Its Imperial ignorance/arrogance. The rest of the world is told that they must learn English to survive while Americans are told that other languages are for "the little people" or that as Tucker Carlson says that he does not know a country that is multilingual and successful.

I spent eight days in March in Cholula/Tlaxcalancingo. With only a little study beforehand and being immersed like that, I was, frankly, amazed at how much understanding I picked up in such a short time (having some pretty deep conversations). If I don't get a job soon, I'm thinking I might return. I'm hungry to learn. And more than just language.

Stephen Bess at Morphological Confetti has a Fanon quote that applies here:

"I ascribe a basic importance to the phenomenon of language. To speak means to be in a position to use a certain syntax, to grasp the morphology of this or that language, but it means above all to assume a culture, to support the weight of a civilization." --Frantz Fanon (Black Skins, White Mask - 1952, trans. 1967)

If my kids all get together we speak italian, english, spanish, arabic, french, and some latin {roman}. They grew up with no TV. But plenty of languages. I am going to defend Ahnold here. Maybe what he is saying is that it would be good to speak English in Cali and not just Spanish.
And while we are on the topic, in the US {and everywhere}all INFANTS should be taught at least three languages.
The world would be better for it.
The new world of the Spanglish States of the Americas already exists. Why is everyone so blind to that fact? Don't you ever shop at Home Depot or Loew's? There is more Spanish there than there is in Puerto Rico, rayos! It is far too late to change anything about the languages, the races, the migrations, the work, the economies that brought us here, unless you have a time machine.
The only option now is to make it work. But don't leave that up to the xenophobes in and out of government. Start where you live and work and vote. Personalmente.

You have to turn off the Spanish television set,' the governor said. 'I know this sounds odd, it’s not the politically correct thing to say, and I’m getting myself into trouble. But I know that when I came to this country, I did not or very rarely spoke German anymore.”

so he is saying you are not capable of continuing to speak a language you already know, and pick up a new one at the same time. you can, however—if you set your mind to it—lift many pounds and build a huge body with the right supplements, but you have to leave behind your shows that speak in your old language if you want to learn English.

it sounds like he is saying to immerse yourself in a language to learn it faster. yes, that part makes sense. but i hear an abdication of culture in there. that is what bothers me.

I think there is probably more to this as far as Schwarzenegger is concerned. Maybe he struggled with English and becoming American so much that he wants to be authentically American. America hasn't been kind to immigrants - even the European ones.

yes... that's sort of what i'm saying. the shying away from your original culture thing...to present as more authentically US citizen. see Malkin, where it has gone haywire. i imagine it is a common reaction in a culture that devalues diversity from the dominant culture's standards at any given time. i have my own story that's related. tho i'm a US citizen.

of course your point is a compassionate one. which i have no argument with. except european (pink) immigrants seemed to get past their testing period. in arnie's case, they even talked about amending the constitution for a while, right? for arnie-as-prez? yet, the darker immigrants are still treated "unkindly," to put it mildly. as recent events keep making painfully clear. sadly, the furor over the dark invader/spoiler/infector lives to this day, alive and well.

I didn't speak English much when I had to work in Spanish, and since I like to eat and pay the rent, I had a headache for months while I tried to grasp the slippery snake of the language mystery, a language I foolishly had never bothered to learn BEFORE I needed it so desperately. But I did learn because I set the challenge in such a way that I really had no choice. Sadly, most North Americans that expatriate here never bother to learn.
The language is the water that forms the ocean of thought in the place where you choose to live or be born. How can you be part of that place without the language?
I do admit that the idea that the US is already bilingual seems to have happened while I was away for 20 years, and that may be a good thing. But where I live, that is not so. It's Spanish, punto.
I am very sure that in 100 years the US will be using a language that is neither English nor Spanish completely, but a mix. Study the history of Latin in the conquered lands or how modern English came to be spoken in England. English is no ancient language at all.
And-- can anyone try to tell me that albahaca, alborada, almacen, alcachofa and alcalino are Spanish?

Of course, I say the contradictions of capital. Mobile labor meets a serous need. But then the consequences. On the one hand, having everybody use one language is cost effective for production and distribution, and for governmental administration. On the other, the recomposition of electronic media allows linguistic communities to be cultivated, not least for marketing purposes.
And let's note, ethnic communities in the U.S. pre-radio and television survived right up until WWI when the Germans in particular underwent serious repression. The experience of assimilation over three generations during the the big wave of immigration around 1900 is an exception. Although coincidental, it was also right before WWI that serious economic migration started from the mid-west to south Texas and introduced racist repression of Spanish speaking there.
This question also has dimensions I have not seen mentioned in online discussion. The formal aspects of language, syntax and vocabulary, and the culture spoken through a language are two very different things. Twenty-five years old though it is, Susan U. Philip's book The Invisible Culture about language, schooling, culture, and specifically the culture of speaking on the Warm Springs Indian reservation shows how the words could be turned to English, but the culture and the speaking remained Indian.

In Ahnold's case, he's dancing around it, however he's spoken in the past about his rush to become "American" and all that entails. I don't think he's talking about immersion as a learning technique. Would have to see the context of the conversation.

I'm raising a bilingual child by fortune of his heritage. However, I hope were lineage not at issue I'd be attempting the same. For us, the decision was easy. Other similarly situated families take the Alba family route. Even my folks were suggesting that we "wait" to teach the Little Dork how to speak nihongo.

In all fairness, it would behoove anybody to know the language of a country that they plan to reside in for the sake of survival and not necessarily extreme assimilation. But people are capable of both retaining their mother tongue(and culture) and the language(and culture) of an adopted country all at the same time. People do it all the time.
Speaking of culture, no one should be made to feel that should give up everything of value to their culture to adjust to a new one. Especially if, like Nezua says, they are going to be marginally successful doing it.