Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Guest Workers and the Language Question
Eric Weiner looks at the Persian Gulf's guest-worker programs for lessons for America. Here's one:
What happens to a country when most of its workforce is foreign? Many things, it turns out, and none of them good. Arab culture and language are being swamped by the flood of foreigners. In Dubai, for instance, a Moroccan woman I learned about couldn't find a job because she did not speak English. She was, of course, fluent in Arabic, the official language of the United Arab Emirates.
Been to an American construction site lately? No wonder books like this one, the English-Spanish Construction Dictionary, are in high demand. Construction jobs used to be a high-paying refuge for unskilled American workers. (Bruce Springsteen, in The River sang "I got a job workin' construction" for a reason.) Unskilled American workers now cost too much, creating jobs "Americans won't do."
|posted by Jim on 1:04 AM|
Link
. . .
|
. . .
|
