to go to another country then expect them to speak English (unless it was UK) That's the entire damn point. OMG are you really for real...I call troll!

reply to post by votan


Darlin', I worked for immigration, and if a Cuban can get to south Florida's shores, and they keep their nose clean for a year, as long as they stay in south Florida, they automatically get a green card.

I never said they were illegal. You said it.

My point is that, if you come to a country that only speaks one language officially, then LEARN IT. What immigrants speak in their own home, or among their friends, whatever, is their business. When I worked for immigration, a woman from Mexico who had been here since 1960 wanted to take the citizenship test, but her relatives requested that it be given in Spanish, since she didn't speak, read, or write a lick of English. How in the world does one be here for (at that time) over 45 years and NOT learn English?

The OP's original beef was that she was in a US government building, and all that was spoken was Spanish. I agree that this is getting ridiculous.

If I move to a foreign nation, the first thing I would do is learn their language. It's only right.

reply to post by daveinats


You bring up an excellent point.

I used to work for county welfare in California. When people would come in and request food stamps and Medi-Cal, they had to supply SSNs for themselves and their kids.

It was my job to run all SSNs through the state database, and I would get readouts on kid's SSNs that showed that 3 or more hispanic names were attached to their SSN, that these people were working and using these false numbers longer than the child had been alive.

Numerous calls to the Social Security Administration went unanswered. I finally got a hold of a person who said that they knew about it, there was nothing they were going to do about it, and please stop calling.

That was in 1997. Social Security numbers are a joke. The government knows it, the illegals know it, the employers know it, and the only ones who seem to be in the dark are the Americans who imagine their SSN belongs to them only.

Personally, I think as long as Uncle Sugar gets taxes off of these numbers, he doesn't care how many illegals share the same number.

So much for our laws!