SPEAK ENGLISH!

The LA Times has a short editorial up about the Latino population in LA falling behind in economic terms. It quotes these statistics:

“Researchers found that Latinos have the lowest per-capita income ($12,464) and highest poverty rate (22%) of any race or ethnic group. More than a third of Latino adults (including documented and undocumented immigrants) have no health insurance — nearly double the general population. Only 40% own their own home.”

Sad. To give the Times credit they also said this about helping the Latino’s out:

“It would be foolish to think simply throwing money at an endless list of social programs will fix the problems facing Latinos (or any other group).”

Gotta’ tell ya’, I didn’t see that coming. What the Times does recommend are some modest programs, like guest-worker programs (open border’s in English) and getting kid’s health insurance. Pretty good for a LA Times editorial.

But, I have an idea. What if the Latino’s spoke English instead of Spanish? If the Latino’s in LA are anything like the one’s in New Hampshire, many refuse to learn and use English, raising their kids to not speak English, either. Then these kids get older, English is a second language, they run into all kinds of learning barriers, do poorly in school, drop out into poverty and start having kids, don’t speak English, their kids get older…

Look, speaking English isn’t going to cure all the Latino economic problems. But, it will start to give them a chance to succeed in our English speaking society and that’s a good thing.

ADDENDUM: After posting this, I go on to find this article in the LA Times. Seems a Latino family couldn't speak english, signed up for Blue Cross insurance and was denied a claim because of a pre-existing condition, a concept the family didn't understand because, "...the company filled out their applications in English, a language they do not understand."

Of course, in the People's Republic of California, it's the insurance companies fault because soon:

"The state Department of Managed Health Care expects to finalize rules this year that would require health plans to put key documents in the consumer's primary language and to pay for interpreters to accompany patients to doctors' offices and hospitals."

Yeah, let's create two seperate societies and then complain one isn't doing as well as the other. We used to call that Segregation.