Rocker Ted Nugent denies making immigrant reference

[snopes]

Ted Nugent has denied reports that he made offensive remarks about non-English speakers during his performance at Gov. Rick Perry's inaugural ball.

http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/art...gent26-ON.html

[Thebobo]

He did in his own way by saying he would demand all Americans speak English:

"I will intensify my fight for a united America by demanding all Americans speak English," he wrote.

Many Americans,including myself, echo his sentiment. It doesn't make one a racist or a anti-immigration advocate.
For the record Nugent has gotten in trouble in the past. I remember several years ago a rock station was doing a phone interview with Mr. Nugent when he called his Japanese guitar a "gook' guitar. When they 'trouted' him for this he went onto say about how its ok for blacks to use the word nigger or something to that effect. I never saw the correlation but it sounds like he was becoming more politically incorrect to counter their self-righteous attitude. Naturally he was booted off the station.

Nugent, a hunting and guns-rights advocate, wrote that he will recruit more National Rifle Association members, provide hunting trips for needy children and wounded soldiers and their families, and fight the war on drugs and drunken driving.

"I will intensify my fight for a united America by demanding all Americans speak English," he wrote.

This guy should be running the country!

[Collegefreshman]

Originally Posted by Thebobo

He did in his own way by saying he would demand all Americans speak English:

Many Americans,including myself, echo his sentiment. It doesn't make one a racist or a anti-immigration advocate.
For the record Nugent has gotten in trouble in the past. I remember several years ago a rock station was doing a phone interview with Mr. Nugent when he called his Japanese guitar a "gook' guitar. When they 'trouted' him for this he went onto say about how its ok for blacks to use the word nigger or something to that effect. I never saw the correlation but it sounds like he was becoming more politically incorrect to counter their self-righteous attitude. Naturally he was booted off the station.



This guy should be running the country!

Are you blooy insane? He's a preachy, gun nut goon. And the war on drugs is B.S. At least Alice Cooper doesn't preach his conservative politics.

Why not speechify in Amercanees like that Goddo fearing Presidence George W Bush?
Seriously it's a bit much to demand all Americans speak English when the president can't.

[Thebobo]

Originally Posted by lazerus the duck

Why not speechify in Amercanees like that Goddo fearing Presidence George W Bush?
Seriously it's a bit much to demand all Americans speak English when the president can't.

Uhm BTW: Is that Captain America fellating the Incredible Hulk in your avatar???

[wanderwoman]

Originally Posted by First of Two

What I want to know is why something which would be taken for granted of an immigrant into any other country is so condemned when it happens to be discussed in the US.

If you plan to move to and work in Japan, it's only sense that you make some effort to learn and use Japanese. Same for Mexico and Spanish, France and French, Scotland and Gibberish.

I think it shows a poor grasp of the issues involved.

Note the way you have rephrased it. Nugent talks about "demanding all Americans speak English." (Even South Americans, Ted? )

Your phrasing is more reasonable and I would venture to say that most people who come to this country make "some effort" to learn and use English. However, those efforts have varying degrees of success.

Having made efforts to learn a couple of foreign languages, I can testify that it's not that easy.

Originally Posted by First of Two

What I want to know is why something which would be taken for granted of an immigrant into any other country is so condemned when it happens to be discussed in the US.

If you plan to move to and work in Japan, it's only sense that you make some effort to learn and use Japanese. Same for Mexico and Spanish, France and French, Scotland and Gibberish.

So...you'd like the U.S. to model its society after Spain, France, Scotland, etc? No?

The U.S. is different. We are founded on the principles of freedom and free-market capitalism (and yes, I understand that they aren't fully in practice as such). But, based on those principles, we don't force our residents to speak a particular language...such as English. Also, we are not England (I just like to throw that out in debates over English in America ).

Immigrants, by the way, typically do make an effort to learn English to secure a better job. Most that I've encountered make an extrodinary effort. Some feel they are beyond the learning curve, but work to insure that their children learn English to get ahead in life/school/business.

This is the way it's always been in America. It's just that now the immigrants are Mexican instead of Italian or Polish or Lithuanian.

Well said.

When I have visited countries in which I didn't speak the language I felt like I was adrift in a great sea without so much as a life preserver. I can't imagine anyone living in the US with the intent of not learning English. It's just very difficult. Have some charity, people.

[surfcitydogdad]

Amen, sashastarchaser, about people having charity. It's not easy. Let he who is not monolingual cast the first stone. I also agree with everything Methuselah said.

Besides, I think the whole "problem" of immigrants (to the US) not learning English is a political ploy, like the so-called "war on Christmas." Anything to take the minds of the citizens off of the war, and other real issues.

Immigrants have been coming to the US for centuries, and their children learn English, but the first generation, adult immigrants, have not always done so (including some of mine). It's very difficult to learn another language once you're an adult. It can be done, but if you speak your native language at home, at work, and in your neighborhood (as immigrants tend to cluster together, and live and work with others from their former countries), you often find you can just get by without learning much English. Of course, if you want to get ahead, you have to make an effort.

The whole discussion seems hypocritical. Did my first ancestors who came to America in 1630 bother to learn any of the Native American languages? Unless missionaries or traders, I doubt it. One could say that English is a foreign language. Or, one could say that in California, for example, Spanish is no more of a foreign language than English.

My fiancee, who is from Mexico, doesn't speak English very well at all (fortunately, I'm fluent in Spanish), but understands enough to have supported herself and family for several years. She's been getting by, speaking Spanish at home, at work, and at church, and currently living in a community with a high percentage of Latinos. Her kids are bilingual, and are not enrolled in "bilingual" classes at school. However, she has just undertaken an ambitious English class, 3 hours per night, 4 nights each week, for the rest of the semester. She knows it can help her get better jobs, and get along better in general.

I'll be glad to help her (having taught English as a Second Language, among other things), but am perfectly happy to speak Spanish with her for the rest of my life - it's very romantic, anyway! She's a smart lady, but I'm not expecting any miracles. It takes years for adults to become fluent, even with a native-speaker for a husband. It's simply not reasonable to expect every immigrant to already be fluent in English even before they arrive. Sure, a lot of people from India and the Philipines already speak English, but considering the jobs that many Mexicans do, do they even need to speak English? Let each person decide when and how well they want to learn, but in any case their children will. That's the ways it's always worked. Let the free market take care of this supposed problem, and let's not get government involved. The state is too involved in our lives already, without telling us what language to speak!

I'd like to see all the folks who are so gung-ho about immigrants learning English try to learn another language themselves - especially one from a different language family, or even a non-Indo-European one - and see how easy it is, once you're an adult. They also need to look at the history of immigrants in the US, so they can see that the first generation adults don't always learn English well, but their kids do. How many people have grandparents "from the old country" who don't speak English? Hasn't that always been case? So what's the big deal? Maybe some folks ARE racists, nativists, nationalists, and other unpleasant holdovers from the bad old days...

But, I agree that some people do need to learn to speak English, like President Bush, and various groups of native-born Americans who seem unwilling or unable to communicate in standard American English. All of us, not just immigrants, can economically benefit by learning standard English (including losing any strong regional accents or class markers), but that's a choice each must make on his or her own.

In the meanwhile, while our new countrymen learn English, why not make lemonade, by learning other languages ourselves, so that we may cash in on it, instead of bitching about it. It's money makes the world go 'round. Speaking Spanish here in California has always helped me in my various jobs! And it's sure as hell helped me find a new wife!

[jw]

All of us, not just immigrants, can economically benefit by learning standard English (including losing any strong regional accents or class markers), but that's a choice each must make on his or her own.

You can't seriously be suggesting this would be a good thing that we should all learn a monotone accent? Above any other trait, I cannot think of anything more defining of nationalities that speak a common language, than accent.

I'm not making light of your post in general, as you raise some very good points that the US cannot be compared to other countries intake of immigrants, simply due to the enormous volume, hence learning a new language will be difficult for the first generation.

Here's my 2 cents...I agree that imigrants in general should learn the language of the country they have decided to call home.

HAVE (as in or else) maybe a little strong but after teaching for 10 years in Houston I can say that there are some who honestly want to learn english and struggle at doing so but continue to try and many who have no desire whatsoever because there is no good reason to do so. When I can live in an area where my native language is spoken at the gas stations and stores, the streets signs are in my language, the government provides me with whatever form I need to get assistance, a drivers license, or whatever in my native language, the school where my children go provide an education for them in both languages with no real push towards one or another, there is no need for me to do so.

This I think is wrong. I am all for helping those who are putting a genuine effort into learning english but too frequently the government, be it local, state, or federal, make it very easy to not.

And yes to agree with an earlier statement, if I were to move to France or Spain or wherever, I would try to learn the language and would not expect others to bend over backwards to help me if I wasn't!

[guruwan2b]

I work with a lot of Hispanic people who moved to OK from California. Many of them could not speak English very well when they moved here. Many of them have greatly improved in the 14 years they have been in OK.
Living in a small town, the Spanish resources were not very good when they first got here, so they tried very hard to learn to communicate in English.

There are a couple of families who only allow their children to speak Spanish at home. These kids struggle with English at school, but the parents want the kids to keep their Spanish speaking ability. They want to kids to be able to communicate with the grandparents back in Mexico when they visit.

I think they are hurting their kids future education by doing this. It also takes more class time to teach the kids who don't speak English very well and this takes away from my daughter's education.

Originally Posted by lounsbud

This I think is wrong. I am all for helping those who are putting a genuine effort into learning english but too frequently the government, be it local, state, or federal, make it very easy to not.

The government insuring that a vulnerable resident's basic needs are being met is making it "very easy to not" learn English? Really?

I have to disagree, and disagree strongly. If you think it's "easy" for a Spanish-speaking grandmother, for the sake of this example, to succeed in the U.S. just because she can apply for a Passport in Spanish, then perhaps we have very different understandings of the word "easy".

Originally Posted by guruwan2b

There are a couple of families who only allow their children to speak Spanish at home. These kids struggle with English at school, but the parents want the kids to keep their Spanish speaking ability. They want to kids to be able to communicate with the grandparents back in Mexico when they visit.

I think they are hurting their kids future education by doing this. It also takes more class time to teach the kids who don't speak English very well and this takes away from my daughter's education.

Bi-lingual children have a great advantage over monolingual children. Would you prefer if immigrants completely cut the ties between their offspring and their parents in the old country? Would keeping a child from conversing with their grandparents help their future education?

[Richard W]

Originally Posted by lounsbud

HAVE (as in or else) maybe a little strong but after teaching for 10 years in Houston I can say that there are some who honestly want to learn english and struggle at doing so but continue to try and many who have no desire whatsoever because there is no good reason to do so. ...

This I think is wrong. I am all for helping those who are putting a genuine effort into learning english but too frequently the government, be it local, state, or federal, make it very easy to not.

You say that there's currently no good reason for some people to learn English, so you want to deliberately make it harder for them and introduce artificial (bad?) reasons so that they're forced to do so? What possible purpose could that serve?

[bufungla]

Originally Posted by methuselah

Bi-lingual children have a great advantage over monolingual children. Would you prefer if immigrants completely cut the ties between their offspring and their parents in the old country? Would keeping a child from conversing with their grandparents help their future education?

.

BZZZT! False dichotomy detected ...

Guru makes a comment about the negative effects of families allowing their children to only speak Spanish at home. You counter with comments about cutting ties with grandparents and preventing children from becoming bilingual, neither of which were advocated (or even suggested) by Guru. She clearly has first hand experience witnessing students who aren't allowed to speak English at home struggle with English in the classroom. For you to make the point you're bringing up, you'd have to display similar knowledge of children becoming monolingual when allowed to speak both languages at home.

Originally Posted by bufungla

.

BZZZT! False dichotomy detected ...

You're right. I withdraw the comment.

She clearly has first hand experience witnessing students who aren't allowed to speak English at home struggle with English in the classroom.

Technically, she has first hand experience with children whose famililies speak Spanish at home, not children who "aren't allowed" to speak English. Unless she has gone to the homes and was actually witness to the families stopping the child from speaking English...

[PatYoung]

Originally Posted by First of Two

What I want to know is why something which would be taken for granted of an immigrant into any other country is so condemned when it happens to be discussed in the US.

If you plan to move to and work in Japan, it's only sense that you make some effort to learn and use Japanese. Same for Mexico and Spanish, France and French, Scotland and Gibberish.

And Americans in Iraq would be a lot better off if they spoke Arabic.

I have helped set up or referred people to programs which have helped thousands of immigrants learn English. And I have learned that insulting immigrants (however inartfully) in front of large gatherings of mostly native born Anglophones speeds upo no one's learning of the language

[guruwan2b]

I work with the parents involved and they actually told me that they will not allow their children to speak English at home because they want them to be able to speak with relatives when they go back home.

I have even been to their home where they speak exclusively Spanish to each other even in the presents of only English speaking guests.
Their daughter is the same age as my daughter and they have been in school with each other since day one (PreK). Their daughter (in 6th grade) still has to have ESL classes and struggles. Not speaking English well carries over into all other classes (Science, Math, Social Studies, etc.).

Kim

[surfcitydogdad]

Originally Posted by jw

You can't seriously be suggesting this would be a good thing that we should all learn a monotone accent? Above any other trait, I cannot think of anything more defining of nationalities that speak a common language, than accent.

I'm not making light of your post in general, as you raise some very good points that the US cannot be compared to other countries intake of immigrants, simply due to the enormous volume, hence learning a new language will be difficult for the first generation.

Thank you, JW, for pointing out my failure to properly explain what I meant, as my above comment could be misconstrued. I didn't mean that we should be totally free of all regional - including national - accents.

What I meant was that if we want to give ourselves the opportunity to get ahead economically, and be understood outside of our own neighborhood or social group, we need to learn to speak a standard variant of English as it is spoken in our own country, in the dominant culture.

Fair or not, a strong regional or class accent can hurt our credibility, as we may be perceived as rude, ignorant, or other traits which could hurt our ability to communicate successfully, or secure desirable employment. Just as it's important to learn English if an immigrant wants to get ahead, learning to speak the language in a way that allows access to the mainstream is important, too. In the US, the language which best allows allows access to the mainstream, to the dominant culture, and to better jobs, is standard television newsreader American English.

We should all be free to speak our native language and accent when we our among our own, but if we are to venture into- and succeed - in the wider community, we need to be able to be understood in a wider circle. Sounding like one is a member of the cast of Eastenders, a regular on Blue Collar TV, or in a rap video, limits one's opportunities, unless, of course, one is expecting to make it big in rap music, or go on tour with Larry the Cable Guy (about as likely as becoming a professional athlete - many of whom, BTW, are exceptionally inarticulate).

I'm sure I'm not alone in finding foreign accents charming, be they those of English-speakers from other countries, or those for whom English is not their native tongue. Like others, I'm also often amused by the regional accents of those from other parts of my own country, although I suspect many of us have some prejudices about the regional and class accents or our fellow countrymen. However, right or wrong, strong regional and class accents and affectations, as well as foreign accents so thick that they cannot be readily understood, can really handicap us, especially economically. We need not assimilate completely into the dominant group, but it is to our advantage to be able to function in mainstream society.

If people outside of your own community need subtitles to understand you, you may want to learn to speak a more universal form of the language. If not, then fine, but just like immigrants who don't learn the language, it's very limiting.

That said, I agree with what the other posters have pointed out, that most immigrants DO make efforts to learn English, and their children DO learn it. As for the native-speakers - they should try to speak English, too! If they don't, they will find that the children of immigrants will learn to speak standard English better than they do, and move into the middle class ahead of them.