[Always *]

I don't think it's racist or closed minded. I imagine it must be stressful to live in a country where you can't even speak the language at all what so ever. You wouldn't even be able to carry out simple tasks such as going to the grocery store without great difficulty. I don't mind or care if people's ability to speak English is awful or if they prefer to speak their own language cause it's totally their choice and ability but I also totally understand when people get annoyed when someone has been living in a country for a long time and can't speak the language. Like if I moved to a country that spike Spanish, Arabic, French etc I'd totally learn those languages in order to be able to communicate because I wouldn't want to be limited and I also think it's kind of rude on my behalf to not even be able to communicate on a basic level in a community I am living in (although that's a personal preference, many may not have qualms about rudeness which is why I don't include it above in why they could learn English). We will ignore that that I already read French reasonably well and am working on speaking proficiency and being fluent, that's only cause Canada is a bilingual country and I've spent years getting above a basic level of proficiency cause what the non-immersion public schools teach us is not enough

Needless to say, I totally hear you and maybe my perspective will help you explain it to your boyfriend in a manner that doesn't sound racist or closed minded. Because I could totally take a "you must speak out language if you live here approach" and sound like a total ass, but I don't. I don't know every immigrant so I can't possibly judge them for their language choice cause I have no idea why they've chosen to or not to know the native language of where they live and I'm sure some of the have good choices for not knowing, even if it baffles me because knowing would make life easier for them.

Any ways, this is your boyfriends reality. What ever reason his parents have for not speaking the language, he has accepted as a valid reason. While it might baffle us for one reason or another that's how his parents live. It might not occur to him to press his parents to learn English because he might see it as him doing it only for your benefit because they're just fine living in a country whose primary language they just can't speak. Meanwhile, people like us imagine that reality as difficult and stressful, he might see it different and therefore assumes it is easier for you to learn. Also his parents might be set in their ways. Imagine when he was a little boy and his parents were unable to have parent teacher meetings without him or another interpreter? Or when something came up and he had to translate paper work for them? Maybe he tried to convince them that learning English would be beneficial and they refused for some reason and he's given it up as a lost battle.

I hope having more perspectives helps. I think all you can do is try to talk to him and maybe offer to learn some Spanish in exchange of teaching his parents English.