[Buzz]

The two states that I am most familiar with are California and Florida. I travelled to California on both business and pleasure when I lived and worked in Canada's northern Alberta oilpatch. Now that I am back home in the Caribbean, I travel to Florida occasionally, mainly for business and shopping. I loved the coastal areas of southern California and seriously considered investing in some business and property there in the mid 1980's. I also remember being amazed at how "Spanish" (my thoughts at the time) much of SoCal was and thinking that it would be a good idea to learn that language if I ended up spending a lot of time there. Fast forward to today and Florida and my impressions are very similar, but far more extreme. As a predominantly English speaker (my French sucks) I always felt at ease and easily assimilated in most parts of North America, but in the greater Miami area, because I do not habla espanol, I feel very "foreign" and, ironically, more like a "minority" than I have felt anywhere else, with the exception of French speaking Quebec. On my most recent trip, telephone conversations were often challenging and I really felt like English was the second language. Face to face, maybe people made assumptions because of my appearance, but I was almost always addressed first in Spanish and in English only after indicating that I didn't understand. This is strictly an outsider's observation and not meant in any way to upset or offend anyone.
I do not believe in multiculturalism as a societal policy and bilingualism is even worse. Both of these undermine the very basic principle of a unified nation and lead towards chaos as the special interests of the various factions take precedence over the greater good of the nation itself. I will never understand why people leave their countries only to try to recreate what they supposedly left behind. I will definitely never understand why they are allowed and encouraged to do so. Fight for your society, your country and your way of life - it's not only your right, but your duty as citizens.
One well meaning word of caution to the decent and rightfully indignant people speaking out here - be wary of embracing and identifying with the extremists and neo nazi fanatics among you simply because they agree with you on this particular issue - they are as great a danger, a disgrace and a discredit to your nation as any hostile foreigner or illegal alien and they will use this cause not for the good of America but as the familiar old "convenient scapegoat" tactic to further advance their own twisted, self-serving agendas.