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melting pot
2005-06-23 @ 1:45 p.m.
um, i'm not sure how i feel about this letter to the editor but i think it rubs me the wrong way. a) this is california and sometimes i think spanish language classes should be mandatory rather than it being pretty much forbidden to speak spanish in english language classrooms. b) to me, it seems like a benefit when students are exposed to a variety of cultures and languages. why is there harm in exposing english-only speakers to other languages? from where i stand this country would be a lot better off if we were exposed to a whole lot more outside of ourselves, hopefully moving toward a place of global citizenship rather than usurping and exploiting global resources to keep u.s. suburbia powered, fed, and ignorant. i grew up in suburbia--rancho cordova, on the outskirts of sacramento. not what i think of as a typical suburb, rancho cordova is (or at least used to be) an incredibly rich melting pot of race and ethnicty. looking back, i'm grateful that i went to school with kids from vastly different backgrounds, cultures, languages. i don't think it was ever weird or whatever for me as a standard gringo blondie to be around people who didn't "look" or "talk" like me, because that's always how it was. after 13 years of public school in rancho cordova, one of my initial reactions to the private high school i went to was that pretty much everyone was white. that felt weird to me.
but, back to the letter. what do you think?
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