MY SAY: PRESS THREE IF YOU ARE FUNCTIONALLY ILLITERATE IN ANY LANGUAGE
Yesterday, while waiting in a hospital room for a dear friend, I listened to the conversations of other people. One young man (young is a relative term for superannuated people like me) was accompanied by a friend who was to be his translator since he only spoke Spanish. His translator was a young woman whose Spanish was abominable. They were very pleasant and friendly so I offered to help. I an fluent in Spanish which is my native tongue. She explained that “he would have went to the emergency room but they sent him to the floor and he don’t know where his cousin is at.” She then went on to tell me that she forgot a lot of her native Spanish. I asked the young man how long he was here and he grew very suspicious thinking that perhaps I was from “Immigration.” After I allayed his fears he assured me that he was a citizen and here for seven years. She told me that she was here since she was seven and that she learned English as a second language. She is a senior in one of the city’s colleges.
They were both so appreciative when I got the nurse to direct him, but I could not overcome a feeling of despair that even a rudimentary knowledge of our national language is not longer required to be a citizen and our education standards have fallen so low. rsk
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