FOREIGNERS LIVING IN OTHER COUNTIRES, LEARN THE LANGUAGE

The island I live on, St. Martin/St. Maarten, is as many people know, overwhelmed by people from all over the world. The island itself is part French and part Dutch. The natives speak an English-based Creole, learning Standard English at school later on.

Now however, we are swamped with immigrants, mostly illegal, mostly Haitian and mostly unskilled. Immigration is a very good thing, but illegal immigration is just the opposite, and most of the people who come here come because once on French territory, they collect all the social benefits that exist, even some that the natives find it hard to get.

An example is my own daughter. We are French, she is married to a Dutch policeman, and cannot collect the child allocation that French families get, because as they say: they cannot get it back from her husband's employer. But hundreds of both married and unmarried Dominican and Haitian women collect this same money, without having to worry about their non existent and sometimes very existent husband's employers having to pay it back.

This little island is only thirty seven square miles, twenty one of which are French, and sixteen of which are Dutch. At the moment nobody has a clue as to how many people live here, estimates are as high as 100.000.

Now we get to the language part of it. It all comes back to the Hispanic part of the deal. Government agencies are willing to speak Spanish for them, but refuse to speak English for those natives who do not master the French language.

However, these same Hispanics have lived on the island for years and simply refuse to learn to speak either French or English.

If you decide to leave your country to go to another country that speaks a different language, you are morally bound to learn that language, especially if you are coming to profit from their social system without contributing anything in return.

If somebody has to flee from their country due to war or some such thing, then they will arrive there at a disadvantage, and even them, their first duty, if they intend to stay, is to make the effort to communicate. The natives are not the ones who have to change their language for immigrants, even though, their lives are invariably changed by the flood of immigrants.

This island and its people is being crushed by illegal immigration.

Learn more about this author, Diane Hodge.
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