Firefighter Blog

1) There are tons of spanish speakers in SB. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 35.02% of the pop in the last census.

2) There are a lot more than 2 homeless people. Have you ever been to the library?

3) Edhat counted the number of people showing up at the kiosks. There were 9 at the Mission in a half hour period.
http://www.edhat.com/site/tidbit.cfm?id=1883
 

Ed's Friend,

How many of those 35% don't speak English and how many of those are searching Inciweb. How many live in the path of the fire?

The Spanish speaking population also has media, I'd guess at least 3 or 4 AM radio stations and a couple of local TV stations, Telemundo and associated Spanish language news channels from Los Angeles.

My larger point is we are becoming bilingual which is a step backwards financially and culturally.

Also if you are prepared to go down the multi-lingual path you should include some Asian dialects like Hmong, Cantonese or Thai. It's only fair don't you agree?

One more point about Santa Barbara, a special place we both agree but what do you say of the 35% Hispanic population with ZERO representation on the Santa Barbara City Council?

Six spots and no Hispanics rather names like Barnwell, Falcone, Horton, Schneider, House and Williams.
Given your defense of the bilingual fire notifications you should agree at least two of those spots should be Hispanics, no?

As for the kiosks, well 9 visits to the Mission kiosk make my point. This is a popular tourist spot and my guess is a few of those 9 kiosk visitors were people passing through.
Thank you for the comment.
 

Thought-provoking post. The Chumash, Spanish, Mexican, European settlers from the eastern US, and Chinese who worked on the railroads were all in residence (in Calif.) since the 1700's. There was a treaty signed by the Mexican government which turned Calif. over to the U.S., in exchange the Californios could become citizens.

I wonder if the ranch hands working on that pipe on July 4 were able to read the warning about fire danger from sparks while using the metal grinding equipment. I'd love to know more about that aspect of this situation.

Yep, there are many more than those 2 on State Street. It would be nice if they could get the mental health care required (by a large percentage of them).

City council? Election is on the way - most residents want change.
 

Oh, yeah, becoming bilingual is such a step backwards. Have you not noticed that the Euro--that multilingual currency--is kicking the dollar's butt? Being monolingual, like being monocultural, is a bad idea. A monocultural forest is more likely to be sick, as you probably know. Mexican-bashing just really doesn't accomplish much, unless you yourself are willing to go do field work.
 

There was no bashing of any nationality at all. I have relatives who lived long lives here that never bothered to learn the English language, it's a disgrace.
Don't put Europe on any pedestal or Quebec Canada either for that matter. This is the USA and we don't really need multiculturalism to the extent that we have multiple languages recognized as "official" or even unofficial.
I believe the adding of Spanish to the Inciweb reports is nothing more than political correctness, simple pandering.
If you want to got down the road of offering multiple languages why don't we add Cantonese or Hmong as well as Spanish.