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?
RACISM!
They can’t be nosey if they can’t understand you.
americans dont seem to understand there is an entire world outside of their country
This is amazingly true. That foreign metric system…
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.
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?
:)
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.
Not everyone disliking something is necessarily phobic towards it. That’s just one possoble explanation.
It would greatly benefit your argument to provide another possible explanation.
They could simply
A) dislike X
B) hate/despise X
C) came to the logical conclusion, that X is bad/wrong/shouldn’t be/whatever
D) genereally mistrusting against X due to a careful nature
E) have had traumatic experience with X (e.g. Being raped/attacked by a member of a specific ethnicity) and hence totally overreacting to an otherwise harmless stimulus, even forgetting the rules of civil behaviour
Those all don’t mean there’s the medical condition of a phobia for X.
A real xenophobic has an irrational fear of anything unknown/alien. Doesn’t mean the person just hates e.g. Mexicans for no real reason. It might even like them once they get to know the better, which often just won’t happen as phobics tend to avoid the cause their phobia instead of treating it.
I just dislike the lax use of medical terms until they’re bereft of any real meaning.
So, a person who yanks “speak English!” to someone, could have many reasons to do. None are neither polite nor politically correct. While the asshole is probably just the uneducated asswipe, the phobic could be helped and probably even feels bad afterwards for being so compulsive and insulting.
Xenophobia isn’t a medical term. All the examples you listed are xenophobia.
It’s literally in the term. But yeah sure, it’s easier to just smack the same label on everything. Whatever makes you happy.
Some words just have more than one definition is all. It’s not about me, it’s about the dictionary.
Ignorance. The US doesn’t even have an official language lol
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.
Just like any other asshole who gets mad about this. It isn’t a uniquely American attitude.
This is true however there are much more documented instances of this in America. Could be a pure numbers game (more people more cases) but no full proof of that.
Find proof and come back to us, then.
(I didn’t downvote you, by the way.)
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”
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
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.
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.
Sure but I’ve gotta ask: why not write 7 paragraphs of run-on sentences like a true proletarian!?
😂 why waste time say lot word when few meme do trick
Shout out to our Vietnamese & other Asian friends who get the shit thrown at them in SoCal by racist cunts.
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.
Because humans are assholes. That’s it, the entire reason.
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.
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.
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 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.
