"America is America for everyone except Americans"

[charliesmum]

The title of this post is a quote from Joseph Vento, author of the current tempest in a teacup currently brewing in Philadelphia.

He put up a sign that said 'This is America, when ordering, please speak English'. Naturally, with the whole immigration thing going on now, this caused no end of sound bites for the network news controversy.

In all the news stories I've heard or read, the irony of the sign seems to have passed everyone by.

If you can't speak English, how can you read the sign?

Comments

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

Hee. That's fantastic. (I mean the irony.)

In all seriousness... I don't really know the answer to this question, but how often, in Philadephia, does someone walk into a store and just order in Spanish? (Or any other language?) That happened to me once in the three years that I worked at the Coop (since I speak some Spanish I was able to help the guy), and it struck me as really weird - it's just not something that people tend to do. A lot of people speak broken English, but it's rare for someone to walk into a store whose proprietors are not Latino and start speaking Spanish. I don't think I've *ever* seen it happen, whether as a retail employee or as a customer, apart from that one time. So I'm guessing this guy is objecting to broken English, which is absolutely ridiculous. Are these people just supposed to walk into the country and wave a wand to become fluent? How the hell else are you supposed to learn?

Incidentally, in a place as full of tourists as Philadelphia, he's really kind of shooting himself in the foot if he assumes that everyone who speaks a foreign language is an illegal immigrant.

Annoying.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Incidentally, in a place as full of tourists as Philadelphia, he's really kind of shooting himself in the foot if he assumes that everyone who speaks a foreign language is an illegal immigrant. I know! That's what I think, too.

Philly has its share of immigrants, but I don't know if they all refuse to speak English.

This is the same guy who changed "French Fries" to "Freedom Fries", so that tells you something about his personality.

I like Pat's Steaks better anyway. :)

[slammerkinbabe.livejournal.com]

::agog:: This is THAT guy?

Wait, I thought that started in the White House Mess? Or do you mean he went to all the trouble of changing his menus? Which is pretty f'ed up as well.

[charliesmum.livejournal.com]

Not sure if he started it, but he did jump on the bandwagon.

[straussmonster.livejournal.com]

Not as a comment on this issue, but...

I can generally read signs in Spanish (for instance), I can pretty much always read them in French and German. I speak absolutely no Spanish, and I'm much more comfortable reading the other two than ordering something in them.

[jessii-6.livejournal.com]

I see no point in that. What an idiot.
Everytime I hear someone speaking in their *native* language it's because they don't know the other one, not because of a fucking principle. Not to mention that if it's a sixty year old lady (or man) - and those are the ones who have difficuly learning new language the most, from my experience - it's even more rude.
And no, it's much easier to understand something being spoken or something written than it is to actually form your own centenses (not to mention that writing them without spelling or grammar mistakes is even harder ;)

[cactus-wren.livejournal.com]

If you can't speak English, how can you read the sign?

*snickers* I read about that while at Disney, but never thought about them not being able to read the sign.