Obama’s “Spanish Speech” in Text

Rachel Lucas was nice enough to transcribe Obama’s “eloquent” speech about the fact that we should all learn Spanish.

“I, I don’t understand, when people are going around worrying about, ‘we need to have English only.’ They, they wanna pass a law, ‘we want just, uh, we want English only.’ No, I agree that immigrants should learn English. I agree with that.

But. But. Understand this. Instead of worrying about whether, uh, immigrants can learn English. They’ll learn English. You need to make sure your child can speak Spanish! You should be thinking about how can your child become bilingual. We should have every child speaking more than one language.

“You know, it’s embarrassing, it’s embarrassing when, when, uh, when Europeans come over here. They all speak English, they speak French, they speak German. And then we go over to Europe. All we can say is merci beaucoup. Right?”

And she has this to say:

Now, Spanish is a different story. There are good reasons to learn Spanish if you live in the southern parts of the U.S., or California. And I happen to love Spanish and am passably literate in it. But for a presidential candidate to tell me I need to know Spanish? That kinda pisses me off. It especially would if I lived in Utah or some place where Spanish was completely useless.

And for him to say not to worry about immigrants because they will learn English, well that’s just stupid. If that were so, every single government form in this state wouldn’t have to be in English AND Spanish. Billboards would not be in Spanish. And does Obama not see the flaw in his logic here? If all Spanish-speaking immigrants will learn English, then why should Americans learn Spanish unless they’re involved in teaching Mexican kids and adults how to speak English?

Gah. Like I said, I love Spanish and wish to speak it fluently, and maybe some day I will. Because I want to. Not because I’ve capitulated to the fact that my state is being overrun by folks who only speak that language. Obama’s insistence that we all learn Spanish tells me a few things, not least of which is that he has no intention of doing anything about rampant immigration.