Stuff White People Like Got me Laughing Out Loud

Thanks to Alltop, today I found the best reason to LOL my lungs open. A blog devoted to "stuff that white people like" has that ability to state the obvious truisms that everyone might notice but no one ever took the time to point out. Where I come from, we believe the the biggest truths lie within the best jokes.

His Full List of Stuff White People Like includes "Being Offended", "The Ivy League", "Bumper Stickers", "Outdoor Performance Clothes" and "The Idea of Soccer". The explanations are flat out hilarious (me, as a white person in the skin but an original Latina can relate very well to his perspective - how many times walking at the Marina in San Francisco I experienced the short lived feeling of being accepted, to only seconds later be denounced by my heavy accent and my swinging hips - and quickly be dismissed, sometimes with a measuring question: "Oh, I see you have an accent! Are you French?"). Sometimes I actually lie and say "Mais oui!" I gain the respect back immediately. And then I see the previous acceptance, which had quickly turned into suspicion, become admiration. Bien sûr!

His number 78 in the list, Multilingual Children, is so true. And if you can't afford The French School, my city has plenty of options for linguistic adventurous parents. And the so called white people are grabbing them by the horns. I have been visiting Spanish Immersion schools at the San Francisco Public School district, and the concern is everywhere: only-English-speaking children are outnumbering the kids that actually bring Spanish from home in enrollment, thus forcing school principals to revise their strategies. The original curriculum, which was planned to ease native speakers of Spanish into becoming fluent in English without losing their original language now has to become a Second Language learning system.

And as an additional option in the list of the even more adventurous parents with multi linguistic ambitions, just in case they don't get into the Spanish immersion ones? Chinese immersion schools (good luck for the kids...). As a principal told me, "we need more Spanish speakers in our Spanish immersion program!" I wonder how this babel generation will turn out. And I am very curious and hopeful for the outcome.

Comments

[Alice]

Tell me about it! My friend lives on Santa Barbara, and she has a son with multilingual paterns. The father speaks Italian, the mother Portuguese, and he goes to school and speaks English. She was concerned in the beggining, because the kid was a latte speaker.. nowadays, he speaks clearly the 3 languages... it's amazing how kids cope with that, while I, old enough let me put this way, still struggling.... =)

[best4future]

I just finished a post about learning a second language is beneficial to children’s growth. Learning a second language can bring children invaluable skills, such as viewing the world with different lens, better reading abilities, better academics performance and etc. It can help boost children’s brain power, making them stronger, quicker and smarter.

So I agree with your opinion. That is why we should encourage parents bring up their children bilingual!