re: #94 Obdicut

I remember my grandfather speaking with pride about how he could still speak Icelandic, Danish, and Swedish. Every Christmas we had with him was celebrated Scandinavian style. He loved America, but had the audacity to say that looking at other countries was a good way of figuring out how to do things better here.

Somehow, the unassimilated nature of his Scandinavian heritage never bothered anyone.

Exactly. These are the people who accuse the government of not being responsive to individuals— and they want a policy that would grind away any individual human difference.

Why do the supposed champions of individuality refuse to deal with nuance?

My folks came here and started learning English on their own. No classes and it was basically done with a dictionary. From Argentina they were fluent in Spanish. However, my dad had already learned Latin in the Seminary and my mom was rather fluent in French. So they had a talent for languages already. Nothing was ever done through coercion.

Almost everyone that came here learned English — short of one aunt and uncle from Cuba that were already up there in years and never learned how to speak English.