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where i grew up in burger land, back in the 80s, the public schools were teaching us all spanish in from age 5 to 10. not like true bilingual education, but we had a spanish class once a week. it last about 2 years before the white nationalists--who panic at the idea of working class people easily communicating with each other--got it shut down. between that and some years working with seasonal agricultural workers practicing their english, i am at the comprehension level of an inebriated toddler. i wish i had more opportunities to practice. honestly, the US should have all its signs in english and spanish anyway, but you know the reactionaries would go info a full blown pogrom over even a whiff of that being proposed.
i remember some small business tyrant in florida in the 2000s called up my work one time and wanted me to pass along his complaint to my boss that our phone system had an option to "press ocho for espanol". he said that our company even offering the option to "those people" was wrong... in FLORIDA... the state with the name that means "land of flowers" in spanish.
Are foreign languages classes in general not mandatory in US schools ?
Here in
every kid will have classes for at least two languages (one for four years, one for two IIRC), sometimes three. Depending on where they go to school the kids will sometimes have a lot of choices (Chinese, Polish, regional languages, etc.) or sometimes only either English, Italian, German, or Spanish.Sure was mandatory in my achool, but you could take ASL (sign language) as a language requirement instead of (French or Spanish).
Learning sign language sounds pretty cool but I'd be afraid to lose it even faster than an unused spoken-language if not actively using it
Also you'd be able to communicate semi-secretly like a fucking Bene Gesserit so there is also that incentive
in secondary school (ages 14-18) it was highly encouraged to take at least 2 years of a foreign language, though american sign language counted. and kids on the "not college" pipeline didn't have to do that. j'ai trois ans de les cours de francais, but i haven't had much opportunity to practice or use it conversationally in like the 25 years since.
edit: secondary school offered french, spanish, german or ASL. the private $$$ schools offered mandarin and others.
I think a lot of people don't realize that America is almost 12% as racist as Europe.