Adventures in Public Transportation
Feb. 17th, 2008 01:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pameladeanI took the bus downtown on Saturday to pick up a prescription. I went home again at around four in the afternoon. A lot of people were going home to South Minneapolis at the same time. The bus was jammed with Hispanic people speaking Spanish and Somali people speaking Somali; there was also a group of young women speaking a nice mix of English and some tonal language. This is completely normal. And there were a couple of young black men dressed like Europeans, speaking French. This is far from unheard-of, but is more likely to happen in the summer.
To them entered a nondescript middle-aged white guy, with a Minnesota accent. "Speak English," he commanded them, rather as if he were speaking to a puppy.
They went on speaking French.
"Speak English!"
"We are French," one of the young men said to him, quite amiably, "and we speak French to one another."
This flummoxed their interlocutor to the point that I thought he was probably drunk. After a pause, he said, quite mildly, "Speak English when you're on the bus."
They laughed and went on speaking French.
"Speak ENGLISH," said the drunken guy, "when you're on the BUS!" He got up and addressed them with a lecture so banal and predictable that I don't recall most of it. He became quite enamored of his new principle, that the least people who "come here" can do is to speak English on the bus, and iterated it loudly.
The person sitting next do me did what I usually do in such situations. She stared straight ahead and got off the bus at the next stop. The other people on the bus were rolling their eyes and laughing at the drunken guy, but didn't attempt to engage him in argument. I did call, "Why?" across the aisle to him, but he was much too wound up in his declamations to notice. Besides, I don't really have a very loud voice.
He decided to get off the bus too. At the door he turned and made a theatrical gesture to include the entire busful of people, the majority of whom almost certainly did not speak English as a native tongue. "The least they can do when they come here," he told us all, now in definitely slurred tones, "is to speak English on the bus." Then he suddenly snarled, "Fuck you!" at the French guys, and made his exit.
One of the French guys, in an uncannily perfect imitation of his voice, snarled, "Fuck you!" back. Everybody laughed. The other French man said something displeased, and another native speaker said, "Well, he was drunk."
A third native speaker, behind me, said in a tone of world-weary amusement, "As long as they're here legally, I don't have a problem with it."
"Gosh," I snarled in my turn, "THAT'S big of you!"
He didn't choose to engage me in argument either, which is no doubt just as well.
The French man who was such a good mimic delivered a brief satirical rant: "America is white! America speaks English! America is all the same!" This was accorded one of those really disconcerting Minnesota silences. I should have applauded.
I decided that I'd wish the two French visitors a pleasant stay when I got off the bus, but they left well before my stop. I'm still boggled, and half-wishing I'd said more. But the silence of a busload of Minnesotans -- and that is exactly what it felt like, regardless of where they came from or what language they were speaking -- was a weight too heavy for me to lift. They were probably more accustomed to drunks on the bus than I am, and possibly knew from experience that having arguments with such people was fruitless. The visitors did not seem noticeably in need of reassurance. But still, I keep pondering it.
P.
To them entered a nondescript middle-aged white guy, with a Minnesota accent. "Speak English," he commanded them, rather as if he were speaking to a puppy.
They went on speaking French.
"Speak English!"
"We are French," one of the young men said to him, quite amiably, "and we speak French to one another."
This flummoxed their interlocutor to the point that I thought he was probably drunk. After a pause, he said, quite mildly, "Speak English when you're on the bus."
They laughed and went on speaking French.
"Speak ENGLISH," said the drunken guy, "when you're on the BUS!" He got up and addressed them with a lecture so banal and predictable that I don't recall most of it. He became quite enamored of his new principle, that the least people who "come here" can do is to speak English on the bus, and iterated it loudly.
The person sitting next do me did what I usually do in such situations. She stared straight ahead and got off the bus at the next stop. The other people on the bus were rolling their eyes and laughing at the drunken guy, but didn't attempt to engage him in argument. I did call, "Why?" across the aisle to him, but he was much too wound up in his declamations to notice. Besides, I don't really have a very loud voice.
He decided to get off the bus too. At the door he turned and made a theatrical gesture to include the entire busful of people, the majority of whom almost certainly did not speak English as a native tongue. "The least they can do when they come here," he told us all, now in definitely slurred tones, "is to speak English on the bus." Then he suddenly snarled, "Fuck you!" at the French guys, and made his exit.
One of the French guys, in an uncannily perfect imitation of his voice, snarled, "Fuck you!" back. Everybody laughed. The other French man said something displeased, and another native speaker said, "Well, he was drunk."
A third native speaker, behind me, said in a tone of world-weary amusement, "As long as they're here legally, I don't have a problem with it."
"Gosh," I snarled in my turn, "THAT'S big of you!"
He didn't choose to engage me in argument either, which is no doubt just as well.
The French man who was such a good mimic delivered a brief satirical rant: "America is white! America speaks English! America is all the same!" This was accorded one of those really disconcerting Minnesota silences. I should have applauded.
I decided that I'd wish the two French visitors a pleasant stay when I got off the bus, but they left well before my stop. I'm still boggled, and half-wishing I'd said more. But the silence of a busload of Minnesotans -- and that is exactly what it felt like, regardless of where they came from or what language they were speaking -- was a weight too heavy for me to lift. They were probably more accustomed to drunks on the bus than I am, and possibly knew from experience that having arguments with such people was fruitless. The visitors did not seem noticeably in need of reassurance. But still, I keep pondering it.
P.
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Date: 2008-02-18 02:50 pm (UTC)A few years ago, I accompanied a group of Atlanta middle school teachers and pupils to the Atlantic (well, Caribbean) coast of Nicaragua and found myself in the odd position of having to interpret among three languages: standard American English, Spanish, and Creole English.