Apparently the Supreme Court is set to rule on this issue. But it appears that it is accepted as a given that “English only” rules are discriminatory. The issue to be decided is a technical one; whether private citizens can sue under a particular law.
Should a government policy of printing drivers license tests and other government forms in English only be considered discriminatory? Obviously, it will affect a disproportionate percentage of foreign born Americans. But then, having all the street signs in English only is also discriminatory, by that logic. And if such activities are considered discrimination, could a corporation be sued for discrimination for failing to make their workplace as hospitable for foreign language speakers as it is for English speakers? (As a practical matter, I’m not sure if corporations are enjoined from discrimination based on national origin). The possibilities are endless…
What’s next? That book publishers be required to have their books translated into other langauges? That movies be subtitled/dubbed in other langauges? That singers be required to sing thier songs in other langauges? It has to end somewhere.
Government services I can understand (like the case in question), but when it starts trickling down into personal activities, then that’s taking the every language rule just a tad too far.
This issue is reminiscent of prayer in schools. Since it is impossible to perform all possible prayers and rituals on any given occasion, none should be performed.
Similarly, since it is impossible to print all government literature and tests in all the different languages, then they should only be printed in English. Perhaps if there were a charge you could pay, then maybe you could receive it in your prefered language.
There is no reason that taxpayers should go through the expense of coddling people who arrive in this country unable to speak the prevailing language. Pandering to people by providing foreign language documents promotes the “enclave mentality” that was once so prevalent (i.e., "Little Italy, Chinatown etc.). Seventy years ago, immigrants willingly learned English and were proud to do so in order to integrate into American society. My mother had to do it. Why is it that suddenly everybody is entitled to preferential treatment?
I firmly believe that the resurgence of “enclave mentality” that I see in Silicon Valley is a direct result of not requiring that people learn the language. This discourages absorption into mainstream society and helps to propel stereotypes and other racist practices. Citizenship should rely upon a solid command of English. Successful passing of the TOEFL (Test Of English as a Foreign Language) should be mandatory.
We need to divert all of these ridiculous printing costs into sponsoring fee based language classes for newly arrived people so that they have an opportunity to learn the language. As has been pointed out, we cannot have all of the street signs be multilingual, so why do we need to have all our government documents be so? It always gives me a feeling of dread to think of how many people are driving on the road who are utterly incapable of reading the construction warning signs and other advisory posts.
The language of this nation is English. Learning it provides an individual with a powerful tool to cope with the world around them. What’s the problem?
If anyone would like to see an example of how the US Govt is spending its money, check out the Census Bureau’s web page at http://www.census.gov/iqa/guides.html :
Language Assistance Guides are available in the following languages:
Albanian Amharic Arabic Armenian Bengali Burmese Cambodian Chamorro Chinese Creole Croatian Czech Dari Dinka Dutch Farsi French German Greek Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Ilocano Italian Japanese Korean Kurdish Lao Polish Portuguese Romani Romanian Russian Samoan Serbian Slovak Somali Spanish Swahili Tagalog Thai Tibetan Tigrinya Tongan Ukrainian Urdu Vietnamese Yiddish
Even if you are only somewhat fluent in a foreign language, it is well worth your while to check this out. A laff riot!
Even if you don’t know ANY foreign languages, enough of them use the latin alphabet that you can have a lot of fun learning how to say “Hispanic” or “Hawaiian Native” in a few dozen different languages.
I’ve heard cops in L.A. have machines that can translate their common phrasings into whatever language is required then “speak” it. Vy znai-iti, kak beestro vy po-idil?
I think the census is a different issue entirely, and its a good idea to send it out in other languages. The census is not something that a citizen wants for himself, but a tool of government, and they should do their best to make as accurate a count as possible. The driver’s license situation is different in that it is the individual who is demanding that a service be provided on his own terms.
The road signs (stop, yield, etc) are not in other languages. The cops don’t usually speak Japanese or Spanish or what-have-you. So why should the tests be in other languages? If you’re going to take a test in a language (for something like driving), shouldn’t that be the principal language of the country?
As for immigrants, I think that if you are going to be less of a burden to the country (by, for example, knowing English), then by all means you should get higher status or whatever. As an immigrant. That’s one less person at the drive-through who can’t speak a lick of English.
Zenster, I don’t see the contradiction between expecting immigrants and their descendants to learn English, and allowing the use of other languages on official documents in order to smooth the transition. The analogy to school prayer is flawed, IMO: the government is not pledged to refrain from participating in language the way it’s pledged to refrain from participating in religion. The government has to use language in order to communicate with citizens, and the selection of language(s) it uses should be based on pragmatic considerations of efficiency rather than some kind of weird pseudo-separatist argument such as yours. For example, the specific Supreme Court case referred to in the link is concerned with driver’s license tests:
Now a driver’s license is something that most immigrants (if they’re lucky or prosperous enough to have access to a car) need to get fairly soon unless they’re in a locality that’s very well served by public transit. In addition, many low-paying semi-skilled jobs like delivery driver or temp worker require employees to be able to drive. It seems to me very foolish to cut immigrants off from those advantages simply because they haven’t yet mastered enough English to read a written driver’s test (which is a lot more English than you need to read most road signs, btw).
Apparently Alabama had no problem offering the test in other languages until the English-only crowd persuaded them to amend the state constitution. Now I have no problem with maintaining that English is the national language of the US and with encouraging all citizens and permanent residents to be fluent in it. But I don’t think that goal is helped at all by prohibitive rules like this Alabama law that just make it harder for immigrants to get the information and authorizations that they need most in order to lead a successful life in the US. It seems to me at best pointless and petty, and at worst maliciously obstructionist.
Where is your evidence, by the way, that earlier generations of immigrants weren’t “coddled” in the same way? Bilingual/vernacular public education, in particular, goes back many decades, as this article shows:
As for the types like Keeve kvetching about the cost of providing all these foreign-language publications: you know, Government brochures are not particularly esoteric translation projects and translators don’t get paid all that much. You think that the amount of money the “US Govt is spending” on providing 40 foreign-language versions of the census guidelines really compares to the amount of money we’ll spend on having the Supreme Court sit on this stupid Alabama law? Ha.
I can see both sides of this issue and my opinion is that the gov. should either provide driver’s license tests and other such necessities in any language a person requires, or make them English only. I don’t really care which way they do it, but the system as it is is discriminatory.
I live in an area that is heavily populated by Mexican immigrants. Everything around here is available in Spanish. The DMV has the tests in Spanish, the SS office has everything in Spanish, INS offers everything in Spanish… Well, that’s nice, but my husband is a Nepali immigrant. He’s been here 4 months and his English is not yet great. Even if the INS would let him apply for a driver’s license (long story), he’d never pass the written test. He cannot call immigration himself to determine the status of his case or get information, because his English is not good enough to understand everything they’re telling him.
Now, I’m not blaming the system for his lack of language skills. We both feel it’s his responsibility to learn English and he is studying hard. But it strikes me as very unfair that, if he spoke Spanish instead of Nepali he would have an extra advantage.
Kimstu, I was not inferring that the government has any sort of pledge similar to that of excluding religion in the schools. I was using the school example to point out the logical extension of such policies.
I also made no claim that there wasn’t bilingual education / induction a long time ago. I just happen to feel that earlier immigrants were more oriented towards assimilation than many of those today. I think that all of these bilingual policies allow for an undesirable degree of “enclave mentality” and I stand by that position.
I also think that if you add up all of the Federal and State spending on these multilingual policies, you are looking at far more than the peasley one million plus bucks that it takes to hear a Supreme court case.
Just as in the school prayer analogy, once you allow for one foreign language, where do you draw the line? I tend to think that government policy should be of benifit to Americans, first and foremost. Along with that statement, please remember that I also believe that diversity is what has made this nation great. I’m just tired of our government pandering to non-natives when there is so much that needs to be done for our own citizenry.
I also think that you are dead wrong when it comes to the language skills needed to safely navigate a car. The level of English needed to pass a driver’s test guarantees that a driver will have a reasonable degree of compotencey in understanding signage on the road. It is far better to err on the side of safety when it comes to motoring around in a half ton of steel at sixty plus miles per hour.
I say if they can’t put things in every language for everybody, they should have everybody learn one language.
It seems the only fair thing, and I think it would encourage people to learn English, maybe they’d teach it to their kids.
Same thing goes for schools. Why have Spanish language public classes when a Chinese child would come over here and have to go into regular English classes, and they learn the language and do just fine? (I know someone who’s Chinese and came over here as an 8-year-old, and that’s what happened to him. No special treatment, he didn’t speak a word of English. Now he’s completely fluent and a computer genius, but that’s another story.)
Regarding multiple languages. Putting tests and voter pamphlets (which I think are completely seperate issues) in various languages. What they are trying to do is make it convientient for the majority of people. If you make the argument to have English only, what is that argument based on? The fact that more people in the area speak english? What about when the majority of people in California speak Spanish, should we make it Spanish only (to preserve costs)? Or is that just a really stupid idea, kind of like the English only one.
It never ceases to amaze me that people think that if you can’t speak a country’s language, you can’t drive safely in that country. Europeans do it all the time. Anglophones in Québec do it all the time. People, it’s not that difficult. Sheesh.
Lucky, sorry but I think it’s ridiculous to state that your husband is being discriminated against. As you yourself noted, you live in an area with a lot of Mexicans and, I presume, relatively few Nepalese. It simply wouldn’t make any sense for the government to devote as many resources to Nepalese speakers as to Spanish.
As for printing government documents in foreign languages, I’ll try to dig up a cite for this (when I - Phaedrus moment coming - have more time) but as I recall the amount it costs the government to do so is pretty insignificant.
the point of a driver’s license test is to determine if the applicant knows and understands the rules of driving. it is not a test of their english or reading ability. if someone were unable to read, would you require them to learn how to prior to giving them driving licenses?? what if they were unable to learn to read. [severe dyxlesia perhaps?]
as for reading road signs, we could use the european method of symbolic road signs that are not language dependant. and frankly there is not a great deal of language knowledge needed to read road signs. i’ve driven in dozens of countries, many that do not use this alphabet, and managed just fine.
as for the expense… we do have many programs and expenditures that are for smaller groups of people than the number of non-natives that are served by the translation of these documents. do you propose ending all expenses that serve fewer than a certain number of people??
though you seem to assume all the immigrants come here to become as american as possible, what about foreign spouses of american citizens?? the common language to the couple is often a language other than english. the foreign spouse may have years of experience driving in their homeland. do you propose they must learn english prior to driving?? what if s/he comes here with an international license issued in their own country. many of these are valid for far longer than the one year that american issued int’l permits are good for. if they were from the right country, they could drive indefinatly without an american license, and thus never learn local driving laws.
diversity is good!!! damn near every american citizen’s lineage includes immigrants. i think this is one of the great strengths of this nation.
as a side issue, english includes many many foreign words, and is vastly composed of words rooted in other languages. shoudl we “purify” english??
Just remember that from time to time you run across people that CANNOT speak English. I don’t mean they haven’t learned how to; I mean they physically can’t. I refer to Deaf people, who whatever the outcome of this English debate must be guaranteed interpreters.