Immigration...
Lately even family of mine have expressed views I very much disagree with on the topic of immigration.
One of the big points is people feeling their traditions threatened. Feeling their languages and their identities threatened. I don't get it.
I read one post on Facebook the other day which basically ended with "I just want my kids to be able to celebrate Christmas at school". And I think, sure, it was something we did when I was a kid. But you know what else I did while I was growing up. I celebrated the fact that my country is a democracy and that we believe in the separation of church and state. And that we believed in the freedom of speech and religion.
A quick moment of retrospection would tell you, if you removed the "threat" of other cultures, we should STILL have considered removing celebrations tied to a specific faith from our public institutions. In fact, if there weren't any immigrants to blame this on, it probably would have died a slow death without any resistance ages ago. Because, let's face it. Not every natural born Canadian is Christian. And some of them are not comfortable with that. It just happens to be twice as offensive when we force it on say Jews and Muslims. Oh, and wait for it... we had an amply large group of Jewish people in Canada LONG before the current wave of phobias over immigration.
Another one is harping on "lazy" immigrants who come over and "don't even want to learn the language". Are you out of your mind? Are there people who come over not intending to ever learn the language? Most likely. Is it every non-English immigrant? Unlikely. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that most come here fully intending to learn English, and many more who don't wind up wanting to learn it once they get here.
Why? Because it is HARD to be a functioning member of society when you don't learn the predominant language. To top that off, English is like the WORST FUCKING LANGUAGE ON THE PLANET. You would have to put effort into devising language more messed up than English. And this is coming from a guy currently learning JAPANESE... which for the record has THREE OFFICIAL WRITING SYSTEMS. None of which are based on the Roman alphabet.... NONE OF WHICH ARE EVEN FUCKING ALPHABETS.
But I digress. The point is, access to things like health care, groceries, police, jobs, transportation, housing... you know, rather basic amenities and services... are all much harder to come by if you don't speak the language. In other words, by virtue of living here, people are very much pressured to learn the language(s) whether they started out wanting to or not. Problem is, learning another language, especially as an adult is no trivial task. I'd wager most of the those bitching about this have never tried learning another language as an adult. And, as mentioned, English is one of the most difficult ones.
The other day, I was thinking about this tried to think of a collection of words which conjugated differently than other words. I could stop finding more and more examples. It was mind blowing. All past tense: fly->flew, eat->ate, bore->bore (as in drilling), bore->bored (as in not interested), interest->interested, read->read, write->wrote, sing->sang, think->thought, win->won, say->said, teach->taught. Those are all rather common words. The rules for conjugating all of them are different. And I'm just scratching the surface. One of those most important things about learning a language is understanding the grammar. But English is language which doesn't appear to have any fast rules on grammar.
Anyway, that is another tangent. The point is, it isn't likely that the biggest problem is that people don't want to learn the language. It is likely more that it is soul crushingly hard. But there is a silver lining. Most of these immigrants, if they have kids, those kids learn the local language. Because they get to go to school for free, and school is taught in the countries official language(s).
Incidentally, most of these people complaining are probably descended from someone who was probably not fluent in English, and perhaps nowhere near it, by the time they passed on. In other words... they'd either not exist, or not be in this country if they country ever held their own views.
Because I live in Canada and we have 2 national languages and we have Quebec where French speaker feel threatened I feel I can say this with some authority. These people whining about language would have ZERO legitimate cause for recourse or complaint if they suddenly had an influx of French immigrants or nationals move in and "take over" their town. They speak one of the countries official languages, but they would feel just as pissed off and threatened. In other words, these people are cowering behind one of the national languages and pretending it is a patriotic stance, but they would run whining to the local government if they felt the influx of those speaking our other national language was getting too significant.
Which brings up another common complaint... they're taking our jobs. Who is? The ones who aren't learning English? Last I checked, it is really hard to get just about any typical job, even crappy ones when you can't speak the language. You need to get your stories straight. Either they are unwilling to learn the language, or they are stealing all of the jobs. While two may seem unrelated, the truth is, it can't be both.
At the end of the day, as a Canadian, I come from a bi-lingual country that believes in separation of church and state and freedom of religion. I can't have those things and claim to be proud of them if I'm afraid of Christmas not being celebrated in public institutions, and if I'm xenophobic of those who don't speak English.
The birth rate isn't high enough for the country to support itself. So, we also need immigrants to maintain our quality of life. They don't just take jobs. They also create them. And, when they do both of those things they pay taxes. And when they pay taxes they help ensure you and all other Canadians have access to health care, education, safety, clean drinking water and many other things.
I'm not saying we shouldn't vet immigrants. But then, we already do. And it takes time and money and effort on top of that to immigrate to a 1st world country. If anything, I feel we're too restrictive.
One of the big points is people feeling their traditions threatened. Feeling their languages and their identities threatened. I don't get it.
I read one post on Facebook the other day which basically ended with "I just want my kids to be able to celebrate Christmas at school". And I think, sure, it was something we did when I was a kid. But you know what else I did while I was growing up. I celebrated the fact that my country is a democracy and that we believe in the separation of church and state. And that we believed in the freedom of speech and religion.
A quick moment of retrospection would tell you, if you removed the "threat" of other cultures, we should STILL have considered removing celebrations tied to a specific faith from our public institutions. In fact, if there weren't any immigrants to blame this on, it probably would have died a slow death without any resistance ages ago. Because, let's face it. Not every natural born Canadian is Christian. And some of them are not comfortable with that. It just happens to be twice as offensive when we force it on say Jews and Muslims. Oh, and wait for it... we had an amply large group of Jewish people in Canada LONG before the current wave of phobias over immigration.
Another one is harping on "lazy" immigrants who come over and "don't even want to learn the language". Are you out of your mind? Are there people who come over not intending to ever learn the language? Most likely. Is it every non-English immigrant? Unlikely. In fact, I'd be willing to wager that most come here fully intending to learn English, and many more who don't wind up wanting to learn it once they get here.
Why? Because it is HARD to be a functioning member of society when you don't learn the predominant language. To top that off, English is like the WORST FUCKING LANGUAGE ON THE PLANET. You would have to put effort into devising language more messed up than English. And this is coming from a guy currently learning JAPANESE... which for the record has THREE OFFICIAL WRITING SYSTEMS. None of which are based on the Roman alphabet.... NONE OF WHICH ARE EVEN FUCKING ALPHABETS.
But I digress. The point is, access to things like health care, groceries, police, jobs, transportation, housing... you know, rather basic amenities and services... are all much harder to come by if you don't speak the language. In other words, by virtue of living here, people are very much pressured to learn the language(s) whether they started out wanting to or not. Problem is, learning another language, especially as an adult is no trivial task. I'd wager most of the those bitching about this have never tried learning another language as an adult. And, as mentioned, English is one of the most difficult ones.
The other day, I was thinking about this tried to think of a collection of words which conjugated differently than other words. I could stop finding more and more examples. It was mind blowing. All past tense: fly->flew, eat->ate, bore->bore (as in drilling), bore->bored (as in not interested), interest->interested, read->read, write->wrote, sing->sang, think->thought, win->won, say->said, teach->taught. Those are all rather common words. The rules for conjugating all of them are different. And I'm just scratching the surface. One of those most important things about learning a language is understanding the grammar. But English is language which doesn't appear to have any fast rules on grammar.
Anyway, that is another tangent. The point is, it isn't likely that the biggest problem is that people don't want to learn the language. It is likely more that it is soul crushingly hard. But there is a silver lining. Most of these immigrants, if they have kids, those kids learn the local language. Because they get to go to school for free, and school is taught in the countries official language(s).
Incidentally, most of these people complaining are probably descended from someone who was probably not fluent in English, and perhaps nowhere near it, by the time they passed on. In other words... they'd either not exist, or not be in this country if they country ever held their own views.
Because I live in Canada and we have 2 national languages and we have Quebec where French speaker feel threatened I feel I can say this with some authority. These people whining about language would have ZERO legitimate cause for recourse or complaint if they suddenly had an influx of French immigrants or nationals move in and "take over" their town. They speak one of the countries official languages, but they would feel just as pissed off and threatened. In other words, these people are cowering behind one of the national languages and pretending it is a patriotic stance, but they would run whining to the local government if they felt the influx of those speaking our other national language was getting too significant.
Which brings up another common complaint... they're taking our jobs. Who is? The ones who aren't learning English? Last I checked, it is really hard to get just about any typical job, even crappy ones when you can't speak the language. You need to get your stories straight. Either they are unwilling to learn the language, or they are stealing all of the jobs. While two may seem unrelated, the truth is, it can't be both.
At the end of the day, as a Canadian, I come from a bi-lingual country that believes in separation of church and state and freedom of religion. I can't have those things and claim to be proud of them if I'm afraid of Christmas not being celebrated in public institutions, and if I'm xenophobic of those who don't speak English.
The birth rate isn't high enough for the country to support itself. So, we also need immigrants to maintain our quality of life. They don't just take jobs. They also create them. And, when they do both of those things they pay taxes. And when they pay taxes they help ensure you and all other Canadians have access to health care, education, safety, clean drinking water and many other things.
I'm not saying we shouldn't vet immigrants. But then, we already do. And it takes time and money and effort on top of that to immigrate to a 1st world country. If anything, I feel we're too restrictive.
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