my son has 'borrowed' my speakers again,,but I certainly empathize and relate with the author of the piece





in regards to communication, its purpose is to convey ideas so there does need to be the ability for others to 'understand' the person speaking. I wouldnt expect to go to another country and be put in positions of customer service or direct personal relations where it was important for people to understand me either. It is a terrible thing to be paying for a college course, and then get into the class and not be able to understand a word the professor says even though the words are 'english'.
I think people have a grasp of whether others understand them and have the ability to try harder to be understood...if they choose to, and if they cant than they can choose fields in which such an 'understanding' isnt quite so vital.

Arizona's new immigration law is outrageous to anyone who's had the bad luck of living in a country where fear of the police was a constant source of suppressed rage. A huge weight lifted off my psyche when I came to the U.S. from Communist Romania and was told that the police couldn't stop me just because I still wore my commie trench coat and spoke with an accent.

That was in 1966, and now in Arizona in 2010, the police can target both my trench coat and my accent. The Arizona Department of Education has told schools that teachers with "heavy" or "ungrammatical" accents are no longer allowed to teach English to kids just learning to speak the language.

Oh boy! Did I land back behind the Iron Curtain half a century ago? My last 40 years of teaching would have never happened if the Arizona law had been the law of the land in 1966. Forty years of accented instruction gone by the wayside! Gone also the 40 years when American education, lower and higher, finally recognized the diversity of America.

Mr. Codrescu speaks English as fluently as is his written English...probably far more proper than most of us. He does speak, however, with a delightful accent that may have at one time seemed attractive to many women in the U.S.

Accents were once considered exotic or attractive. Times change I suppose. Now it seems they are considered a threat. Very sad...I love recalling my great-uncle's voice with his English accent. He'd lived as a U.S. citizen for 3/4 of his life, but still had that accent when he passed.

"Come to think of it, the Arizona law doesn't go far enough: People with accents should be banned from any profession that involves communication. Politics, for instance. Henry Kissinger's accent would surely qualify for the ban. And let's not stop with the foreign-born: Ban all accents. Southern accents, for instance, or Yankee ones. Actually, there isn't anyone who speaks without an accent, so let's just ban communicating altogether. This would be a much better country if everyone just kept quiet and handed his proof of citizenship to the police.

Arizona's immigration law should be rewritten to make every person who sees a policeman just go over to that policeman and hand over voluntarily, and quietly, proof of residency in the respective police district."

where does it say that they can put you in jail for speaking english with an accent?

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only people who have anything to worry about are the ones who are doing something wrong.

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The only people who have anything to worry about are the ones who are doing something wrong.

I don't care to read the article, you said accents were now considered a threat... who considers them a threat?

I don't recall mentioning jail. I did, however, talk of how times had changed...and I imagine times will continue changing. I would mention, though, that under Arizona law, Mr. Codrescu would not have been able to teach here for 40 years...because of his accent.

really... the law doesn't allow citizens with accents to teach?

Then, please, don't trouble yourself to read it. Sad, though, that is what is wrong. No one is talking with each other. No one is willing to listen to another's view of things. To even read an article seems to threaten some.