I grew up in a bilingual country, with English being the dominant language most places. It never bothered me much, because both languages have been the official languages for a long time (and the Francophones settled there before the Anglophones, anyway). My father and maternal grandparents were immigrants and had to learn English (and French in my father's case) to get by...so why is it that nowadays in America it's okay not to learn English? I didn't realise the extent to which Spanish had become prevalent in the US until I moved here. Had I not known better, I'd have assumed the US was a bilingual country, too. English is only the de facto official language, so that allows some wiggle room for the large Hispanic immigrant population to retain their language. Still, being unable to communicate with the general population is just not practical.