Why do some Americans get angry at other people for not speaking English?
I've hears stories of some Americans telling other people who are speaking a non-English language "This is America, speak English!" even if the conversation has nothing to do with them. Why do they do this?
Because those Americans are entitled, insecure, ignorant, xenophobic assholes.
Just as there are two kind of race, white and political; and there are two kinds of gender, male and political; there also are two kinds of language, English and political.
It's called xenophobia, the fear and dislike of anything foreign. Some people believe that if your group isn't dominant it will be dominated, and peaceful coexistence isn't possible between different groups.
These people are afraid that, if the English language isn't forced onto other people, one day other people will force a foreign language onto them.
They are bigoted and racist.
What gets me is when they complain about Spanish, a European language. Where does English come from, you may ask? Oh right! Europe!
So they're proud of speaking a language that's not even 'Merican. Learn Navajo, Comanche, or any of the several native American languages, then we'll talk.
I like your energy!
This is it. The end. Thanks for coming to their Ted Talk.
Thanks for the outro. Ill be performing in more venues in a slice near you.
This is not an American thing. People around the world are biased against immigrants.
It's not JUST an American thing. People are biased against outsiders and people that are different.
Ftfy
No. That's not a fix. You're still focusing on this being American, while it is pretty universal.
goddamn bro, just let your racist flag fly proudly huh?
You need to realize there are americans, born here, with generations going back hundreds of years, that still speak other languages. And still get the snide 'this is america' bullshit.
The post may include immigrants but that's not the entire population. what a chudworthy moment.
I think you maybe read something that the op didn't write? Pointing out that "there are racists everywhere" is in itself not a racist statement.
Reporter: [REDACTED]
Reason: rule 1
Sorry but chud is not a protected class.
You will understand why better when you take a look at who they say this to and who they don't.
This is not something that generally happens to white people speaking some French in the US. It does not raise the ire of this psychology. On the other hand, they love to target brown people speaking Spanish (almost exclusively, in fact). There is, naturally, spillover where white people speaking Spanish or brown people speaking Hindi would get targeted.
As others noted, and as these examples suggest, this is an instance of xenophobia and racism. Language is being used as a proxy, really, and provides a way for these people to unleash the frustrations they have been taught, societally, to have against them. Generally speaking, these are people that will call any brown person that speaks Spanish a "Mexican" regardless of their actual place of birth, where they were raised, or ethnic heritage.
But this is just a surfacr-level analysis. The next question is why they are taught to target people with xenophobia and racism. Why are there institutions of white supremacy? Why are their institutions of anti-immigrant sentiment? How are they materially reinforced? Who gains and who loses?
At a deeper level, these social systems are maintained because they are effective forms of marginalization. In the United States, racial marginalization was honed in the context of the creation and maintenance of chattel slavery, beginning, more or less, as a reaction to the multi-racial Bacon's Rebellion. In response, the ruling class introduced racially discriminatory policies so that the rebelling groups were divided by race, with black people receiving the worst treatment and the white people (the label being invented for the purposes of these kinds of policies) being told they would receive a better deal (though it was only marginally so and they were still massively mistreated). This same basic play had been repeated and built upon for hundreds of years in the United States. It was used to maintain chattel slavery, Jim Crow, and modern anti-blackness. It was used to prevent Chinese immigrant laborers from becoming full citizens and becoming a stronger political influence in Western states.
It was and is used to maintain the labor underclass of the United States, which also brings us to xenophobia more specifically. The United States functions by ensuring there is a large pool of exploitable labor in the form of undocumented immigrants. It does this at the behest of the ruling class - the owners of businesses - who have much more power to dictate wages and working conditions when it comes to this labor underclass. They make more money and have more control, basically. But this pissed off and pisses off the labor over class, as they have lost these jobs (or sometimes are merely told they lost them even if they never worked them). To deflect blame away from the ruling class for imposing these working conditions wages, the ruling class instead drives focus against the labor underclass itself, as if working that job for poor pay and bad conditions their fault. This cudgel should remind you of Bacon's Rebellion again: it divides up workers so that rather than struggle together they fight amongst themselves on the basis of race or national origin. The business owners are pleased, having a docile workforce to exploit.
So while racism and xenophobia are themselves horrific and what is behind the "Speak English!' crowd, it is really just an expression of the society created by this system that, by its very nature , pits workers against business owners while giving business owners outsized power (they are the ruling class, after all).
Another important element to this is imperialism and how imperialist countries carefully control immigration (it used to be basically open borders not that long ago). But I'll leave that for any follow-up questions you might have.
It's good old-fashioned xenophobia and is by no means unique to Americans or English-speakers even in the modern era. Anyone who has spent enough time in certain parts of France, Italy, or Belgium has probably encountered it at some point.
It's everywhere but it is probably most prevalent in countries with a strong nationalist core and, in my opinion, ironically occurs most often in countries that have really fucked around with having an empire in the last century or so.
because racist people are stupid and ignorant
True.
Also, there is a psychological effect of people either feeling excluded from a conversation, or suspicious that they are being secretly insulted when they can't understand it.
Xenophobia.
Happens in every country and in every nation. This isn't a strictly American issue
They can't be nosey if they can't understand you.
Some people are shit
As a kid I worked fast food for a few years, and there was an "English only" on the line where customers could hear. One of our managers was Mexican, and actually enforced this pretty strongly. He once told us about when he went to a Subway and the staff was speaking what he suspected was Hindi, and explained to us all that yeah, it matters sense, you tend to get upset when you can't understand people. They could be saying anything, making fun of you without your knowing, or whatever.
I tend to just ignore other languages (I'm in Chicagoland, there's plenty of them) and an of the opinion that lack of exposure is one of the root causes of ethnic (and of other kinds of) intolerance. A lot of Americans live in their little rural bubbles where everything is samey and familiar, dealing with their little isolated lives, away from anyone noticably different than themselves. They're tribalistic and comfortable there, and don't like outsiders or change. They vote Republican because "people from the city" are bad, and they're Democrats.
It's not a new problem. The root philosophy in the fucking Bible is that "city people are immoral" because its all passed down by oral tradition, and its oldest stories are descended from periods when its creators were nomadic herders. Hospitality for them vs. urban hospitality are very different, and of course anecdotes get mutated through centuries of the telephone game.
TL;DR, lots of people need to meet more kinda of people and it's been a problem since forever.
Because anytime someone speaks a foreign language in their presence they must me talking bad about them. After all its what they would do.
I find the type of people that get angry at those that don’t speak English, usually have not a single interesting thing about them so they use English as an excuse to feel superior. It’s funny because the type to get angry at another language, rarely can speak English better than a 4th grade level.
Exactly! I have a friend who said a similar thing to his daughter, who came to him crying because her friends said she was not American enough because she wasn't white. My friend said "you're top of the class, excellent at sports, well spoken, well educated and very friendly and polite. They try to attack you for the sake of doing it, they try to find something bad about you, and they get nothing. So what do they resort to? Skin color!" (and yeah, I know this is about language, but it's pretty much in line with your comment.)
Racism
I remember smoking outside a pub near Chinatown with a mate something like ten years ago when two Chinese people went by speaking Chinese, and he said "they should be speaking English; this is Britain," so I asked why, and he couldn't explain why. Just on a vague principle.
We have this reputation here in Quebec to be generally angry at people who are not speaking French when visiting. I've never experienced nor was witness of it, but I believe it when I hear people say they've had issues with some of us Quebs too. We have our fair share of idiots, like most nations.
Fear... At the bottom of it is always fear
Ignorance. The US doesn't even have an official language lol
This happens in other countries as well. I've been told to speak the local (non-English) language when visiting friends overseas when having a private conversation.
Generally, it seems to be nosy old people who are upset about not being able to eavesdrop
americans dont seem to understand there is an entire world outside of their country
American here, who has spent about a decade living in various countries around the world.
The biggest problem with my fellow Americans is that we're raised in an isolated country, which only borders two other countries (Canada and Mexico). And our country is so massive, probably 90% of Americans don't live anywhere near either country border.
Crossing borders is a big deal too; it's not like Europe where you can be driving and suddenly see a sign welcoming you to a new country. There are checkpoints, blockades, passports, regular inspections, etc. Especially since 9/11 happened, our borders have become even more locked down. Plus, going anywhere else requires expensive plane tickets to fly over the oceans.
This leads to most Americans having no social interactions with foreigners most of the time. We're fully ingrained in our own culture bubble and we don't get a lot of interaction with other cultures, outside of stereotypes through pop culture.
Combine this with the fact that we're taught from childhood that we're the "greatest nation on Earth," and you get an entire culture of entitled, narcissistic jerks who think the American way is the best way.
Our education has been failing for decades now, thanks to politicians on both sides of the aisle realizing that we're more easily manipulated if we're less educated. So there's this race to the bottom, where we're being fed lies and embellishments about how great America is and how we're this amazing country that the rest of the world looks up to and admires.
With this entitled world view, it makes Americans scared when foreigners come to our country because we only know of their culture through stereotypes and we fear their culture taking over our "amazing and most perfect country." Just as we've stepped into other countries and spread our own democracy, we're afraid other nations will attempt to do the same to us.
It doesn't help that we have an entire political party who maintains their voter base through fear mongering about foreigners taking our jobs, stealing our women, and destroying our "great culture" for their "backwards and corrupt" values. It's complete lunacy, but to the average American who has no regular contact with the outside world, it seems plausible.
So yeah, a lot of Americans get uncomfortable when foreigners speak their native language around us instead of English. They tend to find it rude at best, and offensive/dangerous at worst. And some of the worst Americans travel abroad and expect everyone to essentially worship the ground they walk on, so they get offended when other people don't know or speak English. It's a really messed up world view, but it's hard to change when we live such isolated lives.
It can be easy to forget about the rest of the world from a linguistically viewpoint. You can go over 4,300 miles from the tip of Florida to Wainwright, Alaska and never leave a predominantly English speaking region. Then worldwide, English has a billion second language speakers, so many places will have someone around who speaks English.
They also often brand something as "best in the world" when in reality it's US only. And they are literally 4.2% the population of the entire world.
miss universe pageant?
the world series?
:)
This is amazingly true. That foreign metric system…
Because humans are assholes. That's it, the entire reason.
Because in America we believe strongly in our rights: specifically the right to tell people they don't have the right to speak any language they want. It's called freedom man!
I do not give 2 shits about people speaking foreign languages out in the ether for the most part. Having said that, there are 2 instances I can think of that grind my gears.
For the first point really no matter what language they are using on the phone it's bad service regardless. There already have been enough studies that says talking on a phone do still distract you from driving and makes it more dangerous.
They are ignorant, taught hate, and told incorrectly that English is the official language of the United States, but in reality the United States doesn't have an official language. In fact before WW1 there where so many German speaking Americans that spme cities had German spelled street names, and German festivals.
I agree with the first part, but pre WWI was over a hundred years ago. I'm sure there's more relevant and recent examples that could be found to strengthen an argument.
A different perspective - my grandparents grew up speaking French. Then the state passed a law saying only English in schools when they were young children. They would get hit on the hands with rulers for speaking French.
This was of course passed down to my parents and myself. But my mom still bitches about kids where I currently live being in school and unable to speak English because they’re new immigrants.
She doesn’t see the hypocrisy and it’s sad.
Sorry, as a Greek-American (currently in Greece), I disagree with most of the people here. When you're part of a new country, you need to be able to do your business with the authorities in the official language. For that, some level of understanding the native language is required. In fact, to get any passport from any country, you need to have a B1-level understanding of that country's language. So yes, being in a country, you need to know the basics. And if you don't, then make sure you learn the basics within 6 months, in order to be able to live there without issues. I don't see that as xenophobia, I see it as common sense.
I moved to Greece from the US this year with my French husband. He doesn't speak Greek. I can tell you, it has been a nightmare for him doing paperwork, and I need to go with him EVERYWHERE in any government office in order to get setup. It wasn't pretty in the first few months, he was full of anxiety and he wouldn't leave the house without me.
Also, I worked in Germany in my youth, for a few months. I couldn't understand most of what was said (although I could pick up a few words, but certainly couldn't speak back). It was a nightmare. There were no free programs back then to learn the language, and so I went there without any preparation. Today, I wouldn't have done it that way. I would first learn the language in some basic form (today there are apps to do that), and then move there.
USA does not have an official language.
Do you expect a couple of foreigners visiting America together to speak English to each other while they are in the US?
We're British imperialists at the end if the day. We traveled across the seas to a new continent and destroyed it for... So little benefit
Because they're stupid and racist. They feel like they're left out and dont know how to parse it. Some also think that anybody speaking in a language thats not English in America have something to hide. When really its just what they're comfortable using. Forcing everyone to use and learn English at all times is like forcing everyone to use the same text editor at all times. Not everyone is comfortable in Vim or Emacs, and everyone should probably know a little about another editor rather than just their favorite. Which brings me to my final point: our education system has failed us.
Well, ya see, it's cuz America=/=the World.
But those Americans think the opposite.
Uh, if there's a "rest of the world" why haven't I seen it?
Forgiveness answer: At least for me, hearing someone speak in a foreign language near me if I’m trying to do something is like Kryptonite for my concentration. I basically just have to leave and go somewhere else, or else abandon the idea of getting something done until it stops. It’s just impossible for my brain to not pay attention to it. I don’t think I would ever blame it on the person who’s just trying to have a conversation, and if I’m just standing in line or something it doesn’t bother me, but I do understand how it can be irritating.
Probably more realistic answer: Because living in America leads to a spiraling hell of stress and unhappiness, and so if you’re an asshole, and some innocent person presents themselves that you can take it all out on for literally any made up reason at all, then it’s go time. Also explains a lot of taking it out on customer service people for literally no reason at all.
Entitlement. Simple as.
Many people presume that if someone is speaking a different language, they are talking shit. I've regretably been one of them, but sometimes you aren't wrong (RE Chinese people who speak Chinese and the "ABC"s who don't)
I love hearing other languages in the US. It reminds me of the lofty ideals that were taught to me as a child. The Great Melting Pot, Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses, E Pluribus Unum and all that.
I hate that there is a significant portion of the population here that violently believes that English is the only language here.
Probably because most Americans can’t speak any other language… because our education system is awful… because those in power prefer a stupid populace because they’re easier to control.
I took 5 years of spanish and I dont speak it. It has nothing to do with the schools, its that I dont need to learn any other languages. Literally I have traveled all around the world and have never needed to know anything but english. I get its annoying to other countries, but is just the reality.
Beats me, I live in Arizona and hearing other people speak Spanish is a daily occurrence. I don't get even the slightest bit upset by it and I feel like you'd have to be insane to care about such a thing.
So maybe you have it here, some people are insane.
I god, obey! Chauvinism, pure chauvinism. Tho ... english ... is a melting pot of languages. As many other languages were before. So it might as well be the laziness of Americans. Forget where they or their ancestors came from and forget about politeness.
Americans aren’t saying that because they forgot that they were once immigrants. They’re saying it because they remember, and they remember how they themselves immigrated, then scrambled to learn and speak English.
This is a myth as far as I know. I’ve never seen it happen.
If they're anything like my mother, they automatically assume anyone speaking in any language other than English within earshot of her is shit-talking her, specifically. The thought that someone might be saying something mean-spirited about her is just too much for her tiny brain to handle. If you think she's a bitch, she needs to know. It reeks of desperation and the need to be liked by all people at all times while also doing nothing to bridge that gap yourself.
Could it be that the person saying it because he thinks those person could be talking about them and it makes them uncomfortable.
There is also hindi quote "peeth piche burai karna"
I feel like that quote was talking about me and that makes me uncomfortable… lol.
RACISM!
Those who say this are usually frustrated by the increasing number of misunderstandings/miscommunications due to increasing English illiteracy. Its become more difficult to communicate to those around you.
It's utterly unacceptable behaviour but I believe the issue lies deeper than simple "racism". I also sometimes find it frustrating from the sheer volume of people that can't speak English, from coworkers, customers, fellow students, etc. I don't even live near the border, where the problem is much worse.
You got voted down, but this is absolutely real. I speak multiple languages, but none with the nuance and clarity of context as I do English. I communicate with folks all across the world that are all English speakers, however, the variance in comprehension is so drastic that at times we're really not using the same language, even if we're using some of the same words.
If you emigrate to a country, it's a reasonable expectation that you'll learn the language. The United States doesn't technically have an official language, English is just de facto, but from a practical standpoint it's absolutely occupying that role, and will in perpetuity.
I can absolutely agree with the premise that being frustrated with language barriers isn't racism, it's an actual real and realized impediment to understanding.
Language barriers are a real impediment to understanding. But these people we're talking about are angry because of xenophobia, don't get it twisted.
All this talk of xenophobia and racism, which I get are indeed often reasons why people do this, but there’s a certain show of lack of respect for the new home country if there’s not even an effort made. If someone is visiting a country, I get there’s an exception, but if someone moves to a country, it shouldn’t be uncalled for to expect at least a minor effort to learn just enough of the new language to transact/survive. That’s something I see a lot as an American, and it frustrates me- Folks who move here and have been here for years, but can’t learn enough to at least sort of transact. I have so much respect (often more for them than natives) for those who learn even a couple words so I can do my job to help them, but then there are folks who I’ve seen for years that still refuse to learn a single word of English, so we play the mime game trying to figure out what they want. If I move to another country, you bet your ass I’m not going to expect them to speak English, and I’ll do what I can to at least learn some words or phrases so I can interact with the populace around me. I feel like that is one of the most significant forms of respect for a new home country that one can show. Not everyone is as nuanced in their outlook and opinions, and a lot of those folks are indeed racist xenophobic.
still refuse to learn a single word of English
Do they say this out loud?
Still and all, USA has no national language.
That's a myth.
Because people should be speaking American in America
Yeah I’ve heard people basically say things like that.
When I have a chance I usually respond with a variation of, “ since the American Indians were here first, which of their languages should we be speaking?”
Hablo un idioma americano