Originally Posted by tristanrobin

There are two different issues being discussed here - people who live here and don't speak English ... and people refusing to serve people who don't speak English.

Not EVERYBODY who is in this country right now lives here. There are millions of tourists who come to America every year...there are cities that LIVE on tourism. Now, admittedly, far more foreigners come to America speaking some English than AMERICANS go to OTHER countries on holiday and speak THEIR language. As I said earlier in this thread, we were in three different countries this year, two of which I spoke NONE of the language, and one that I spoke only the most rudimentary high school.

I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring citizens to speak English - and not anything wrong with strongly encouraging people who live here to speak English - but, like everything else in this country (can we say 'freedom fries' here?) it gets carried away - and now restaurants jumping on the bandwagon refusing to serve ANYBODY who doesn't speak English. Preposterous posturing and glad-handing pretentious patriotism.