English as the "official" language of the US

[Acsenray]

@colonial

Isn’t English now the required language of all US courtrooms?

No, it’s the de facto language of American courts.

And I do not believe that anyone except possibly a tiny fringe would contest the right of non-English speaking criminal defendants to an interpreter.

That fringe would be found in the Official English movement

As for non-English-speaking civil litigants don’t they now depend on English-speaking counsel to keep them informed?

They can also get translators.

[suranyi]

@colonial

(from post #134)

Do we?

What about this page from the USGOV Naturalization Requirements:

U.S Citizenship and Immigration Services: Path to U.S. Citizenship
(from link):

(from post #134)

Would that include the right to having court proceedings to which one is a party
conducted in the language of one’s ancestors?

You’re the one who’s in law school, Jack. Please don’t try to tell me that when
you get out in the real world you would really prefer to have to deal on a regular
basis with 22 languages, or something like that.

(from post #134)

No, per Wiki India has two country-wide official languages: Hindi and English.
Although there may be 22 different languages recognized as official at the state
level, it is at the insistence of the non-Hindi speaking states that English has
been retained as an official language almost 50 years after the date (1965) when
it was to have been phased out.

However, it seems that there is only one official language for the Federal court system,
and that language is— English!

Indian Judiciary System

So, it seems there is at least one multilingual country with what I would call
a healthy appreciation for the benefits of a common administrative langauge.

(from post #141)

Nonsense. Providing the historically predominant language with official status
entails no logical obligation to provide any minority language with the same.
Of course, the American legal profession is so good at getting a hearing for all
kinds of completely ridiculous shit, maybe I’d better not go too far out on a limb here.

There are exceptions to the English requirement for naturalization, you know.

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=ffe2a3ac86aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=ffe2a3ac86aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

English Language Exemptions
You Are Exempt From The English Language Requirement, But Are Still Required To Take The Civics Test If You Are:

Age 50 or older at the time of filing for naturalization and have lived as a permanent resident (green card holder) in the United States for 20 years (commonly referred to as the “50/20” exception).

OR

Age 55 or older at the time of filing for naturalization and have lived as a permanent resident in the United States for 15 years (commonly referred to as the “55/15” exception).

I know naturalized citizens in these categories. They barely speak English even today.

[colonial]

@Acsenray

No, it’s the de facto language of American courts.

English is sure to have some kind of legal statutory backing
or the system would long ago have been deadlocked by
10s or even 100s of thousands of defendants and litigants
insisting that proceedings be conducted in their native language.

@Acsenray

That fringe would be found in the Official English movement

I am late showing up for this thread. I presume this was documented?

@Acsenray

They can also get translators.

I am having trouble believing OE wants to bar translators from court.

[colonial]

@suranyi

There are exceptions to the English requirement for naturalization, you know.

http://www.uscis.gov/portal/site/uscis/menuitem.eb1d4c2a3e5b9ac89243c6a7543f6d1a/?vgnextoid=ffe2a3ac86aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD&vgnextchannel=ffe2a3ac86aa3210VgnVCM100000b92ca60aRCRD

English Language Exemptions
You Are Exempt From The English Language Requirement, But Are Still Required To Take The Civics Test If You Are:

Age 50 or older at the time of filing for naturalization and have lived as a permanent resident (green card holder) in the United States for 20 years (commonly referred to as the “50/20” exception).

OR

Age 55 or older at the time of filing for naturalization and have lived as a permanent resident in the United States for 15 years (commonly referred to as the “55/15” exception).

I know naturalized citizens in these categories. They barely speak English even today.

I saw the exceptions section but did not look at it since I assumed
that most applicants would have to fill the language requirement.

[colonial]

@colonial

And I do not believe that anyone except possibly a tiny fringe would contest the right of non-English speaking criminal defendants to an interpreter.

@Acsenray

That fringe would be found in the Official English movement.

See the OE website:

H.R.997 – English Language Unity Act of 2011

(from link, emphasis added):

Practical Effect- This section shall apply to all laws, public proceedings, regulations, publications, orders, actions, programs, and policies, but does not apply to–

…actions that protect the rights of victims of crimes or criminal defendants

The section above appears to me to entitle parties to criminal proceedings
to interpreters.

Civil litigation is not mentioned, but anything not forbidden is presumed legal,
I think, so there should be no obstacle to use of interpreters there either.

[colonial]

@colonial

Isn’t English now the required language of all US courtrooms?

@Acsenray

No, it’s the de facto language of American courts.

English is the official language of 28 states:

Wiki: English-only movement

I would think such designation would make it mandatory in court.

As for the other states, and the Federal courts, I am quite suprised
de facto use of English has not been challenged. Maybe defeat of
any such challnge is considered a foregone conclusion.

[Evil_Captor]

I guess no one heard me when I suggested that technology is on its way to making this debate moot in its entirety.

[BrainGlutton]

@Evil_Captor

I guess no one heard me when I suggested that technology is on its way to making this debate moot in its entirety.

Not until you can use something like Babelfish to translate a block of English text into another language and back again and you get the same text. I don’t expect to live to see that.

[tomndebb]

@colonial

English is sure to have some kind of legal statutory backing
or the system would long ago have been deadlocked by
10s or even 100s of thousands of defendants and litigants
insisting that proceedings be conducted in their native language.

This is not merely wrong, it is bullshit.

Courts are conducted in English. This does not require any statutory backing. Everyone understands that the de facto language is English. I have never heard of anyone petitioning that a case be heard in another language, but if they did they would be laughed out of court.

Your assertion is as silly as your insistence on refusing to allow natural margins in your posts.

@colonial

I am having trouble believing OE wants to bar translators from court.

That is speculation, of course, but the “Official English” advocates have generally declined to spell out exactly what such a law would entail, so such speculation is as valid as any other–certainly more valid that speculation that there is already statutory backing for having only English in courtrooms.

[Evil_Captor]

@BrainGlutton

Not until you can use something like Babelfish to translate a block of English text into another language and back again and you get the same text. I don’t expect to live to see that.

Your standards are quite high. I’ll admit the translations I get with my free translator often take some figuring out, but most of the time, I CAN figure out what the other person meant. And they can figure out what I meant. And that’s close enough for rock n roll. Exact translations are rarely necessary for ordinary communication.

[tomndebb]

@colonial

English is the official language of 28 states:

Wiki: English-only movement

I would think such designation would make it mandatory in court.

As for the other states, and the Federal courts, I am quite suprised
de facto use of English has not been challenged. Maybe defeat of
any such challnge is considered a foregone conclusion.

Given that English is not the official language in 22 states and the District of Columbia and is not the official language of the nation, and that your odd claim that that it would certainly have been challenged if it were not “official” in those 24 venues is incorrect, it is pretty evident that the need for an official status is both lacking and claims for it overblown.

[BrainGlutton]

From Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies, by Christopher Hitchens, discussing the “official English” movement of 1988:

U.S. English, it emerged, was a project of “U.S. Inc.,” a tax-exempt body which underwrote a number of other groups, such as the Center for Immigration Studies, Americans for Border Control, and Californians for Population Stabilization. There was no mistaking the timbre of this joint output, which had little to do with the teaching of “the Queen’s English” except as this bore upon the connection between that English and certain inherited conceptions of race and tribal security. Dr. John Tanton, the originating author of this cluster of groups and initiatives, was himself in no doubt that “the question of bilingualism grows out of U.S. immigration policy.”

So much might have seemed obvious, at least until Dr. Tanton wrote a paper which, phrased in the poor and affected English which is often found among the language’s more ostentatious upholders, created a crisis for his hitherto blue-chip WASP and Jewish campaign. As he coarsely put it:

“Gobernar es poblar” translates as “to govern is to populate.” In this society, will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? Can homo contraceptivus compete with homo progenitiva if borders aren’t controlled?

Having rather clumsily Latinized or Romanized his argument, Tanton moved to a more demotic style. He warned sternly of such alarming cultural imports as "the tradition of the mordida (bribe), the lack of involvement in public affairs, and Roman Catholicism with its tendency to “pitch out the separation of church and state.” He continued to skirt around these aspects of the problem – the most conspicuous opponents of church-state separation in the 1980s have been fundamentalist Protestants – making an excursion through allegedly low “educability” before returning with relish to his main theme, which was, as ever, sex and fertility:

Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down. As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?

This piece of inadvertence – the shift to “white” as the key word speaks volumes in the extract above, as well as showing the secondary significance of ideas like “culture” and “language” – led to the resignation of many of the U.S. English board members, among them Walter Cronkite and the neoconservative Hispanic Linda Chavez. It also led to closer scrutiny of the network of which Dr. Tanton was the convenor. The chairman of the Florida English campaign, for example, had advocated the elimination of emergency telephone services in Spanish in order to supply what he called an “incentive” to the learning of the tongue of Shakespeare and Dickens. His Dade County equivalent had warned that “the United States is not a mongrel nation.” Rusty Butler, an aide to Senator Steven Symms of Idaho, had forwarded the senator’s call for an English-language amendment to the Constitution by saying that “the language issue could feed and guide terrorism in the U.S.” Finally, it was discovered that among the donors to Dr. Tanton’s network was the Pioneer Fund, established in the unpropitious year of 1937 to proselytize for what it then called “applied genetics in present-day Germany.”

Pioneer Fund

John Tanton

[tomndebb]

@BrainGlutton

From Blood, Class and Nostalgia: Anglo-American Ironies, by Christopher Hitchens, discussing the “official English” movement of 1988:

Pioneer Fund

John Tanton

Given that no one currently participating in this discussion has relied on appeals to Tanton, attacking that particularly xenophobic racist is pretty much of a straw man. Let’s leave those arguments out of this discussion until such time as a supporter raises them.

[BrainGlutton]

Race is, in fact, one of the reasons Mexico is still an independent country. There was some thought of annexing it to the U.S. at the end of the Mexican-American War.

After the election of Polk, but before he took office, Congress approved the annexation of Texas. Polk moved to occupy a portion of Texas which had declared independence from Mexico in 1836, but was still claimed by Mexico. This paved the way for the outbreak of the Mexican-American War on April 24, 1846. With American successes on the battlefield, by the summer of 1847 there were calls for the annexation of “All Mexico,” particularly among Eastern Democrats, who argued that bringing Mexico into the Union was the best way to ensure future peace in the region.[25]

This was a controversial proposition for two reasons. First, idealistic advocates of Manifest Destiny like John L. O’Sullivan had always maintained that the laws of the United States should not be imposed on people against their will. The annexation of “All Mexico” would be a violation of this principle. And secondly, the annexation of Mexico was controversial because it would mean extending U.S. citizenship to millions of Mexicans. Senator John C. Calhoun of South Carolina, who had approved of the annexation of Texas, was opposed to the annexation of Mexico, as well as the “mission” aspect of Manifest Destiny, for racial reasons. He made these views clear in a speech to Congress on January 4, 1848:

[W]e have never dreamt of incorporating into our Union any but the Caucasian race—the free white race. To incorporate Mexico, would be the very first instance of the kind, of incorporating an Indian race; for more than half of the Mexicans are Indians, and the other is composed chiefly of mixed tribes. I protest against such a union as that! Ours, sir, is the Government of a white race… We are anxious to force free government on all; and I see that it has been urged … that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty over all the world, and especially over this continent. It is a great mistake.[26]

This debate brought to the forefront one of the contradictions of Manifest Destiny: on the one hand, while racist ideas inherent in Manifest Destiny suggested that Mexicans, as non-whites, were a lesser race and thus not qualified to become Americans, the “mission” component of Manifest Destiny suggested that Mexicans would be improved (or “regenerated,” as it was then described) by bringing them into American democracy. Racism was used to promote Manifest Destiny, but, as in the case of Calhoun and the resistance to the “All Mexico” movement, racism was also used to oppose Manifest Destiny.[27] Conversely, proponents of annexation of “All Mexico” regarded it as an anti-slavery measure.[28]

[BrainGlutton]

@tomndebb

Given that no one currently participating in this discussion has relied on appeals to Tanton, attacking that particularly xenophobic racist is pretty much of a straw man. Let’s leave those arguments out of this discussion until such time as a supporter raises them.

This is not irrelevant to any “official English” discussion; it illustrates how closely bound up it is with racism. Tanton and those like him are still around, and they ain’t made of straw.

[tomndebb]

@BrainGlutton

This is not irrelevant to any “official English” discussion; it illustrates how closely bound up it is with racism.

Nope. Still a straw man. Clearly, there is strong racist support for any xenophobic actions, but arguing that because some group that is racist supports an action then anyone who supports the action is racist is a logical fallacy. It is the same fallacy that led some deniers of global warming to put up billboards showing that Charles Manson, Ted Kaczynski, and Fidel Castro believe in Global Warming. Let’s not play that game.

[Whambulance]

People are trying to make this out to be a fairness issue - or some type of lingual oppression, which it is not.

English has been the unofficial language of the States since its inception and there is no reason to change it or add to it. Not for the sake of bigotry or laziness but simply efficiency or operation.

Once you allow a second or third (or more languages) at the exception of English you’ve opened the door for a mandate of translators to fill all correspondence roles of government as well as a burden of regulations on private industry.

Once you say ‘it’s OK that you don’t speak English’ you become obliged to provide all necessary communication, verbal, print and other in all ‘accepted secondary languages’.

In a litigious country like this I can only imagine how many different versions of ‘stop’ should be printed on signs … or how many fully translated versions of school curriculum and ‘alternately versed’ instructors should be provided at huge cost to the rest of us.

[florez]

@colonial

, I hope you would agree it would
be best to work to reduce the extra trouble and expense such measures
entail,
.

No, I do not agree with your narrow and short sighted opinion. IMO, an effort that may improve relations between co-existing people of different cultures and languages, may seem like extra trouble and expense, but in the long run could prove more beneficial and enriching.
Haven’t we evolved beyond keeping a hierarchy in place with monolingualism? What is wrong with working in goodwill toward cooperative exchange, reciprocity, and inclusiveness? A domination-my language / subjugation-your language conflict, with winner takes all is old hat, and what is so wrong with bilingualism?
Newt Gingrich called it “a menace to society.” in his “Contract with America”, and Rick Santorum blurts out that “English should be the main language” for statehood in Puerto Rico. How arrogant and ridiculous, because multiculturalism and multilingualism are assets in the global economy. Move forward, learn more languages, it’s a good thing.

[BrainGlutton]

@tomndebb

Nope. Still a straw man. Clearly, there is strong racist support for any xenophobic actions, but arguing that because some group that is racist supports an action then anyone who supports the action is racist is a logical fallacy. It is the same fallacy that led some deniers of global warming to put up billboards showing that Charles Manson, Ted Kaczynski, and Fidel Castro believe in Global Warming. Let’s not play that game.

It ain’t the same. Manson, etc., don’t believe in Global Warming because they’re evil and crazy. But a significant number of “official English” supporters are that because they are racists, and you fucking know it. Hitler eating sugar does not discredit sugar, but Hitler’s antisemitism does discredit antisemitism. Not a trivial fact, Hitler actually, historically, did discredit antisemitism, which, in the Western world, was quite incredibly widespread in his day, and faded largely because of what he did.

[tomndebb]

@BrainGlutton

It ain’t the same. Manson, etc., don’t believe in Global Warming because they’re evil and crazy. But a significant number of “official English” supporters are that because they are racists, and you fucking know it.

You’re reaching. Certainly, it is true that the “Official English” crowd includes many racists. However, implying or asserting that the entire movement is based on racism simply hijacks this thread into one more sidebar discussion of who is or is not a racist. If the proponents of “Official English” on this board or this thread want to proclaim or demonstrate that they are racist, then let them demonstrate that position rather than killing a legitimate discussion of the merits of an “official” language by simply smearing all proponents with that slur.