Immigration

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23 Mar 2005, 11:53 AM
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Immigration

Quote:

Originally Posted by 640 Toronto

Toronto About to Become more Diverse.
Mar, 23 2005 - 5:00 AM

Toronto is about to become even more diverse.

A new Stats Can report that says people born in another country will make up a larger percentage of the population than those born in Toronto.

It says visible minorities will make up over 50 percent of our population by the time Canada celebrates its 150th birthday.

In just 12 years most of those immigrants are expected to come from South Asia, a community that already is very well represented in Toronto.

Immigration experts say the success of such a trend will depend on how well we deal with problems like racism

So in about ten years Toronto will have more landed immigrants in population than people born in Canada. What does everyone here think of this, not only pertaining to Canada but everywhere? Is this a good thing? I have no pproblem with the landed immigrants for the most part except I hate going to Chinatown and not being able to read a single goddamn sign [and Chinatown expands by the day]. If people want to migrate over by all means, but I'm not sure they should be allowed to plaster their languages all over town. Speak it go right ahead, but when it comes to busineses and whatnot use one of the official languages please. Also, customer service is already detrimental enough up here in some places because people have trouble speaking english, that's something I don't want to see getting worse. What do the rest of ya think?
23 Mar 2005, 12:14 PM
Drewbacca

I think you said it all, but don't most stores offer English print on their signs nowadays anyway?
23 Mar 2005, 12:43 PM
Grave

I don't know much about Toronto, but in Boston, it's not really much of a problem. Most of the people I do business with at restaurants and such on a day to day basis did not have English as their first language, do not speak it fluently, and many don't even speak it well at all. However, I don't really have an issue with it because it never gets in the way of service, really. A lot of places in Chinatown don't have English on many of their signs, but parts of their menus are usually in English, so I don't really care. As long as I can still use the official language of the country and not have a problem, I don't care what these people want to speak or not speak with each other, or post signs in. I live on the edge of Chinatown and I spend a lot of time there, either shopping or eating, and I've never really had any difficulty communicating. I've also learned to stop resenting the fact that they usually give me a fork and not chopsticks simply because I'm white. That used to irritate me, but I figure I may as well suck it up, because if I ever visit parts of Asia, and I do plan to someday, I assume I'll be treated like a retard in much more blatant ways.

Hell, in terms of language, I kind of wish I could learn Mandarin or Cantonese, but they scare the shit out of me. :( English works, though, so yeah, no problems here.
23 Mar 2005, 05:24 PM
Gohron

I've been in Miami a few times for flight lay-overs and stuff, most of the fucking signs are in Spanish and the Airport makes announcements in Spanish half the time, that shit is messed up and shouldn't have to be an issue. I think people should have to speak the common language at least a little and businesses should not have the language barrier, that being said I'm all for legal immigration.
23 Mar 2005, 05:30 PM
Calliander

You must not be talking about America. The most common language es español.
23 Mar 2005, 05:32 PM
Ashen Victor

mandarin is the most spoken language in the world. spanish is second, and just like the US men's basketball team, english is third.
23 Mar 2005, 07:53 PM
mollipen

Quote:

Originally Posted by Gohron

I think people should have to speak the common language at least a little and businesses should not have the language barrier, that being said I'm all for legal immigration.

I think that anybody coming to the US should at least try to speak English as much as possible. When I went to Japan, my Japanese was pretty shit, but I was at least trying, and people noticed and respected that. While over there, though, I saw a few people not even trying, who just expected Japanese peopel to be able to understand English.

At the same time, I think if you come over here, you should be willing to try. If you aren't going to try, don't come. If you ARE trying, though, then I have a lot of respect for that. Living in a country with a language not native to you is damn tough, and you don't understand how hard it actually is until you are there yourself.

That aside, I love the parts of America where you can experience a different culture to that much of a degree, where signs and menues and whatnot are in a different language. It really makes things interesting. I just wish I was living in a bigger city where I could experience more of that. (When I was up in Chicago, it was awesome hearing a wide variety of languages everywhere I went.)
23 Mar 2005, 08:31 PM
Tracer

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mike

You must not be talking about America. The most common language es español.

He lives in PA so English is expected, Spanish is the most common language in TX, CA and FL though.