Originally Posted by Maud Araminta

I used the word "here" because America (and England) are all I know. I didn't mean to infer that this type of abuse happens only here.

Hideous domestic abuse indeed.

Originally Posted by Yorkieabroad

I would move somewhere without knowing the language, but I doubt it would have been America. Wife did move to the U.S. in her very early teens and went to school first day knowing not one word of English. She had done the same when moving to Japan a year earlier. Her father was the only one that spoke English, but he was a chief engineer at sea for 12 month trips, so the family had to get set up and get on with life in a strange language. Her mom now speaks very good, but heavily accented English. Her main confusions are on gender and tense, especially when she gets mad the 3 daughters all went thru US universities for first and second degrees, and speak very good English..for all of them it is their written English that betrays the fact that it is not their first language.

I still have a hankering to move back to the Far East, and if it happened, Taiwan would likely be the place, where English is pretty limited, as is my Chinese. We are in Taiwan at the moment, and the kids are sucking up the Mandarin like sponges. My 10 yo daughter has been elevated from youngest kid to de facto leader because she is doing so well and will jump in with both feet. The boys are more reticent. Wife is not with us for the last couple of weeks so I'd expected to be the "guide", but daughter has surpassed my limited abilities in double quick time, speaking, reading and writing.

Originally Posted by Jerseygirl

but she was from Conneticut...but wait...

Originally Posted by Michael

My favorite story is from my grandfather on my mother's side. He decided to immigrate first, find a job, and then send money back to my grandmother in Yugoslavia to pay for the trip for her and my mother to come to the US. In Yugoslavia it was customary for the wife to stay with his parents when he was away so my grandmother and mother stayed with his parents and worked the farm. When he arrived in the US, he found out that there were good paying jobs in the open pit mines in Northern Minnesota so he went there and got a job.

After a year, he saved enough money to bring his wife and my mother to the US and sent the money in the mail. About a month later he received a letter back saying that she isn't ready to move yet and the money was spent for necessities. This continued for 10 years with my grandfather sending money and getting a response that she was not ready to come yet. Finally my grandmother, who was illiterate, thought there was something fishy going on since each time a letter was received, my grandfather's father always said the same that "times are tough but next year I'll send the money". So each morning she waited by the mail box and when she recognized a letter from my grandfather, she took it to the local priest. In the letter it said, "I've sent you money many times but you never come and I am fed up." She then had the priest write a letter explaining that she never received any money and to send the money to the priest. The money arrived and her and my mother (then 16) immigrated.

I said to my grandfather, "I bet you were really mad at your father" and he said "no, that's just life".

Originally Posted by Giantaxe

I know a Greek woman who hardly speaks a word of English. She's lived in the US for almost 60 years!

Originally Posted by MMcD

How can she take the citizenship test, which I believe requires reading and writing, if she's unable to do either?

Originally Posted by Maud Araminta

if you could not speak English? I definitely would not have done so. I am amazed and full of admiration for the many people who come here with limited or no English. I cannot imagine navigating through the difficulties of emigration and life here in general without English.

Originally Posted by Michael

When I joined the Navy, I had to fill out a form that asked about my father's and mother's place of birth. When I wrote "Yugoslavia" for my mother, it asked for her naturalization number. I asked my mother for her naturalization number and she said she became a citizen when her parents naturalized. However that was incorrect since she arrived when she was 16 and has been voting since her parents naturalized.

Fortunately the INS was very forgiving in those days and after seeing someone at the INS, they quickly naturalized her.

During the early 20th century immigration, many Italians couldn't get needed documents from the Italian government to immigrate to the US so they just boarded the boat and when they arrived, they were questioned as to why they didn't have papers but were allowed to immigrate. That is how the name WOP (with out papers) came to refer to Italians.

Originally Posted by Noorah101

Yes. My husband came to the USA on a K-1 fiancé visa. He's from Iran, but was living and working in Turkey when we met. So he spoke Farsi, Azeri, and Turkish, but pretty much zero English when he came to the USA in 2004. (I speak fluent Farsi so that's how we communicated...and still do for the most part.)

He didn't know anyone in the USA except me. He owned his own oriental rug repair business in Turkey and had a dozen employees, so he really took a big risk giving all that up to come here.

Because he works in the oriental rug industry, he mostly works with other Iranians (or sometimes Turks), AND he spends most of his time in Los Angeles (mini-Tehran!), so he never really has much need to speak English on a daily basis. That being said, his English is much better than it was in 2004, but I would say he is still not fluent.

I was so proud of him for learning all the US Citizenship questions and answers in 2009 for his exam. It was really hard for him, with his limited English, but he did it and became a US Citizen. Since his reading in English was even worse than his speaking, I recorded all 100 questions with one answer each, so he could play the recording while he was working and memorize everything. Which to my somewhat astonishment, he did!

So from my husband's perspective, "yes, I'd move to the USA if I didn't speak English".

Rene

Originally Posted by Noorah101

Yes. My husband came to the USA on a K-1 fiancé visa. He's from Iran, but was living and working in Turkey when we met. So he spoke Farsi, Azeri, and Turkish, but pretty much zero English when he came to the USA in 2004. (I speak fluent Farsi so that's how we communicated...and still do for the most part.)

He didn't know anyone in the USA except me. He owned his own oriental rug repair business in Turkey and had a dozen employees, so he really took a big risk giving all that up to come here.

Because he works in the oriental rug industry, he mostly works with other Iranians (or sometimes Turks), AND he spends most of his time in Los Angeles (mini-Tehran!), so he never really has much need to speak English on a daily basis. That being said, his English is much better than it was in 2004, but I would say he is still not fluent.

I was so proud of him for learning all the US Citizenship questions and answers in 2009 for his exam. It was really hard for him, with his limited English, but he did it and became a US Citizen. Since his reading in English was even worse than his speaking, I recorded all 100 questions with one answer each, so he could play the recording while he was working and memorize everything. Which to my somewhat astonishment, he did!

So from my husband's perspective, "yes, I'd move to the USA if I didn't speak English".

Rene

Originally Posted by Michael

That is how the name WOP (with out papers) came to refer to Italians.

Originally Posted by Yorkieabroad

I didn't know where that one came from.

You're really on a roll on this one Michael - come on, next, we're waiting! If you keep this up you'll get your own thread like Nutek