United States of America?

So I sat on this little story for a couple days to try and formulate an opinion without sounding uncaring or the latest catch-phrase, intolerant.

When did English become the second language of our country? There may be certain sectors of this country that are oblivious to this fact but in many areas English speaking people are fast becoming a minority. There is a major grocery store chain in my area that, in its infinite wisdom, has decided to make a larger portion of its stores "Hispanic Friendly". What that entails entirely I'm not certain. One of the requirements of a Hispanic friendly store will be to have a significant portion of its employees able to communicate using Spanish. I'm sure that the grocery selections will cater more to the Hispanic culture and signage will also be more prevalent in Spanish to make it easier for our new residents.

I have no intentions here to say we should not welcome all cultures (legally) as this country has always consisted of immigrants. Where I do take issue is with the accommodations we are expected to make. When someone from a foreign country moves to the U.S. they are aware before they even set foot in this country that we are an English speaking nation. English is our national language. We could not move to Russia or Mexico and make demands that they learn English. I would venture a guess that if you went to Russia and called a vendor that there would even BE a button to push for English. So why is our country expected to provide more and more accommodations to make things easier for foreign cultures? Would someone care to explain that to me?

It would be my expectation as a foreigner that I would be responsible to learn the language of whatever country I decided I wanted to call home. There's that dirty word surfacing again: responsibility.

So we have Grocery store chains spending money to become Hispanic friendly. We have the DMV in my state printing a drivers manual in Spanish. (at tax payer expense) We have more and more Hispanic television stations. I'm not really picking on Hispanics but they are the biggest issue we face here in NC in terms of making so many cultural accommodations.

I am happy that they are proud of their heritage. That being said they came to this country and they should be expected to abide by our way of life . You are either an American or you are not but if you want to live here and be afforded all the opportunities that so many have sacrificed for your minimum expectation should be to learn ENGLISH.

Oh and one more thing; if we make these accommodations for Hispanics then we should be doing the exact same thing for the Koreans, Japanese, Indians, Germans, etc. So get ready DMV, you have a lot more manuals to be printing in the near future!