The Sunday Memory Drawer - English as a Fifth Language

These days, it might not even be coming in that high.   

I know, I know.   The subject of immigration in this country is a hot button these days.  Well, here's one person's perspective.  Mine.

I had a totally surreal experience several months ago.  I had taken in a matinee at the Century City shopping mall three blocks from my house.  I walked out of the theater.  The sun was bright.  The breeze was warm.

And, for about thirty seconds, I didn't know what country I was in.

Somehow, in the course of one two-hour movie and about three dozen trailers, I had been transported to another spot on the globe.  Where was I?

All around me, I heard no English. 

I was surrounded by words that meant nothing to me.  Persian.  Spanish.  Chinese.  Japanese.  Indian.

How do you say "help" in either Persian, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, or Indian?

I went over to the new Macy's in the same mall.  I needed socks.  You would think that's an easy purchase.  Not so much.  Every single sales clerk I encountered did not speak English as a first language.

My sensation is undoubtedly no different than one you might have shared in your own metropolitan neighborhood.  Territory you once enjoyed that you now share with strangers from a foreign land.  At least, on a phone, you can press a digit for English.  How do you manage that in public?  Is there a switch that we can flip so we're all on the same page?  Or tongue?

Now, there might be one or two of you out there who might counter...

"But, Len, this is a country that was based on immigration.  Look at the photo on your own blog today."

I am looking at it.  And I will still argue that what was then is not now.  

The folks "off the boat" in that snapshot of Ellis Island from the early 1900s are coming from Europe.  Italians.  Germans.  Irish.  Poles.  Jews.  My grandparents.  Your grandparents.  The grandparents next door.  All of them searching for a better life.  A better place to live.   A better place to work hard.  A better place to own property where your family might get a better shot in this world.

Can you say that today?

The folks above came in with European values entrenched in their souls.  The love of family.  The love of land.  The love of the opportunity to get a job and earn a living.

Can you say that today?

Over time, there has been an attrition of values.  The immigration of the first fifty years of the twentieth century certainly was not the immigration of the second half of the twentieth century.  The folks coming in over the last several decades are not from Europe.  They're not here to become Americans.  They're here to be citizens from their own country who just happen to live in America.  And God forbid anyone suggest the slight bit of assimilation to these folks.

This is nothing new.   The situation has been brewing ever since we went Y2K.

At that time after 9/11, you will remember that whole "weapons of mass destruction" debate.  Well, my pastor inexplicably turned over one Sunday service to an Islamic community leader who wanted to share her thoughts on what life was like for her people "over there."

After fifteen minutes, I was appalled.  Not at her description of living conditions in the Middle East, but of her view of the very country she was standing in at that very moment.  She took her allotted time to chide the United States for its disdain of "weapons of mass destruction."

"After all, the United States has them.  And this country is the one who has used them in the past."

What???????????   You bitch-and-a-half.

I was kind that day.  I said nothing. 

Not so today.

This woman represented to me everything that's wrong with America's open door policy.  She's scolding the very nation that has accepted her ass with a warm embrace.

Of course, this dumb broad has zero perspective when it comes to American history.  Yes, we used the atomic bomb.  In fact, most of the world was looking for us to settle that World War once and for all.  It was essential to the freedom of so many nations far and wide.

I'm thinking that, if we don't use that weapon, she might not even get a sniff of American soil.  She'd be stuck in her homeland.  She'd be one of a dozen wives to some guy who may or may not hit her with the butt of his rifle.  Who knows?  She might not have even lived to experience her first menstrual cycle.

Tough words?  You bet your boots.  Especially when, as this slob drove off that day, I noticed she was behind the wheel of a Mercedes.

Yeah, America did suck for you, didn't it?

Folks, this is what our latest edition of multi-culturalism is failing.  The reasons for being here now are very different than the reasons why my family and your family landed on red, white, and blue terra firma.  Yes, this is now the United States of Handouts.  Give us your tired, your poor, and your outstretched hands.

I think of my own grandparents.  Coming from a very poor farm country in Germany.  I am sure they didn't know English.  But they must have learned because my grandfather had a variety of jobs from bartender to milk bottling.  And, they certainly were part of America when they had four sons in World War II with one not coming back at all.

I think of my family's friends.  I heard a lot of accents, but English accompanied all of them.  I think of my childhood best friend not even born in this country.  He's an American through and through.  His mother still speaks with an Italian accent but she has assimilated in all things United States.

Somewhere along the way, it stopped being about one big melting pot.  Now it's a lot of little pots on one huge stove and the end result is that the kitchen is a complete mess.

In its stead, we make a call to customer service and no longer can understand the person on the other end of the phone.  We ask for directions from somebody working in a gas station and they shrug with a confused look.  Yeah, I got it.  You don't speak English.  You really could if you wanted to.

But, nobody does.  Because there is no need to.  Certainly the lowest point of this country's once storied history.

It's over, gang.  In any language.  This is why I have to dig really deep into the Sunday Memory Drawer to find a really pleasant one.

Dinner last night:  Oddly enough, I have no idea what I had for dinner but it was a Mexican feast at Babita Mexicuisine.