Jun 09, 06 06:47 am — How cool is this guy/? I just saw him interviewed on TV and he made very valid points. And yes, he would have served his grandparents because his grandparents were anxious to assimilate into American society.

'No English, no cheesesteak'
For more than 40 years the people of Philadelphia have divided themselves into two camps: Pat's King of Steaks and Geno's, two sandwich stands endlessly fighting the Philly cheesesteak wars.

It now appears the owner of Geno's has fired another shot ... at himself.

Joseph Vento posted signs at his famous sandwich shop declaring his refusal to serve anyone that doesn't speak English, "This is America. When Ordering, Speak English."

Geno's sits in the heart of what was once Little Italy, at Ninth and Passyunk, but is now a largely Mexican neighborhood.

"If you can't tell me what you want, I can't serve you," he said. "It's up to you. If you can't read, if you can't say the word cheese, how can I communicate with you -- and why should I have to bend? I got a business to run."

So Vento has made it his policy to refuse service to anyone who can't speak English and those who cannot speak at all.

"I don't want somebody coming here to change my culture to their culture," he said with no apparent irony. "They want us to adapt to these people. What do you mean, 'Press 1 for Spanish'? English, period. Case closed. End of discussion. You better make it the official language."

Asked for his opinion on the immigration battle brewing, he simply declares "Go back to the 19th century, and play by those rules."

That wouldn't have affected Vento much. It wasn't until 1921, the year Vento's own grandfather arrived on these shores, that there was such a thing as an "illegal immigrant" from Italy. That was the year the U.S. began issuing entry visas. Up until then Congress had only passed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and entered an agreement in 1907 with Japan that allowed their laborers to enter only Hawaii but not the U.S. mainland.

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