Newsgroups: misc.creativity,misc.education,sci.lang,alt.journalism.criticism,soc.culture.korean,alt.talk.korean,misc.education.language.english
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!bb3.andrew.cmu.edu!nntp.sei.cmu.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!news.sprintlink.net!mv!usenet
From: Alberto C Moreira <alberto@moreira.mv.com>
Subject: Re: Diversity & Creativity  [1]
Message-ID: <DKAx20.9uG@mv.mv.com>
Mime-Version: 1.0
X-Mailer: Mozilla 1.22 (Windows; U; 32bit)
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Organization: MV Communications, Inc.
Date: Thu, 28 Dec 1995 14:46:47 GMT
References: <30d84280.8917496@nntp.ix.netcom.com> <4bm9f1$hk8@newsbf02.news.aol.com> <4btf2s$c5r@cloner3.netcom.com>
X-Nntp-Posting-Host: moreira.mv.com
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit
Lines: 113

butchss@ix.netcom.com(Samantha Butcher ) wrote:

>I have always marvelled at the ego we English speakers have expecting
>the rest of the world to come over to 'our side' to communicate with
>us. Why is that? 

   In our country we have all the right to demand that people speak
   our language. I won't tolerate being forced to interact to people
   in a foreign language, no more in the USA than in my native Brazil.
   This is why Quebec feels slighted, they see English as a language
   which is foreign to their culture and forced upon them by historical
   forces that they can't control but with which they're not sure they
   agree with. 

   A society must be able to determine and enforce the rules upon which
   that society wants to live.

>Some unsuspecting soul posted a message in Dutch on
>a Usenet group I read and was blasted by some English-only bigot in the
>most rude fashion.  True, the person may not have gotten the wide
>response that a posting in english might have attracted, but that was
>no reason to be nasty to them.  At least one reader understood Dutch
>and translated it for the rest of us.  

   Considering that the Internet isn't but an extension of the National
   Science Foundation backbone, net users are pretty much riding on
   American taxpayer's money. Want it or not,  English is the Internet    
   community's language, just like it is the scientific community's    
   standard language. Writing a post in another language is, to be mild, a 
   gross lack of respect.

>I have to symapthize with immigrant parents who want their children to
>retain their native cultures in a country as 'pushy' as ours.

   They have all the right to retain their own culture - within themselves.
   They should not demand that their children keep their original culture
   in a pure form.

   They made the decision to live in a foreign country in the middle of
   a foreign society - mostly because their native cultures and societies
   left much to desire - and therefore they must put up with the foreign
   culture and language. If they want to live in a foreign country and
   be treated the same as anybody else, the minimum they must do is to
   learn the local language and adopt a code of behavior which is
   compatible to the local society's culture. This applies to the USA,
   Quebec, Brazil, or any other country or society I know. 

>I don't
>think that separate language education in the answer, neccessarily, but
>I have to feel for their motivations.  When I was a child I attended an
>elementary school with a large Jewish population who's children also
>attended Hebrew School.  I think I was jealous then that they could
>experience something about their cultural heritage. 

   Again, in the middle of Jewish one must adopt a code of conduct which
   isn't disrespectful to the Jewish culture and religion. 

>I wonder if they knew what they were getting into, culturally speaking,
>when they chose to come to the melting pot.  We all make choices in
>life and if their choice was one of wanting greater financial
>opportunities for their family, then the decision to integrate their
>children into American society was made by default.

   It is naive and unrealistic to assume that one can change countries
   and go live in the middle of a totally different society - specially
   such a very sophisticated culture as this country's - and be able to
   impose one's culture over that society. Changing countries isn't
   like changing residence, there are deep choices one must make; and
   cultural identity is but one of them. In my native Brazil, for
   example, it's unthinkable that anybody speaks any language but
   Portuguese; and it's unthinkable that a Brazilian would have to make
   concessions to ethnic or religious traits that Brazilian society
   as a whole deemed un-Brazilian or disrespectful.

>The same goes if
>you move your family to an area primarily populated by a culture other
>than your own and then expect your children not to hang out with and
>possibly marry someone outside their own culture.

   Again, you do it at your own risk, and you won't be able to deny
   that society and culture a minimum degree of adherence, respect
   and commitment.

>Such separatist
>expectations are totally unrealistic.  It comes with the territory.

   It comes with the territory's people's culture. If you don't want to
   live within a culture and adopt its ways, you shouldn't come in in
   the first place. 

>My elders chose to send their children to America to go to school.  As a
>result they never went home again and eventually married outside the
>culture and their children (us, me) have been "assimilated", to quote
>The Borg.  Good, bad or indifferent - it is the nature and one of the
>basic founding principles of our society.     

   Yes, and that's the way it should be. Had your elders decided to 
   send your children to Brazil, they'd be Brazilian by now; and 
   that's only too fair. But to create a culture within a culture or
   a country within a country because of unwillingness to compromise
   on one's racial "purity" is, in my opinion, a gross disrespect to
   one's adoptive country and society; and whoever does that deserves
   in full the inevitable retribution from the society.

   Like somebody said, Hubris is inevitably followed by Nemesis.


                                     _alberto_





