racewire.org — In Pascagoula, Mississippi, in November 2008, Cirila Baltazar Cruz gave birth to a baby girl. Soon after, her daughter was taken away from her because she could not communicate with the hospital attendants.
Jun 21, 2009 View in Crawl 4
ralphodogJun 22, 2009
I'm an expat and ever other expat from the States speaks the local language. But the differences are massive. English is widely accepted as the world's universal language, and it's taught at very young ages to most of the world. If an American wants to move to Sweden, he probably won't encounter the language once in his life before deciding to go there.I've also met dozens of expats who don't speak the local language, but instead get by on English. The rates of English fluency in Europe for non-immigrants are incredibly high, between 24 and 89 percent; but the U.S. has no need for a widely spoken second language like the rest of the world.
regeyaJun 22, 2009
raskolnikov2089, the sad thing is, there will be people who look like me (about as white as a person can be) who read that and will say, "But we were here first!"Before we make English the official language, we should outlaw stupid.(despite being pasty white, I am not entirely white...no, I don't speak any Cherokee or Choctaw, but would like to learn some of one or the other someday…)
drjgJun 24, 2009
"you still have to speak either English or French to live in Canada." Shillabus, this might be true of citizens, but this case might not apply - it is not clear she was intending to stay on and go on to be a citizen or even a resident. And while citizens in both US and Canada might be required to speak English (unless one intends to live in Quebec, in which case French) the citizens do have a right to have their families brought over, and the residents do have them brought over with necessary permits obtained; also the relatives come over for a visit; and many of the said family or relatives in this do not speak English (or French) while many many more are far more well educated than the ambient local level in the host country, which is not to say the two are mutually exclusive, far from that. So there are all sorts of patterns - extremely well educated and non English speaking, well educated and very well English speaking, not formally educated in school but competent in some business or skill, ... think of any variation and it might be there. This woman might have been on a visit since the story is she is well off and has a prosperous business and a house and a large family back home, and what you do not deserve for visiting a relative is to be deprived of your human rights. Often the visiting relatives in US and Canada are visiting to help the relative out with some home and family issue. They have no need of interacting with others much less official business or filing tax returns.
drjgJun 24, 2009
"most americans would likely abandon ship the moment there was a better opportunity somewhere else," - how true, michaela, in fact that is the root of various corporates shifting manufacture abroad - first, the manufacture to south east Asia with cheap labour and the latest, China with cheap labour. Clothes, shoes, phones, toys, .... And here is a whole lot of misinformed people thinking people from elsewhere are out to get benefits of freeloading in US - hullo, the benefits are only for citizens, not for legal residents much less the poor exploited overworking illegal ones, not that different from the cheap labour used elsewhere by corporates manufacturing your shirts and shoes!
zuko4prezJun 25, 2009
Well stated indeed shrudheuie. If this country wants to deport an illegal immigrant then they have every right to do so, but they do NOT have the right to keep said person's child. If this situation were reversed, all of those who are up in arms about her being illegal would be throwing a fit and lobbying to have the American child returned to the states with his or her mother.It DOES wreak of human rights abuses. But the American way, lately, seems to be to look down on every other culture while simultaneously defending our own practices that may be looked down upon by the rest of the world.I sincerely hope that this child is returned to it's mother... and I sincerely hope that she protects that child from this country. Obviously that baby needs to be protected from us.
zuko4prezJun 25, 2009
"How would the hospital been able to identify it?"Well, wouldn't the INTERPRETER have known that she wasn't speaking Spanish once he or she attempted to communicate?I agree with Xanthrick. "They probably thought they could take the baby and sell it, and she would have no way of reporting them." Adoption is a BOOMING industry with big bucks in it right now, especially when there's an infant involved. An extra $40,000 is an extremely conservative guestimate of what the state of Mississippi would get in exchange for this child.
nepidaeJun 26, 2009
This is not simply a broken "rule" like eating a grape at a supermarket, it is being somewhere that you are not legally allowed to be. If I lost my arm because I broke into a machine shop should I blame the machine shop or my stupidity?
lunarsightJun 26, 2009
Zuko - A plausible question, but just to play devil's advocate, Spanish comes in a lot of different hues. Like English, it's grown in different directions regionally to the point where somebody speaking one regional dialect may have issues understanding somebody speaking another regional dialect.Furthermore, perhaps they could conclude it wasn't Spanish - the mere fact they can conclude what it's not doesn't mean they can determine what it is - therein lies the problem.To go back to the Klingon example, a hospital may be able to rule out the various Slavic / Eastern European languages for somebody speaking Klingon - it doesn't mean they'll be able to find anybody that speaks Klingon to translate, or even know to look for a Klingon-translator in the first place.While I feel in hindsight the hospital arrived at the wrong conclusion, I'm not ready to go with conspiracy theories just yet.
nuclearisshitJul 12, 2009
HEEEEE HAWWWWW!
nuclearisshitJul 12, 2009
Heee hawww I reckon?? Drill baby drill, I reckon? Ohhhhh Heee Hawwww! I see..
diane73Aug 27, 2009
Like I said before, go back to school yourself and learn some E-N-G-L-I-S-H!!!! Your an ingnorant piece of work.
kgilr7Aug 27, 2009
Tell that to all the American expats abroad who don't feel the need to assimilate into the culture of the country they live in. Americans are just as bad abroad.