Adventures in Public Transportation

[pameladean]

I 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.

Comments

[guppiecat]

America isn't white! It's green, blue, yellow, pink, purple, red, mauve, salmon, green with little dots in it, orange, tan, and lots of other colours I can't easily name because I'm colour-blind and deciphering hex codes is too much trouble for a Sunday. . . see?

More seriously, the guy was out of line, and I don't care what language people speak socially. However, I do tend to lean towards the idea of English as an "official" language, as America is so varied that a common language would both help communication and serve to enhance a shared identity. It's too bad that racists also spout the same words as justification for a very different set of beliefs.

I am well aware that there are some significant practical problems with this view, but that's life, I suppose.

[karenkay.livejournal.com]

How did you learn to recognize Somali? Does Minneapolis have a large Somali population?

The rest of it, I don't have any comment on; I'm in favor of a pluralistic society, because I feel that it makes us all richer.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

I was perversely relieved when a cranky old Taiwanese lady yelled at me (big white person) and my Taiwanese friend in the Taiwanese subway "SPEAK CHINESE!!!" Relieved in a "oh well, at least it's not just Americans who are linguistic asshats" kind of way. :p

Really, I wonder how many languages Mr. Asshat is fluent in, and whether he speaks them when he goes abroad--oh wait, undoubtedly Mr. Asshat would never go abroad, since he lives in God's Country (TM).

[guppiecat]

I'm sure he'd be a considerate American tourist and speak loudly and slowly, so he could be understood.

[kouredios.livejournal.com]

I ended up having this argument with my mother after Thanksgiving dinner some years ago, while I was heavily pregnant and probably over-emotional. Somehow, it's one thing hearing ignorant drunk asshats spout such ridiculousness in public, and another one hearing your mother spout during a family gathering as she tries to find the English directions for Uno instead of the Spanish ones. At least in my case I was able to spend a fair amount of time telling her exactly why it was unrealistic to expect people to magically be able (and want) to speak English upon reaching American shores, and she was at least half convinced.

Some people just need empathy enhancement surgery.

[pameladean]

Comparatively, yes we do. Refugees from the unfortunately still-ongoing nastiness.

P.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

I'm white-bread middle-class Midwestern generic American, and stories like this make me wish I spoke more languages fluently (and perhaps a non-English language in common with my boyfriend, with whom I spend the majority of my time in public).

Yes, okay, so partially that would be in order to piss people off, like your bus drunk, but partially because foreign languages are awesome.

Someone connected to my family recently said that she refused to raise her child in the neighborhood she currently lives in, because there are a lot of Hispanic people there. She doesn't want her kid to go to a primarily Hispanic daycare and learn to speak Spanish first. My boyfriend, who is from California, went to a primarily Hispanic day care and learned to speak Spanish before English; he's a white guy of German and Danish descent. He was a bit offended by this person's comment. I'm offended by this person's comment.

Hopefully we're watching a cultural shift.

[pameladean]

*snrch* Fuschia, periwinkle, sage green, too.

English is the official language, for all intents and purposes. But people can't learn to speak it in a day, and I don't see any point in letting them get lost, be unable to buy food, or fail to take their medication properly in the meantime. The people on the bus who speak Spanish or Somali are for the most part perfectly capable of making themselves understood to the bus driver, or to me if I'm about to leave my hat behind.

P.

[pameladean]

Oh, ouch. I'm glad about the half-convinced, anyway.

P.

[pameladean]

I join you in being offended by this person's comment. Sheesh.

I hope we're watching a cultural shift, too, but sometimes it seems more as if people are just wholesale ignoring history. Immigrant populations always adapt -- what else is there to do? Objecting to the transitional phases, or trying to eradicate them so people are helpless, seems to be the new hobby of those who have concerns about immigration, and it drives me nuts.

P.

[timprov.livejournal.com]

"As long as they're here legally, I don't have a problem with it."

While I think we'd all prefer they take cabs home from the bar, sometimes that just doesn't work for people.

[pameladean]

ROFL.

Yes, certainly, people who can't afford taxis should be able to get obnoxiously drunk just like anybody else.

P.

[wintersweet.livejournal.com]

Oh, naturally.

[sartorias.livejournal.com]

I cringe when my fellow American does asshat things, wherever we are. (I sued to get locked muscles when I heard loud Americanese, when living over in Europe.)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

I've read that Illinois has made English the official state language. But first they had to repeal a law saying the state's official language was American, rather than English. I suspect this had something to do with Chicago having a lot of Irish-American voters.

[torrilin.livejournal.com]

Funny. I was born in a town where it's entirely reasonable to not have English as your first language... because the common language was the same one it'd been since 1700 or so. German. And I guess if the speaker were as ignorant as he sounds, he could make the mistake that French is foreign. Too bad he didn't do it in Little Canada eh?

[omaha.livejournal.com]

Does Minneapolis have a large Somali population?

yes. the most solid sources i've seen estimate it as 15 - 40 thousand in the twin cities area.

[thomasyan.livejournal.com]

Yes, that was my first interpretation of this story, that the third native speaker was poking fun at the drunk. I was disappointed when the next paragraph disabused me of that notion.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Large enough so that if an official sign is in three languages, Somali's likely to be the third (after English and Spanish.)

Google has decided the US is at least bilingual; besides the English-language US version of Google News, there's one in Spanish. I think the only other country with English and another language for Google News is India. (The other version is presumably Hindi; the English-language India edition came first.)

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Among arguments I've read (and sometimes heard): 1. Since it's now so easy to go back and forth between countries, they won't assimilate. French Canadians from Manitoba became mostly English-speaking before some German groups who had no intention of ever returning to Europe -- though I gather Pennsylvania Dutch is now in decline.

2. When other immigrants came, they learned to speak good English right away. The percentage of immigrants who learned to speak English perfectly right away is larger than the percentage of cats who learned Esperanto; but it was nowhere near a majority.

In the 1960s, I recall hearing on radio a New York City councilman Viewing With Alarm immigration from Puerto Rico. He spoke English with the rhythm and tones of Italian -- and he was probably at least second-generation.

[littlebutfierce]

But people can't learn to speak it in a day, and I don't see any point in letting them get lost, be unable to buy food, or fail to take their medication properly in the meantime.

Or vote! It makes me so angry (I used to work @ an election-issues think tank) when people advocate against translations @ the polls. I've had several native English speakers tell me (& I agree w/them) that the legalese used in ballot initiatives is challenging to THEM.

[dsgood.livejournal.com]

Little Canada hasn't been French-speaking for decades. And the French spoken there was an immigrant language. But Louisiana still has a couple of native French dialects.

[avengangle.livejournal.com]

I love that. My great-grandmother, who came to the US from French Canada, never quite learned how to speak English fluently. It wasn't a problem in Connecticut, but it was in Ohio. And although a whole generation was allowed for people to learn English back then, it ISN'T! GOOD! ENOUGH! now.

[lblanchard.livejournal.com]

Drunks on the bus aren't an exclusively American phenomenon. Some years ago we attended a conference at Magdalen College but stayed at a downscale B&B on the Abingdon Road, south of Oxford, and took the bus to and fro. One evening, there was a large mob of big lads, all squiffy as owls, some genial and some belligerent. A couple of them suggested in no uncertain terms that we really should go back to the States.

Luckily, I was in that pleasantly inebriated state wherein everyone is my new best friend and belligerent drunks are remarkably witty fellows, so after the initial exchange we got along fine.

[pameladean]

Yes, or vote. And not only is legalese confusing even to native speakers, a lot of ballot initiatives are deliberately worded ambiguously to confuse the voter.

P.