A recent USA Today article

On Saturday I was out and about and walked past a newspaper box which had copies of USA Today.  (Considering that I am typically a day ahead, this must have been a Friday edition.)  Above the fold, there was an article decrying the lack of translators in U.S hospitals and how this was causing untold suffering to those without a command of English. 

I wasn't about to waste my valuable quarters on buying USA Today, but I drew closer and read what I could of it.  And then I shook my head in amusement.

See, I have traveled extensively, and to top all of this off, I am in a foreign country.  If something medically unfortunate happens to me in the Korean countryside, I am not expecting to run into English speaking doctors unless I get taken to a military facility.  Nor would I expect this in a German Krankenhaus.  Or, for that matter, anywhere in the world where English isn't widely spoken as a first language by the majority of citizens.  But then, I suppose that little inconvenience is lost on the editors and publishers of USA Today. 

Of course, we all know what they are really whining about: that we somehow aren't 100% accomodating to illegal immigrants who happen to be fluent in Spanish or whatever language they speak (and let us conveniently forget that illegal immigration is not limited to those coming out of Latin America).  We have to coddle and babysit everyone regardless if they come here illegally or not if one is to read this article and interpret it the way the editors are hoping and praying we do. 

So, to boil this all down, I would like to pose the following questions to the author of this article and for the editors:

1) If I get severely injured somehow in, say, Japan, do I have some unalienable right to a translator?

2) As much as I like immigration, what part of the word "illegal" do you not understand? 

3) If the immigrants are indeed legal, what can possibly be wrong with expecting them to learn the vernacular of the United States?