Hazleton, Immigration, Language...Take 2

Remember this as you read this...this is the second time I attempted to submit this tonight.

Being from Bloomsburg myself, I have been to Hazleton a lot during a year. I went home this weekend and drove by the Hazleton area. Most of the problems that are found in the city are found in West Hazleton, which coincidentally contains a highly concentrated Hispanic community. Mayor Barletta is not being biased towards the Hispanic population and his plans have some valid points. In his comments in both articles on Hazleton, Barletta says he wants to punish anyone who helps out illegal immigrants and make it harder for them to be in Hazleton. Well, I think that he was quite vague when he made the law, which has been passed. Making it so that doing anything for an illegal is very vague. If you sell a soda to an illegal immigrant, like we discussed about in class, wouldn't that be helping them out since you gave a service to them? Making English the official and only language of the city may help to a point but not necessarily. What if someone is here illegally but can speak perfect English? That really does not discourage him/her from being there. Barletta says that he is doing this to help protect those who voted him into office. I wonder if he found out that the people who have been victimized in his city have only been people who voted for him. That must have been one big landslide victory in his last election. The way that the mayor is handling this case in the most part is just wrong. Crime is not caused solely by illegal immigrants. If that were the case then I guess Los Angeles and New York is teeming with them. I will say this though...because they are illegal immigrants they are breaking the law and it is right of someone to deal with the problem. What Barletta doesn't realize is that the problem cannot be solved by brute force or a fancy law. It will be hard to find the illegal immigrants, no doubt about it. And now that I realized that this whole entry was supposed to be on the idea of language, I shall stop mid-thought and move onto that idea of language now.
English has been the major language of the United States since the days of the Quakers. Only recently has the threatening of the English language occurred. It is true that there are hundreds of languages out there in the world with many being tribal or native languages. The mainstream languages, English, French, Spanish, and Chinese are the most spoken languages in the world. Spanish is spoken in all of Latin America with the exception of Brazil (Portuguese). Their culture is distinct from that of the United States and the rest of Anglo-America. It is also true that the US is considered to be the "melting pot" (which I myself stated in class) or the "salad bowl". The American culture is a mixture of all cultures that have come to this area and settled here. Over time, English has become the majority language. In one of our articles, it was said that 9 million people in the United States spoke Spanish and knew no English. (*And now my wireless internet here cut out...just peachy*) There has been a push for Spanish to be considered one of the primary languages in the US. I know the government has to listen to those 9 million people, but they can't forget the minority group who don't speak Spanish as a first language (all 97% of the American population --291 million people--). I am waiting for the day where someone comes to the US and pushes for Klingon to be a primary language, then I am going on a Star Trek viewing binge and then move to Canada. Anyway, that's a long way off. I wrote some things about English and culture in my previous entry, so you can go and read that one (It's called "Pig Latin is not a culture") and Iway illstay aysay atthay igPay atinLay isway otnay away ulturecay utbay itway isway unfay otay itewray enwhay eoplepay on'tday owknay owhay otay eakspay orway eadray this weird pseudo-language.