This isn’t Canada!

In my native land, they speak two languages largely by accident of history.

America has always been English-speaking! But then multiculturalism came in.

Ask the Europeans how well its worked for them. A lesson we have yet to learn here.

NormanF on June 1, 2012 at 7:43 pm

This is insane and must be stopped.

Wildman on June 1, 2012 at 7:43 pm

This is the band-aid to stop the hemorraging drop-out rate?

Dearburn Screwels on June 1, 2012 at 7:45 pm

Is is Islamic supremacy at work. Also, this reflects a government policy that increases Balkanization in the United States. Migrants and their children are no longer under much pressure to learn the language and assimilate into the new society in which they choos to live. As a result of this, many no longer bother, or only do so minimally.

Many Muslim posters here apparently come from Dearborn. Their spelling and syntax, even though supposedly native born, is usually abominable. In addition, their ability to reason and conceptualize their thoughts is very rudimentary. It is what one would expect from a pre-literate society. Assuming that these Dearborn posters are sixteen years or older in age, one can see some real problems down the road for these people. Semi-literate people will never do well in either an industrial or post-industrial society. Underdeveloped intellectual faculties leaves such people with an almost childish view of the world in which basic reasoning from facts and analyzing situations in an objective manner is virtually excluded from their thought process. Instead, rote learning, conspiracy theories, and an excessive belief in the miraculous are marshalled as intellectual tools for comprehending the world. The end product of this sort of education is a population that at best poorly comprehends the world around it, and thus exhibit a profound ignorance of very many things that would be common knowledge or at least obvious to most.

Worry01 on June 1, 2012 at 7:52 pm

I don’t know – my children’s school (we live in Canada) communicates in whatever language a parent speaks. We have people(parent volunteers) who translate newsletters and notes home into 26 languages at last count. Including Arabic.

Whether it’s because they don’t want to assimilate, learn English or whatnot, we have this in place so parents and grandparents can participate in the education of their children.

Gayla on June 1, 2012 at 8:05 pm

Completely saw this coming. This is just the latest greatest feat of arrogance.

samurai on June 1, 2012 at 9:17 pm

This sounds “mandated”, if it’s mandated than that’s a problem, and I don’t mind learning arabic or any foreign dialect, but since it’s mandated, it’s more likely to islamized the schools in the Dearborn school district.

And Worry, I happen to agree with you sir or maam on some of the Dearborn Muslim troll posters who once in a while comment here, there grammer and spelling totally sucks, I say to myself at times, are these trolls illiterate and uneducated or something? And I think there age-bracket is under 21 and nowhere near 30 years old, I believe the average age of some of those Dearborn trolls who comment here once in a while are between 13-17 years old? So where basically debating with punk-ass kids who thinks they know more than us who are 15-40 years older than them, un-real.

“A nation is defined by its borders, language & culture!”

Sean R. on June 1, 2012 at 9:36 pm

“Huh? Refusing to learn English ain’t a disability, even under the definition of that ridiculous law. But it is debilitating to America.”

Well, why not declare Islam a disability that requires remediation? 😉

Worry01 on June 1, 2012 at 10:18 pm

“IslAmerica” – excellent coinage, Debbie.

DS_ROCKS! on June 1, 2012 at 10:26 pm

At this rate arabic will be our official national language before english is.

ender on June 1, 2012 at 11:13 pm

Another thing – as Debbie pointed out in the past, Arabic is just another engine of conversion to Islam, which in turn, is mainly about Arab supremacy.

Maybe the public school districts can run their bulletins through online translators. Given how badly these work, at least the Muslims can be in for some shock.

Incidentally, while the Arabs may be the majority of the Muslims there, there are other non-Arab Muslim populations, like Pakis and Bangladeshis who don’t understand Arabic. So will the DoE then require the public schools to communicate w/ them in Urdu and Bangladeshi?

Infidel on June 1, 2012 at 11:24 pm

Oh please… this is just non-thinking so-called ‘conservatives’ in a panic. This is not conservatism, but knee-jerk racism / xenophobia if you ask me.

1. What is wrong with communicating with a non-native speaker in the language they can better understand?

2. “the language of the Koran”… oh.. so this is what we really don’t like… what about communicating with Spanish, Polish or Chinese speaking parents?

3. They are only using laws already on the books. Why not go after those laws if you don’t like it? It’s the same sort of law that requires the department of transportation to provide tests in other languages for those that want to drive in the US. We don’t require people to become fluent in English before they can live in America. You might think that is a good idea…but a good many of your ancestors probably would have been prevented from coming to places like Ellis Island if that was the case.

4. There are a ton of people in the world that speak Arabic who are not even Muslim.

5. They are not saying that the classes need to be all taught in Arabic, or that the kids don’t need to learn English… we should all oppose education that does not help people assimilate.

6. If your real problem is the number of Muslims coming to the US, then focus on that, come up with a coherent argument and change the laws. The problem of incompatible worldviews is a legitimate issue, but people are not thinking at that level. But this law is for folks who are here now and just want to understand better how their child’s education is going. But if you have your kids going to public school, you have already surrendered them to people of a different worldview- namely, a lot of Marxist leaning relativists. But I guess its ok to sacrifice our kids to Molech as long as his priests speak our language.

7. Conservatism is an ideology rooted in concepts of individual rights…not racist fear mongering. This uproar is not conservatism, it’s more like National Socialism (NAZIs). There is a serious threat from some forms of Islam…but Arabic is not Islam, let alone the dangerous forms of it.

8. If any of you have ever traveled or studied in another country, you would be grateful for the attempts that are made to communicate in English.

9. Don’t react to the innocuous consequence.. that is idiocy. React to the precise root problem.

10. There are some great Arabic speaking conservative Christians in America. Instead of making them the great ally that they could be, you make them out to be the enemy by targeting the language they speak, rather than the ideas they believe.

I’ll stop now, because I am tempted to become very unkind, I am so disturbed by the unwillingness to think, and the way you are giving ammunition to our ideological enemies, who I guess rightly call us racists.

Rich on June 1, 2012 at 11:37 pm

Stupid came to America under the name of muslim, stupid could not adhere to American policy, stupid had children in America now calling themselves stupid because stupid could not adhere to American policy stupid wants a policy it can understand which happens to be stupids policy from it,s homeland, send stupid home with it,s stupid American born spawn and tell stupid try again when it becomes more educated..

vernon bowling on June 1, 2012 at 11:50 pm

Vernon…. Are you a Marxist democrat plant, trying to make conservatives look like racists.

We need to be attacking ideas, philosophies, worldviews, not linguistic groups or immigrants, most of whom come to America because they like what we have. If they don’t know why we have it better, we need to show them it is because of the ideas, particularly those framed in the Constitution. Imho, most immigrants understand those ideas better than most liberal ‘educated’ Americans…. i.e. most in the Occupy movement and in the media.

Fear and hate are easy. Understanding is hard. If our conservatism is based on the former, then we have already joined the side of the ‘enemies of America’.

I’m currently living in Japan for study. I can tell you, it is really hard to learn a new language well. It is even harder if native folks are not befriending you. The easy choice is to stay insulated in your own little ex-pat community.

What are most of us doing to extend the hand of friendship to legal immigrants, to help them know our ways and values?

Rich on June 2, 2012 at 2:14 am

The next step will be for Hispanic parents (e.g. in south CA, south FL, TX etc) to demand the same accommodations to be made for Spanish speaking parents…

Tower of Babel revisited?!…

Hans on June 2, 2012 at 3:09 am

To Rich,

This isn’t about conservatism, panic, knee-jerk racism or xenophobia… This is about the fact that the official language of this country is English… Not Arabic, not Spanish, not Chinese, not Korean, not Russian…

If parents can’t be bothered to learn English why should the education system communicate with them in their language?!…

Have you even thought about how this should be implemented?!… Will every communication to the parents have to be translated into Arabic?!… Will every meeting between a teacher/school official with such a parent need to be accompanied with an Arabic translator?!… And, if so, which Arabic will be “official” Arabic?!…

You may not know it but Arabic isn’t one monolithic language… Different versions are spoken in different places… A Yemenite and a Moroccan can’t really have a meaningful conversation with each other because they can’t understand each other…

And yes, so called “classic” or “literary” Arabic is supposed to be “universal” in the Arab speaking world but it’s practically a foreign language to them and consequently it’s limited a very small (educated) part of the population…

Hans on June 2, 2012 at 3:21 am

And what about the cost?!… The school districts are even now saying they aren’t getting enough to cover the needs… This is going to be a major cost… So, which subject/activity will need to be dropped from the curriculum in order to pay for this folly?!…

English?!… Math?!… History?!… Field trips?!… PE?!…

Hans on June 2, 2012 at 3:24 am

Rich, the other point is that Muslim parents are not like other people who come to the US in search of a better life. That’s only part of it, but their bigger goals is demographic Jihad – islamize a country slowly through immigration, high birth rates and conversion.

One of the best examples of this being Malaysia, which over the years went from 40% Muslim to 60% Muslim, and already, there is huge discrimination against non-Muslims.

What the others have noted is right as well – immigrants need to adapt the language of the country they immigrate to, and not try and change it by supplanting it w/ their own. Unfortunately, w/ Mexican immigrants, things are ugly in the South-West (including CA). But as Muslims have shown, they are importing a whole new set of headaches for us – whether it’s their burqhas, honor killings, building huge mosques in residential neighborhoods w/ towers that allow loudspeaker calls to prayer, public footwash basins and so on.

None of the other immigrant groups have such a culture altering effect in the US.

Infidel on June 2, 2012 at 8:21 am

In Houston, most of the illegal Mexican parents do not care enough about their children’s education to bother with having the school district talk to them in spanish. They are happy enough getting the free “daycare” center, free breakfasts, free lunches….

WilliamMunny on June 2, 2012 at 9:11 am

Romney is from Detroit. Are we supposed to believe it’s just a coincidence?

Shelley Goldstein on June 2, 2012 at 9:13 am

What a shame. America crumbles infront of two terrorists,

G. R. Scharoubim on June 2, 2012 at 9:24 am

On the surface it seems like small potatoes however remember the story of the arab, the camel and the sandstorm. And in this case you can see who the head(s) of the camel are.
Have pity on this two headed camel and you know what will happen. Its already happening under the Islamo pandering of our leader and his crew whose carrot dipped in hummus is much larger than his limp stick when it comes to the not so new “Frankenstein” version of Islam.
Now back to Debbie who will cover or president’s next surprise visit to Afghanistan where he will address the Taliban troops.

Ronald Wolf aka "Columbo" on June 2, 2012 at 11:23 am

What’s next? Utility bills, Tax dues, anything in the U.S. mail delivered to a muslim address?

Sal on June 2, 2012 at 11:58 am

There is not a national language in America. As a teacher in West Michigan it is a very simple request that takes minimal time using Google translate. It is great that the parents actually want to be able to read papers coming home. Dearborn teachers can be fortunate the want is there!

Efforts should be towards getting a national language established first then there will be a case to fight.

Amy on June 2, 2012 at 7:56 pm

Hello America. As a Serbian, this just makes me smile ear to ear!! For yrs you Americans told Christian Serbs we had better adopt Islam in Bosnia and kosovo. We will never do that, and you along with nato bombed us. Well, Im glad it has come to your shores, we are loving it. Hey by the way, how did that sept 11th work out for you?? We had nothing to do with it, but the Greeks and Serbs were the only two Christian countries to celebrate that day, that is what happens when you do everything in your power to wipe us off the map.

Eli Cvetic on June 2, 2012 at 11:42 pm

@ Amy, IIRC, roughly 30 US states have designated English as the official language…

Hans on June 3, 2012 at 6:43 am

They should have offered English lessons to the parents. If they really want to be Americans, they would learn English.

If they want to be an isolated religious island in the middle of a culture in which they cannot participate, they have achieved their goal with this ruling — and in fact I think this was their goal — to live in the geographic territory called the United States and live the life of foreign muslims.

Disgusted on June 3, 2012 at 3:34 pm

Why does the Detroit News, the “conservative” daily paper of record for the Detroit area, readily cater to the jihadists? I would expect the Free Press to fall into line, yes, but why the News? Are its editors frightened of the consequences of sticking their necks out — or are they Grover Norquist-style Rightists, supportive of Islam under an ostensibly free-market banner?

rocker on June 3, 2012 at 4:14 pm

The Muslim “prophet” Mohammad was an evil child molester and and evil supporter of slavery.

Truth on June 3, 2012 at 6:25 pm

My parents along with my brother and sister (aged 8 and 5) came to the US from Italy in 1959, none knowing a word of English. My sibs were placed right into regular public schools and my parents learned the language simply by speaking, reading, watching TV and assimilating. I spent a year in Italy when I was 14 and picked up the language within a couple of months.

This nonsense of the government and businesses issuing communication in different languages here in the US is absurd. In the case of Arabic muslims demanding it, it is deadly.

DS_ROCKS! on June 3, 2012 at 8:52 pm

One more step towards the Balkanization of America, courtesy of the the Federal Government, and local politicians. And I am sorry to say Eli Cvetic is absolutely correct. We forced the Serbians to accept Islam. We bombed Serbia into submission, and now Kosovo and Bosnia are busy training terrorists bount for America.

Jonathan E. Grant on June 3, 2012 at 8:56 pm

Consider http://www.barrysoetoro.net for some history of what is going on in the United States.

Regards,
Bro. Winter

Bro. Steve Winter on June 3, 2012 at 11:52 pm

We did this to ourselves! As one whose wife works in a bilingual school district (English and Spanish on equal footings, new hires are required to be fluent in Spanish, English is optional), I say we handed this one to the Muslims. If there had never been a move to bilingual public education, there would have been no precendent for Dearborn’s Muslims. But, and this is exactly how the non-violent Jihadists operate, the government enforcement of bilingual education opened the door for Muslims to begin to infuse the public sector with Arabic. Who says bilingual must mean English-Spanish only?

Some good questions to ask now are: Who will be providing the translations for Dearborn? Is there any assurance that Islamist and Jihadist messages will not become a part of public education in Dearborn? Will there be anyone trustworthy reviewing the Arabic materials? I think we all the answers to these questions.

Phil on June 4, 2012 at 8:59 am

The States are losing what is left of their sovereignty at a record pace. They will never get back what they have given up, and what has been illegally stolen from them over the years. Both political parties are guilty of seizure of State sovereignty.

Joel-Confederate Son on June 4, 2012 at 11:33 am

Eli Cvetic – I can certainly understand your feelings towards us, but remember, back in the 1990’s our media portrayed this as something other than muslims versus christians. I even worked with a Croatian and asked him to explain to me why the war was happening. His answer, the Serbs are crazy. We were seeing and hearing of massacres, rapes, etc. and really did not know why it began. After much research over the years I have learned, we should not have gotten involved and installed Islam. Apparently, our current leaders are still clueless, look at Middle East. We are not all bad, we feed the world. They won’t be laughing when we go down, it will be like dominos.

CJ on June 4, 2012 at 12:09 pm

Debbie, this action by the Feds has me very puzzled. I have worked on committees with the Dearborn School board that dealt with parents, and a very strong effort was made to talk to parents in their native language. Not just Arabic, mind you. On two occasions, parents spoke Polish much better than English, and a Polish-speaking person was brought in to make communication better. Communications to parents on paper and on the web site are written in Arabic as well as English. So, where was the failing? I know that at Fordson, the only worker in the front office who didn’t already speak Arabic was told she had to learn it. That was overboard, and I have heard that requirement was dropped when the new principal took over two years ago. This decision seems to play right into the hands of Siblani and Hamad, who always pretend that Dearborn Arabs are victims of terrible discrimination. What a strange ruling, when every evidence is that discrimination doesn’t exist.

Dearborn Citizen on June 4, 2012 at 12:27 pm

i remember when the commie traitor clinton bombed the serbs,our natural allies,in order to save murdering muslims.i thought he had lost his mind and i was right,this jerk still thinks ragheads can be our friend.we owe the serbs an apology.during ww11 it was the serbs who rescued our downed pilots while the ragheads either killed them or turned our men over the the nazi because regheads are nazi.sooner or later we will have to kill all the ragheads or they will kill us like they have been doing for over 200yrs.

BRUCE on June 4, 2012 at 6:45 pm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaboration_with_the_Axis_Powers_during_World_War_II#Poland

Unlike in most European countries occupied by Nazi Germany — where the Germans sought and found true collaborators among the locals — in occupied Poland there was no official collaboration either at the political or at the economic level.[43][44] Poland also never officially surrendered to the Germans.[45] Under German occupation, the Polish army continued to fight underground, as Armia Krajowa and forest partisans – Le?ni. The Polish resistance movement in World War II in German-occupied Poland was the largest resistance movement in all of occupied Europe.[46] As a result, Polish citizens were unlikely to be given positions of any significant authority.[43][44] The vast majority of the pre-war citizenry collaborating with the Nazis was the German minority in Poland which was offered one of several possible grades of the German citizenship.[47] In 1939, before the German invasion of Poland, 800,000 people declared themselves as members of the German minority in Poland mostly in Pomerania and Western Silesia. During the war there were about 3 million former Polish citizens of German origin who signed the official list of Volksdeutsche.[44] People who became Volksdeutsche were treated by Poles with special contempt, and the fact of them having signed the Volksliste constituted high treason according to the Polish underground law.

There is a general consensus among historians that there was very little collaboration with the Nazis among the Polish nation as a whole, compared to other German-occupied countries.[43][44][48] Depending on a definition of collaboration (and of a Polish citizen, based on ethnicity and minority status), scholars estimate number of “Polish collaborators” at around several thousand in a population of about 35 million (that number is supported by the Israeli War Crimes Commission).[49] The estimate is based primarily on the number of death sentences for treason by the Special Courts of the Polish Underground State. Some estimates are higher, counting in all members of the German minority in Poland and any former Polish citizens declaring their German ethnicity (Volksdeutsche), as well as conscripted members of the Blue Police, low-ranking Polish bureaucrats employed in German occupational administration, and even workers in forced labor camps (ex. Zivilarbeiter and Baudienst). Most of the Blue Police were forcibly drafted into service; nevertheless, a significant number acted as spies for Polish resistance movement Armia Krajowa.[48] John Connelly quoted a Polish historian (Leszek Gondek) calling the phenomenon of Polish collaboration “marginal” and wrote that “only relatively small percentage of Polish population engaged in activities that may be described as collaboration when seen against the backdrop of European and world history”.[48]

The anti-Jewish actions of szmalcownicy were very harmful to the Polish Jews as well as the gentile Poles aiding them. Anti-Jewish collaboration of Poles was particularly widespread and effective in the rural areas.[citation needed] It is estimated that some 200 thousand hiding Jews died in 1942-1945 in direct result of this collaboration.[citation needed] The collaboration by some Polish Jews, who belonged to ?agiew, was also harmful to both Jewish and ethnic Polish Underground.

The Polish Secret State considered szmalcownictwo an act of collaboration with the German occupiers. The Armia Krajowa (Home Army) punished it with the death sentence as a criminal act of treason.[3] Blackmailers had been sentenced to death by the Special Courts of the Polish Underground for crimes against Polish citizens. The Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego (Polish Committee of National Liberation) by its decree of August 31, 1944 also condemned this act as collaboration with Nazi Germany. This decree is still a valid law in Poland, and any person who committed an act of szmalcownictwo during the war faces life imprisonment. After the war, there were very few trials as most witnesses had already died or left the country.

Zibi on June 6, 2012 at 1:47 pm

Debbie please answer my questions:

Debbie please tell my why you hate Poles so much? We support Your nation in yours wars and you can’t by friendly to us?

And Debbie please tell my why are You so deaf to historical facts? Have you heard of Rotemaster Witold Pilecki – the ONLY person in history who volunteered to German nazi concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, to help Jews?
…
Have you heard of Jan Mosdorf – leader of pre-war National-Radical Camp, who was executed by German in Auschwitz for helping Jews?

And please tell my why Poland was the ONLY occupied country which didn’t have national SS division?

And tell my why most of trees in memorial garden in Yad-Vashem belongs to Poles?

Debbie you’ve started a war with polish nation and trust my – you’re going to lose it.

You are a nasty Lier on June 9, 2012 at 12:36 pm

So, I thought this was a peaceful religion and they just wanted to get along with everyone else. Looks like they lied! When they get enough muslims, then they no longer want to live in peace. It’s their way or else and if you continue in your defense of American values, you will find your head handed to you. They should all be kicked out. This is America. You come here and you do it our way or go home. We didn’t want you here anyway!

Tammy Terrell on June 24, 2012 at 5:45 pm

The real problem is that the mothers of these students are so oppressed themselves that they cannot learn or understand English, and no one wants or expects them to do so. They do not want to become Americans and really don’t want their children to be Americanized. They think we are evil. Why are they here, then, people ask? It’s for the money, the government supplements, the services, the tax free money they can send home to relatives who keep their home overseas and to which they one day will return as did Fadlallah, who always said he would. The money goes back there, tax free. And so it goes on… wake up, Americans… they are using our tax systems against us just as they used our airplanes against us. They do not like us or want to be Americans.

dearbornkid on July 7, 2012 at 7:24 pm

Dearborn is a fantastic place to go to work, go to school, and raise a family. This article is full of so many half-truths about the community. I’m a very proud product of the ethnic melting pot which is the greater Detroit area. My Polish-Appalachian grandparents worked in the auto industry there and worked alongside the Lebanese (many of whom were Christian) for decades. The school district is NOT Muslim dominated. Any ape can check out their website and Board of Education. One person of seven appears to be of Arabic descent, and his religion isn’t mentioned (and why should it be?) Deb, hon, do some traveling; see the world as it truly is, not through your fear lens.

Kiki for Freedom on February 9, 2013 at 11:07 am

Can I just understand where you get ANY of your information from? I do not see any primary documents in your article, or even any citations, so please explain to me why I should believe any of the information you have posted? If the district has been taken over and are now required to speak arabic, what happened to Superintendent Whiston?

Another thing…Your statistics not only prove to be inaccurate, but also prove your racist character: “Half of the districts 30 schools have a majority Arab population.” Did you just make this up off the top of your head?! Why not back up your claims with some evidence?

People, before you go ahead and agree with this so called attorney, why not do some of your own research first? Better yet, why not use some common sense and realize that this person is obviously going to write anything she can think of to promote hate.

Amanda on March 27, 2013 at 4:58 pm

America crumbles? What a shame? Listen to what you’re saying people!!! I am currently a student at Dearborn public schools and because of this language change, my parents were both more involved in my life helping me achieve the high grades I know maintain. My parents do know English, but it is much easier and faster for them when things are in Arabic. The people behind this policy might be bad, but the policy itself is good and the district is better. It’s not English that is handicapping our parents, it’s the fact that they are targeted all around the world from people like you. My parents worked hard in raising me and protecting me so I can become change. Needless to say, it’s kids my age that are Americas future and 2013, so stop the racism and the blaming and get on with your lives instead of stopping ours.

Mariam on June 17, 2013 at 5:57 am

You all do know that the white man did the same thing to the Native American Indian right? Is this history repeating itself? Do not get me wrong as I do not agree with it, but just wanting to remind Americans, that the white man did the same thing when they came over to this Country

Candy on March 22, 2014 at 11:12 am