While you do describe some specific events, they are still fairly sweeping generalizations. It is entirely probable that because you are American you may not realize just how retarded most "Americans" are.
Oh, I completely realize how retarded most Americans are. My job mostly consists of trying to find a politically correct way of telling people they are retarded. If you would like I could start describing all of the stupid and/or retarded things Americans do if that would make you feel better. However, that is not the topic at hand.
Unfortunately, all of the behaviors you described are committed by just about every ethnicity, nationality, etc, they are not unique to illegals, or Mexicans in general.
I disagree. No question we can find faults with any nationality around, but (in my case anyways) the complaints I listed I primarily only see Mexicans doing. Speaking of which, I (along with 2 other cars) had to slam on the brakes on the way home from work going down Thomas because two Mexicans decided they wanted to cross the street right now. One stopped to pick up a coin of the ground. This is on Thomas, during rush hour. That is a good way to get shot.
In addition, my dad had to stop and wait coming down 8th Ave because two Mexicans stopped in the street to chat.
Once again don't get me wrong, I can find plenty of issues with any given group. This is just the topic at hand. I drive from Mesa to Central Phoenix and back during rush hour 5 days a week. I could make a whole post about American (especially Arizona) drivers.
Also, your Food City example is a very poor one. If you had not already realized, Food City's market base is the Hispanic, Spanish speaking population. Next time you are in there, check out the names of the products, 90% of the time there will be bilingual translations.
While this is true, I did not complain about them marketing primarily to the Spanish speaking population. Nor did I complain that they spoke poor English. Neither of those would have bothered me. I complained that they spoke NO English. Not even enough to understand the word newspaper.
Honestly, how many countries do you think you could live and work in without at least a basic knowledge of the native language?
Finally, I am sick and tired of hearing about the English thing. Learn some damn Spanish. It is a very easy language to learn, and while I do agree that it would be nice if everyone spoke English, we also share a border with Mexico, it is not only Mexico sharing a border with us.
We share a border with Mexico, we don't live in Mexico. You don't go to Mexico (at least not the border towns) and find areas where people only speak English.
I am not asking that they speak perfect English, after all I don't know a single American that speaks perfect English. But I am asking them to have enough of a knowledge to at least answer simple questions. As I said, I have been to Mexico. If you go to Tijuana or another border town, the shop people usually have enough English skills to answer a basic question or barter with you. They live in Mexico, I would not expect them to know any more English than that or even that much. However the Mexicans in my Food City example did not even display that level of English. If I was going to spend any amount of time in Mexico, I would either learn some basic Spanish or travel with someone who does.
Not only that, your value as an employee/business person will increase dramatically if you are bilingual.
Not in my case. Spanish and my industry are mutually exclusive goals. Knowing Spanish would not give me any advantage once so ever.
Not only that, how do you know they are not trying to learn English? Do you know how damn hard this language is to learn?
I am not saying none of them try. One of my friends dad was a native Mexican, who was learning English. He knew enough to answer simple questions and he would often ask about the meaning of a word or how to pronounce it. That is all I ask for. I have no problem explaining the definition or helping them pronounce the word. Every Mexico native I have worked with (and that is quite a few) would try to respond in English. If they didn't understand they would say so, and usually ask what a particular word meant. I understand English is not a simple language (I was learning Russian for a while, not a simple language either), however you can tell the difference between someone who is learning English and somebody who isn't. Someone who is learning English will usually tell you they don't understand in English; "no, sorry" or something like that. Both words are some of the first words you learn when learning a new language. They won't just stare at you with a blank look.
My above neighbors have lived next to us for about 6 years now and still cannot answer a question in English. English might be a hard language (maybe even the hardest of the common languages) but after living in a English speaking country for 6 years you would have picked up at least a few common phrases. Most people in a country for a month or more at least pick up a couple of phrases. The only way you don't learn the language at all after 6 years is by not trying.
Once again, I am not asking for fluent English just enough to answer common questions.
I have had one boss who was Nigerian, and one boss who was middle eastern (sorry don't remember which specific country, although I am leaning towards Saudi Arabia), and one that was a native Mexican. They still spoke with heavy accents (and spoke their native language when at home or angry, lol) but they spoke English every bit as good as you or me.
If you were going to spend more than a week or two in a foreign country (much less live there) would you honestly expect to get by without speaking ANY of the native language? My mom speaks some Spanish, and I had a small paper back Spanish-English dictionary when I was last in Mexico. That was enough to get by. One of my co-workers just went to Japan. He learned a lot of common phrases and brought a dictionary. Most multi-language dictionaries even have a section with common phrases. That was enough to get by alone in the country for a month. I don't see how asking the same of Mexicans living here to do the same is such an outrageous request.
Go to Disneyland... That has to be the heaviest concentration of Japanese/Chinese people in the country. The difference (at least in my observations) is that most of them still speak some English.
We can't even have a yard sale because the large portion of my neighborhood does not understand how to verbally communicate American currency. I think you would be surprised (once again, at least in this neighborhood) how many Mexicans rely of seeing the amount written down in order to pay for it. When I worked at Greenbacks, many Mexicans, if they couldn't see the total on the screen they had to have their kid ask how much it was in English and translate.
I have never once claimed they are retarded, or some how inferior to us. I am just saying they have some attributes which really annoy me. Most people have attributes that annoy me, but since I am surrounded by Mexicans in my neighborhood, they annoy me more often then others.
