• nave@lemmy.zipEnglish
    103·
    9 months ago

    Not op but it’s pretty clear they’re not blaming it on immigrants. They’re just pointing out that the map has a bias because immigrants may not have as good English skills specifically.

    • Catradora-Stalinism☭
      59·
      9 months ago

      Its an incredibly large thing to leap to on literally no evidence. Its pure fact that immigrants have far better language skills than the average american, as I said above. They may not know of the racism, but that doesn’t mean its there.

      • nave@lemmy.zipEnglish
        81·
        9 months ago

        Is it racism to suggest that someone might not speak a second language as well as their first language? I’ll freely admit that I’m much worse at my second language than English.

        • Catradora-Stalinism☭
          211·
          9 months ago

          Pinning the entire problem immediately on immigrants is racist. Immigrants are not a problem, they’re a scapegoat.

          • nave@lemmy.zipEnglish
            91·
            9 months ago

            I never said they were the entire problem, it’s just one reason there’s such a gap between say California and Colorado.

      • JDubbleu@programming.dev
        5·
        9 months ago

        To be clear I wasn’t trying to leap on, “haha Mexican immigrants can’t speak English”. I was pointing out proximity to a primarily Spanish speaking country is going to lead to a greater population whose native language is not English, and therefore less fluent English speakers.

        I grew up in an area of the US with tons of immigrants, most of whom learned Spanish before English. Going the other way I learned Spanish after learning English, and as such I probably have a less than 6th grade reading level in Spanish because it’s not the language I learned from birth, nor the one I speak at home.

        I also specifically mentioned Mexican immigrants because the other country we border also has a primary language of English, which is why our northern border has better English literacy rates.

        It’s a pretty easy correlation to make, and doesn’t require a whole study to identify the trend. Spanish is also the second most spoken language in the country so naturally areas with low English literacy rates are likely to have higher populations speaking the second most spoken language in the country. Hell, if you look at a map of latinos in the US it’s almost identical to the above map.