PlainUnamerican's Blog

My trip back to America

The last couple of weeks were such a pleasure.  Two weeks ago my husband and I were in Cincinnati.  The city I lived in for 12 years prior to my move to Dallas 10 years ago.  My husband had business meetings there so I went with him to visit my friends.  The first night we noticed just about everyone spoke English and even more astonishing an English we could understand.  The local news did not have any murder stories, much less the average 3-5 a day you see here.  No stories in which Mexicans are interviewed in Spanish with an English voice over.  The big story of the day was the local schools million-dollar surplus, which they needed to find ways to spend. We also noticed road and constructions crews were black and white citizens, not Mexicans.   Oh how sweet it was to be in America again.  Having lunch one day with a friend of mine whose parents had come here from Germany back in the day when you had to be sponsored to get into this country and work towards your citizenship, we discussed the illegal problem that plagues us in Texas.  She like many of the other German immigrants who settled in Cincinnati, had parents who learned English & spoke it in the home so that it would be their children’s’ first language.  She told me about her dad’s recent stroke and upon his awakening could only speak German.  English was a totally foreign language to him even though he had been speaking it for the last 45 years.  The hospital staff told the family they had to be able to communicate with him. One would think that like here in Texas, in a city with such a large German population every other person would know how to speak German.  Oh, I forgot, Cincinnati is located in America and they all speak English.  Rather than be indignant & arrogantly expect the hospital staff to accommodate their language, my friend’s mom, brother and her all took turns staying with him 24/7 so he had a way to communicate with the doctors and nurses. 

Last week I traveled with my husband to Fort Lauderdale.  I expected to encounter the same problems there as we have here in Texas since Florida has such a large Cuban population.  I could not have been more wrong.  Everywhere we went, we never once encountered a person who could not converse with us in English. Even more refreshing were the number of people I encountered while shopping that would say excuse me when they needed to get by, or even just said a friendly hello in passing, even those who were obviously of Cuban descent. 

I invite anyone from President Bush on down the ranks to live the life I do here in Texas.  Not the sheltered life of personal chauffeurs, nanny’s, housekeepers, cooks, bodyguards, catered meals, private jets etc… but the life I live of drive through’s where I cannot communicate a simple burger, fries & coke.  Grocery stores where I can’t pass an unknown stranger and say a neighborly hello much less have someone say excuse me when I happen to be in their way.  School systems that have been dumbed down by children who can’t/won’t speak English and have no money because these same children can’t pay.  Hospitals like our closest one who must close due to the high rate of illegals that do not pay their bills.  Paying my auto insurance that tripled upon moving to Dallas because of the many uninsured illegals who travel our roadways, cause accidents, have their construction items strewn all over the highways and take a toll on our pavement causing us to pay higher dollars in toll roads and taxes.  Being the victim of a felony crime by three illegal aliens, a crime like so many others that would have never happened had they not been allowed to enter America.  Live my life for a year and I would guarantee our illegal alien system would be fixed within six months.

 My first week back in Dallas after the trip, I went to Wal-Mart in Forney to purchase groceries.  Going down the saltine cracker aisle I noticed every box of Nabisco Saltines were turned to the Spanish side of the box, not English.  So I took the time to flip every one of those boxes to the English side.  Then as I was  going down the center aisle to check out, I encountered a center pallet of the same Nabisco crackers.  You guessed it, the entire pallet except for two still shrink-wrapped cases were turned to Spanish.  I took the time to call over the manager and explain my disgust but I have a suspicion he couldn’t have cared less as he was of Hispanic descent himself.  This is an insult to every legal immigrant that has come to America and embraced it’s culture and took the painstaking steps to learn her language.  Just like my great grandparents did when they came from Italy, just like my friend in Cincinnati whose parents did when they were sponsored to come here from Germany.

My visit back to America those last two weeks were such a delight.  I had forgotten how wonderful it was to live her country, be neighborly with total strangers, conversing with them while standing in a checkout line.  Ordering a burger and fries at a drive through and actually have the associate understand me and get the order right.   Going to a store where signs are not bilingual.  Hearing of schools with surplus money.  Not seeing ladders & paint cans littering our highways.  It was the America I remembered and loved and so dearly miss now that I live in Texas.