A group of kindergarten students in Houston found themselves on the receiving end of a protest on their first day of school because they attended a bilingual school.
Protesters targeted the Houston Independent School District (HISD) where the children ages 4 to 5 were attending an Arabic immersion program which teaches normal curriculum in the Arabic language for half of the school day.
“Everything I needed to know about Islam I learned from Muslims on 9-11-2001,” one sign read. “Qatar out of our school,” another sign stated. [...]
Protesters told the Houston Chronicle that they don’t have problems with “other immersion schools or with independent Arabic language classes, but said the school was anti-American, and that immigrants should be ‘assimilated.'” The population at the Arabic school is about 30 percent Hispanic, 30 percent white, and 30 percent African American, according to the HISD news blog.
Apparently you're anti-American if you teach the same material as every other school but do so in a bilingual manner.
I doubt children at this age even have a firm grasp of nationality or jingoism, but I suppose they could be indoctrinated by Arabic translations of Reading Rainbow.
I have my suspicions that protesters holding "Qatar out" signs couldn't even locate Qatar on a map or explain in what manner exactly the nation of Qatar has influenced the creation of a bilingual school in Texas.
If they're concerned about the use of slave labor in Qatar, the future host of the World Cup, we may have some common ground.
(photo via Houston Chronicle)