This past 2 weeks, the patients i have opened up cases for in HH speak not a work of English. They have social security numbers, Medicare benefits, and Medicaid benefits. Live in the U.S. But do not speak a word of English. Getting a family member who does or a translator at a certain time, or even to make a simple phone call and to get someone to answer the door is an utmost challenge.
I know this topic is controversial, but why am I struggling to hard to understand some Spanish so I can do my job in America?
Most are quite lovely patients. Some are just shocked that I don't speak Spanish!
My rant of the day. And these days, there are a lot of rants for me in this field, I admit it.
Y'know Stephalump. I get that sometimes at work not berating persay but they wonder why I don't speak spanish despite having a spanish last name. I'm as european looking as it can get with a NZ accent but it doesn't occur to them its my married name.
Drives me up the wall when we have parents who are in their 20's, who have lived here there whole life and they claim they can't speak English...really? We have a translator phone service we use. We also make them sign a paper when they want only a family member to translate for them since we can't be sure what the family is really telling them.
I have a friend who came here from Vietnam...know how she learned English? From karaoke lol She speaks fabulous English now, has been in this country for about 20 years :) So, where there is a will, there is a way.
If you are going to live here, at least learn the basics. When I lived in France for 3 years, I had to learn the basics, I knew enough to get by when I got there and I picked up more after those 3 years. It may not have been perfect but it got me what I needed!
If I was in Mexico receiving medical care on vacation, I would freak out if no one around me could explain what was happening in English..
THIS. this is the problem, i believe. the (vast) majority of the people we are talking about here are not here on vacation. they are illegal immigrants or too lazy to learn. there. i said it.
all 4 of my grandparents are immigrants. i swear to this day my grandpa is more educated regarding when to use "who" versus "whom". coming to america and becoming a citizen used to be an honor.
Personally, I enjoy our melting pot of a country. I like that cultures remain intact - it's part of who we are and always have been, as evidenced by the fact that we do not have a national language. Does that mean there will be some communication issues? Sure, but we've survived for 200+ years and we'll continue to survive.
I think you misunderstand the meaning of the term "melting pot". This was a term coined in the early 20th century referring to mainly eastern and southern European immigrants. The US wasa "melting pot" because it took all these immigrants and "melted" them into a single, distinctly American, culture. How many people of German or Italian origin do you see who don't speak English. Those immigrants all learned English within one generation of moving here. And they had far less resources and faced far more hardships than immigrants today....
Yeah we have the pot but not much melting. Though is not akin to learning a new language when I moved here I made a concious effort to change my syntax and word useage and indirectly my accent to make myself better understood. The first few months there were moments were people were Huh? even though we both spoke english.
I have mixed feelings about this issue. On one hand, I genuinely enjoy studying languages and am working on becoming at least conversant in Spanish. I'm working on a master's in nurse-midwifery and where I live, in the kind of clinical placements that are available, it's pretty essential.
However, I don't think that any person, patient or not, who doesn't speak English in this country has the right to be rude and feel entitled to a whateverlanguage-speaking nurse ONLY. I also think that it's absurd that someone moving to America, even if they aren't going to have the resources to become fluent in English right away, wouldn't at least take the time to learn some basic phrases to make an effort to get by. There are a million different creative ways to learn a new language, and not all of them involve private tutoring or a $300 program like Rosetta Stone. There are these wonderful little places called public libraries that have tons of free resources, ranging from dictionaries in other languages to information about free language assistance programs, web assistance and DVDs, etc. Or, as many of our ancestors who came here generations ago not speaking English did, start talking around the neighborhood! You have to be willing to try a little, and I guess the issue with a minority of minorities is that they don't.
I have also had patients who were recent immigrants who made a point to ask if they could try to speak English even if we could have used the translator phone for communication about basic things, because they were eager to learn. I came across a 60-something year old Russian patient on hourly rounds one day who was writing in a notebook. When I asked peeked over curiously, he showed me a children's book version of 'Sherlock Holmes' that he was copying, word for word, into a notebook, and he shyly said, "I learn English!" So while the fact that some immigrants do not learn English for whatever reason can be frustrating to deal with as a nurse, we can't paint everyone with a broad brush, and nor should people, in my opinion, be quick to eschew the value of picking up new language skills.
Anyhoo, I haven't gotten through all of them, but....
What resources do you suppose people have to facilitate their language acquisition? I live in a large city with a lot of immigrants from different areas. There are community centers that offer ESOL classes free of charge...and the waiting lists are about 18 months to 2 years long. Not to mention that often these immigrants are working menial jobs, which means physical labor and long hours for low pay, so paying for classes and finding one to fit one's schedule would be challenging.
I understand the sentiment that people should learn English if they want to live (well) here, but the reality of it is far, far more complex than "learn the language, damn it."
What about kids shows like sesame street?
My brother got sent to Japan for several months for work, and yeah, he had an assigned translator... but he made the effort to learn a bit of the language, and did so by watching kids TV shows.
IMO there is quite a difference between receiving medical care on vacation and not knowing the language, or LIVING in a country, having been there for years, and not being able to communicate. And even there, when Ive travelled to Spanish speaking countries, I bring a little handbook that has basic Spanish, from how to get directions to a restaurant, to basic medical issues.
America is not alone in this problem. Most of the Western world has become everybody's pushover. We are so concerned about offending that we put our own culture, values, and language aside. In Canada there is the same problem, although I am from Quebec and they do everything in their power to promote French speaking. They give preferential immigration to French speakers. If you do not know French at the time of immigration, they provide you with a FREE French class that is mandatory. It also extends to the population, with a lot of hard-core Quebecers being rude to non-French speakers in the customer-service setting. Although this is excessive, I think it has gotten this bad because of the state of other countries.
If people need to take an American history test to get their Green Card, I think it also definitely should include an English test....
Political correctness will be the undoing of this nation. As an American Citizen I have a right to voice that opinion.
I could not agree more with this statement. I am an American nurse working in America and we speak ENGLISH here. This is MY culture; if you are alien to it and come here, it is beyond hubris for you to expect ME to adapt to YOU. You are in MY culture now. You will be taken care of competently by an English-speaking American. If that is not acceptable to you, then you should have stayed in your own culture and no adaptations would be expected on either side of the bed.
If people need to take an American history test to get their Green Card, I think it also definitely should include an English test....
There is no American history test for the Green Card only the citizenship/naturalization test. If you are over a certain age the test is done in your language if not then English. I took a college level American history course so I can be ready for my citizenship test only to find all the questions are on the INS website and they can only ask you those. If in a foriegn language the questions are easier.
So its a nice concept executed badly. I aced my history class though. I'm from NZ but I'm proud to be an American and I'll be even prouder to be an American citizen. I wait several years to apply after being eligible because I was on the fence about it. I didn't think it was right to be a citizen of a country if I didn't fully embrace all its values.
I have always been on the edge of the RN/BSN debate but this post pushes me solidly into the required BSN camp. The multiple-year foreign language requirement not only enables you to communicate with patients who don't speak English fluently, it also increases your compassion for people who don't speak your language because can't help but appreciate the difficulty involved in learning another language.
To the OP - your post makes me sick. Let us hope you never fall ill in a foreign country. Though, it's highly unlikely that would occur because it's highly unlikely that you have a passport. God help you and your patients.
This post makes me laugh for a few reasons.
1) I just read another thread about supposedly non-empathetic nurses and others giving them that kind of extremely offensive and judgmental comment, which yours is, IMO. The fact that the OP expects citizens or residents of America to speak English does not make her a bad nurse or one deserving scorn, much less your comments about her falling sick in a foreign land. She doesnt say or even imply that she gives them worse treatment than others. She simply expresses frustration at this, and says what a lot of us feel, that it makes our job more complicated than it already is. Then there are your even more judgmental comments about her not having a passport, as if expecting citizens of America to speak the language means that she has a lack of culture or tolerance. Ridiculous with a capital R.
2) I dont see what a BSN has to do with this conversation at all. Maybe in your area, the BSN requires multiple languages, but not in any of the (very good) schools Ive looked at. But all that aside, as a BILINGUAL nurse myself, knowing how difficult it is to learn a new language (I speak french, which is a lot more difficult to learn than Spanish), I STILL think when you immigrate to a country, there should be a standard that you should be able to communicate, if not at the time of your entry, then at the very least within a certain amount of time after you enter. It should be part of your requirements for entry. In fact, when I came on my TN status to the US, I was told I needed to take the TOEFL test to come and to work. And if it wasnt for the fact that I have always done all my classes in English, I would have completely understood and agreed with this requirement.
I have a friend who came here from Vietnam...know how she learned English? From karaoke lol She speaks fabulous English now, has been in this country for about 20 years :) So, where there is a will, there is a way.
tothepointeLVN, LVN
2,246 Posts
Y'know Stephalump. I get that sometimes at work not berating persay but they wonder why I don't speak spanish despite having a spanish last name. I'm as european looking as it can get with a NZ accent but it doesn't occur to them its my married name.