Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Chill Out


When someone rants and raves about how uncomfortable they are when people are speaking a language other English around them, I say "chill out" with a capital C.
The other day I listened to someone who got into a big argument with someone who felt in this person's words made them "very uncomfortable" about about three people were speaking Spanish to each other. That is so rude is one of the utterances that came out of this person's mouth followed by an experience that this person had before where they felt uncomfortable when other people felt comfort in speaking their own language.I have heard this before. In a class I was taking once, a woman felt comfortable in saying that she felt uncomfortable when Latino men spoke Spanish around her because she felt they were planning to do something to her.
I say again, "chill out" people speak other languages because they feel comfortable speaking in that language for a variety of reasons: It may be their first language and their speaking ability is better, they speak it with others because it gives the speakers a sense of comradery that other get by talking shop, jive or any of the things we talk about to create a circle of friends.
I am sure that people who speak languages other than English also feel uncomfortable in America especially Spanish and Arabic speakers but I rarely hear them rant about being uncomfortable around all of the English speakers.
Chill out and learn that this is not our world, we just live in it and whatever others choose to speak, so be it . It is easy to be the ugly American, we have been doing it for decades . Chill out, calm down and enjoy the ride.

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