Thanks for the great read Donna Barker! I think anti-immigrant sentiment is a huge part of American reluctance to consider second and third languages. In some corners, speaking anything other than English is nearly synonymous with hating your country. This attitude would be mind-boggling in any corner of Europe, and I wonder if there would be any trace of a male/female bias in language learning there.

I also find your story of late-French-learning really interesting. Wasn’t it intimidating to be practicing French in a French-speaking province? I learned French a little earlier (French Immersion from Grade 1), but I remember clearly the feeling of opening a conversation with inadequate French (in Montreal) and automatically getting answers back in English.