American Accent

>>The fact that their everyday Language happens to be English is purely incidental, and if I was an American with an ancestry which had no connection with England/Britain at all, then I would be just a wee bit upset if people assumed I was of British heritage just because of the Language I speak.<<

It is kind of interesting that you mention this. I am an American of Scandinavian ancestry, and people who speak Spanish as their first language have called me "Anglo" or "Anglo-American". I do not necessarily mind it, but I pointed out to several of them that my grandparents did not learn English until the 1920s, and that I was not descended from the Anglo-Saxons.

I think now, in the United States, you are automatically considered "Anglo" or "Anglo-American" if you are white and speak English as your first language. It does not seem to matter if your parents, grandparents, or ancestors were from Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Italy, or Yugoslavia. Odd, I know, but that is the impression that I get.

>>It is kind of interesting that you mention this. I am an American of Scandinavian ancestry, and people who speak Spanish as their first language have called me "Anglo" or "Anglo-American". I do not necessarily mind it, but I pointed out to several of them that my grandparents did not learn English until the 1920s, and that I was not descended from the Anglo-Saxons.<<

I would probably be not the happiest with people calling me "Anglo", simply because I not only are not descended from any group in the British Isles but also have practically no identification with British culture at all.

>>I think now, in the United States, you are automatically considered "Anglo" or "Anglo-American" if you are white and speak English as your first language. It does not seem to matter if your parents, grandparents, or ancestors were from Ireland, Scotland, Poland, Russia, Sweden, Italy, or Yugoslavia. Odd, I know, but that is the impression that I get.<<

Maybe in some parts of the US such as the Southwest and California. However, here in the Upper Midwest I practically *never* hear the term "Anglo" or "Anglo-American" in use except occasionally to refer to people who actually are of English descent or at least English, Welsh, Scottish, or Scots-Irish descent.

Damian said: "Immigration (whether legal or illegal) is now a major problem in all developed Western countries, and is very much a hot potato here in the UK now."

Travis--told ya, buddy. There's nothing racist about it. It all has to do with straining the economy. Europe has it worse than we do.

On a related note, out here in the West, Latinos call us "Anglos" all the time. It's never crossed my mind to be offended.

The largest ethnic group in Texas (I'm pretty sure) is German... Throughout the South it's mostly Scots-Irish, as far as I know.

Definitely no one that would consider themselves "Anglo-" anything.

Jasper: My post did not refer whatsoever to any sort of racist element here in the UK when I reported on the ever increasing number of native / resident people objecting to the tide of immigration. Where these people come from or what their racial makeup happens to be is immaterial. It's just a question of logistics. We simply do not have the space for unlimited people pouring into a physically small country.

Unlike th USA, outside of the private sector (which people can subscribe to if they so desire) our UK social services and our medical healthcare systems providing all aspects of health treatment and aftercare provisions, are free of charge at the point of issue for all qualifying residents (who indirectly pay for it all out of taxes anyway). The American type healthcare system just would not go down well here one little bit and that's for sure! With more immigrants coming to live here all these services would be put under more strain and pressure. We don't give a toss where they come from in the first place or to what race they belong - the top and bottom of it all is this - we just don't have enough room for Uncle Tom Cobleigh, his wife and his brood of kids and his old granny, or unlimited resources to care for them.

Article

Illegal aliens threaten U.S. medical system
Docs journal reports hospitals being closed, previously vanquished diseases being spread
Posted: March 13, 2005

© 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

Cristobal Silverio emigrated illegally from Mexico to Stockton, Calif., in 1997 to work as a fruit picker.

He brought with him his wife, Felipa, and three children, 19, 12 and 8 – all illegals. When Felipa gave birth to her fourth child, daughter Flor, the family had what is referred to as an "anchor baby" – an American citizen by birth who provided the entire Silverio clan a ticket to remain in the U.S. permanently.

But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. Meanwhile, oldest daughter Lourdes married an illegal alien gave birth to a daughter, too. Her name is Esmeralda. And Felipa had yet another child, Cristian.

The two Silverio anchor babies generate $1,000 per month in public welfare funding for the family. Flor gets $600 a month for asthma. Healthy Cristian gets $400. While the Silverios earned $18,000 last year picking fruit, they picked up another $12,000 for their two "anchor babies."

While President Bush says the U.S. needs more "cheap labor" from south of the border to do jobs Americans aren't willing to do, the case of the Silverios shows there are indeed uncalculated costs involved in the importation of such labor – public support and uninsured medical costs.

In fact, the increasing number of illegal aliens coming into the United States is forcing the closure of hospitals, spreading previously vanquished diseases and threatening to destroy America's prized health-care system, says a report in the spring issue of the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons.

"The influx of illegal aliens has serious hidden medical consequences," writes Madeleine Pelner Cosman, author of the report. "We judge reality primarily by what we see. But what we do not see can be more dangerous, more expensive, and more deadly than what is seen."

According to her study, 84 California hospitals are closing their doors as a direct result of the rising number of illegal aliens and their non-reimbursed tax on the system.

"Anchor babies," the author writes, "born to illegal aliens instantly qualify as citizens for welfare benefits and have caused enormous rises in Medicaid costs and stipends under Supplemental Security Income and Disability Income."

In addition, the report says, "many illegal aliens harbor fatal diseases that American medicine fought and vanquished long ago, such as drug-resistant tuberculosis, malaria, leprosy, plague, polio, dengue, and Chagas disease."

While politicians often mention there are 43 million without health insurance in this country, the report estimates that at least 25 percent of those are illegal immigrants. The figure could be as high as 50 percent.

Not being insured does not mean they don't get medical care.

Under the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1985, hospitals are obligated to treat the uninsured without reimbursement.

"Government imposes viciously stiff fines and penalties on any physician and any hospital refusing to treat any patient that a zealous prosecutor deems an emergency patient, even though the hospital or physician screened and declared the patient's illness or injury non-emergency," says the report. "But government pays neither hospital nor physician for treatments. In addition to the fiscal attack on medical facilities and personnel, EMTALA is a handy truncheon with which to pummel politically unpopular physicians by falsely accusing them of violating EMTALA."

According to the report, between 1993 and 2003, 60 California hospitals closed because half their services became unpaid. Another 24 California hospitals verge on closure, the author writes.

"American hospitals welcome 'anchor babies,'" says the report. "Illegal alien women come to the hospital in labor and drop their little anchors, each of whom pulls its illegal alien mother, father, and siblings into permanent residency simply by being born within our borders. Anchor babies are citizens, and instantly qualify for public welfare aid: Between 300,000 and 350,000 anchor babies annually become citizens because of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and the State wherein they reside."

Among the organizations directing illegal aliens into America's medical systems, according to the report, are the Ford Foundation-funded Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund, the National Immigration Law Center, the American Immigration Lawyers Association, the American Bar Association's Commission on Immigration Policy, Practice, and Pro Bono, the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, the National Council of La Raza, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Migration Policy Institute, the National Network for Immigration and Refugee Rights and the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Because drug addiction and alcoholism are classified as diseases and disabilities, the fiscal toll on the health-care system rises.

When Linda Torres was arrested in Bakersfield, Calif., with about $8,500 in small bills in a sack, the police originally thought it was stolen money, explained the report. It was her Social Security lump sum for her disability -- heroin addiction.

"Today, legal immigrants must demonstrate that they are free of communicable diseases and drug addiction to qualify for lawful permanent residency green cards," writes Cosman, a medical lawyer, who formerly taught medical students at the City University of New York. "Illegal aliens simply cross our borders medically unexamined, hiding in their bodies any number of communicable diseases."

Many illegals entering this country have tuberculosis, according to the report.

"That disease had largely disappeared from America, thanks to excellent hygiene and powerful modern drugs such as isoniazid and rifampin," says the report. "TB's swift, deadly return now is lethal for about 60 percent of those infected because of new Multi-Drug Resistant Tuberculosis. Until recently MDR-TB was endemic to Mexico. This Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resistant to at least two major anti-tubercular drugs. Ordinary TB usually is cured in six months with four drugs that cost about $2,000. MDR-TB takes 24 months with many expensive drugs that cost around $250,000 with toxic side effects. Each illegal with MDR-TB coughs and infects 10 to 30 people, who will not show symptoms immediately. Latent disease explodes later.

TB was virtually absent in Virginia until in 2002, when it spiked a 17 percent increase, but Prince William County, just south of Washington, D.C., had a much larger rise of 188 percent. Public health officials blamed immigrants. In 2001 the Indiana School of Medicine studied an outbreak of MDR-TB, and traced it to Mexican illegal aliens. The Queens, New York, health department attributed 81 percent of new TB cases in 2001 to immigrants. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention ascribed 42 percent of all new TB cases to 'foreign born' people who have up to eight times higher incidences apparently, 66 percent of all TB cases coming to America originate in Mexico, the Philippines and Vietnam."

The reason America's non-socialized health care system yields such better results (and is able to extend to the 45 million "uninsured" as well as illegal immigrants who don't pay taxes and Canadians who need operations and procedures but can't afford to wait on Canada's yearly quota-system) is because (1) we have the money for more expensive medical care because it's not taxed out of us (2) private hospitals are more efficient in allocating their funds than any government medical program, including our medicare and medicaid and (3) after efficiently allocating those funds, hospitals have enough left over to treat those who are "unable" to get insurance (although if you remove those who opt out of buying insurance, the number goes down to about 12 million).

So I would agree that illegal immigrants put a significant strain on the US health care system, but not that they are a significant threat to it.

Wait, how does this apply to American accents? Where was that transition? :-P

<<Wait, how does this apply to American accents? Where was that transition? :-P >>

An interesting example of thread drift -- apparently, the topic of illegal immigration is more interesting to most of us than "american accents".

<<Immigrating to the US in the late 1800s was not difficult, the US actually invited anyone from any country to come...>>

No, it had strict quotas for each country, and such things as "gentlemen's agreements" with "undesirable" countries in Asia to keep people of those nations out. The countries with the most "desirable" immigrants -- the UK and Germany -- got huge quotas that were often never even filled, whereas Eastern and Southern European countries had tiny ones and long waiting lists.

<<But Flor was born premature, spent three months in the neonatal incubator and cost the San Joaquin Hospital more than $300,000. >>

I work in a hospital as a materials manager, and I have to giggle. ALL hospital charges are ridiculously inflated and bear little resemblance to actual cost or reimbursement. My markup on disposable goods, for instance, is 400%. I get them at wholesale rates, and charge them at retail rates. Insurance companies and Medicare pay a percentage, or a per diem, or pick and choose what they want to pay for and what they won't. No two insurance companies pay the same amount for the same procedure; they pay according to the terms negotiated in their contract with the hospital. Medicare is a particular bastard -- it enjoys encouraging patients to be admitted and then finding technicalities afterwards that allow them to deny any payment at all for the services rendered by the hospital! (You also can't force a patient to leave, even if their insurance has run out -- they can refuse and stay as long as they like.)

My joke to the business office manager was that hospital charges are really just a suggestion .... she laughed so hard I thought she was going to have a hernia!

Well, the matter is that the American healthcare system is broken by design; fixing it would go against powerful established interests who profit greatly from its present state. To fix it would require close to revolution just to break the power of such interests, which likely would have to be at gunpoint.

Wow this thread has drifted. Can I ask Damien, are there any deer left in Richmond Park or have they all been run over?

So I would agree that illegal immigrants put a significant strain on the US health care system, but not that they are a significant threat to it.


most immigrants to the US have no health assurance...
but then again, many Americans don't have it either...
I find it strange that people find their automobiles more valuable to them than their own life, it's ok to pay car insurance, but it's not ok to pay health insurance...

US healthcare system is OK for those can afford it, and for healthcare professionals. In Canada, doctors are underpaid and overworked, Canada has shortage of doctors, but they don't like foreign doctors coming to Canada because the greater number of doctors would make medical salaries even lower...Unlike US that is open to MDs form all around the world...you pass the exams like USMLE1,USMLE2, USMLE2CS and you can apply for residency in the US, and after you have completed it, you can stay and work as a doctor in America, for 200 000 USD a year. in the US, medicine is ment to make money, not to lose money.

There's no such thing as free lunch...
even water is sold in the stores, you can't get it for free.
it's a capitalist society. in post-communist countries, both doctors and patients are not satisfied. doctors have a bus driver's salaries and patients hate waiting in line for exams...

Uriel - you're right about the quotas, but in the late 1800s these quotas were pretty high... it was very easy to come to America and become a citizen back then. 7/8s of my family did it between 1890 and 1900.

Our health care system isn't "broken." It works just fine. Even those that don't have insurance (about 8 million people who honestly don't have insurance, can't afford it, and actually need it, which includes homeless people, including both truly homeless people and those that opt out of society i.e. anarchists, etc.).

<<Our health care system isn't "broken." It works just fine. Even those that don't have insurance (about 8 million people who honestly don't have insurance, can't afford it, and actually need it, which includes homeless people, including both truly homeless people and those that opt out of society i.e. anarchists, etc.).>>

I could not disagree more!! By the way, the figure is 40 million without insurance (including the 12 million illegals!), not 8. The 12 million illegals do need health care, you know.

Skippy, you're either young, or well-to-do. Definitinon of American liberal: a former conservative who has been mugged by the American Health Care system.

"Hee hee! I liked that bit! I'm not sure how true that is, but I reckon it's just a wee bit of an exaggeration even though it's true that Estuarisation (can we legitimise that noun form now?) has slowly spread across much of this country, even back home in Scotland to a certain degree. Even so, I think Estuarisation has managed to occur without radically changing the overall local accents/dialects."

It definitely doesn't seem to have changed the North much. But almost everyone I've spoken to from the Midlands who's my age tends to at least greatly de-emphasize the whole FOOT-STRUT merger thing in way somebody from Liverpool or Manchester probably wouldn't.

Then again, since I live in the states, I'm probably most talking to upper-middle-class kids who moved away. I'm assuming the situation in Birmingham is similar to the Boston in the US. If you go to an inner-city neighborhood like Dorchester, sure, you're going to hear pretty strong New England accents. But a college educated person from Cambridge is mostly going to sound Gen Am. I think what makes both Brummie and Boston accents uniquely susceptible to being actively eliminated by native speakers is the fairly low status they have in their respective countries (which I'm in NO WAY defending, but I'm aware it's a reality).