Fine, tighten enforcement – after amnesty for those already here. The last thing we need is the disruption, here and abroad, that would be caused by forcing out the illegals, whether en masse or by attrition.
Very true. Of course, not being able to get a legal driver’s license as a non-English-speaker just makes you more vulnerable to being exploited by employers and driving down wages.
My beef with English-only driver testing isn’t that it sends the message that it’s a good thing for immigrants to the US to learn English. I totally agree that it’s a good thing for immigrants to the US to learn English.
My beef is that English-only driver testing doesn’t really do much to give immigrants a realistic incentive to learn English. If an immigrant’s job or living situation requires them to drive, they’re not going to say “Well, at least that gives me really good motivation for studying English extra hard for the next six or nine months so I can become fluent enough to pass the driver’s test and start driving!” How are they going to manage during the intervening six or nine months in that case? Realistically, what they’re actually going to say is “Oh fuck, I’ll have to drive really carefully and hope I don’t get caught without a license, and maybe when my English gets good enough I’ll be able to pass the driving test.”
Developing adequate fluency in a foreign language to be able to rely on it as a resident in a foreign country—not just dipping into the language as a tourist to “at least greet people, order food, and shop”—is difficult for most people, and takes a long time. I think many Americans tend to be a bit clueless about that fact because it’s something that they themselves haven’t ever had to do.
Refusing to give immigrants access to necessary everyday credentials for ordinary life in our society until they’ve spent several months or years mastering our language isn’t really a practical solution to the language-barrier problem. It may make us feel better that we’re somehow standing up for our own culture and refusing to cater to immigrants’ inability to speak our language, but in practical terms it doesn’t seem to accomplish much except to create more hassles for everybody.
My initial thought is that conservative politicians are once again playing the race card. The Republican Party knows that most nonwhites don’t vote for them and routinely takes action to try to prevent (or at least make it harder) for nonwhites to vote. They’ve been doing it continuously for decades. Why would they want to make the test only English then? Simple, the Federal motor voter law lets people (who can prove citizenship or legal status) register to vote when they get a driver’s license and the Republican Party has been against that law ever since it was passed. The Republican Party doesn’t want recent immigrants to vote even when they have a legal right to do so thus they pass these sorts of laws to make it just a little bit harder for them.
It’s sad.
No, doesn’t change my mind on the issue at hand, but it DOES inform me that perhaps other changes need to be made as well! I still think that ANYONE taking the written portion of the driving test should be functionally literate in the language of the area they will be driving in.
If the laws in GA don’t require this of everyone, then I can’t see that this new legislation can be justified…they either need to drop IT or (better, imo) change the rest of the rules to require the same standard.
I acknowledged that given the location, the motivation behind this change probably is suspect, but that doesn’t change my personal opinion of the wisdom of such a requirement (as long as it is across the board).
What I would suggest is: if you already provide a translated version of a particular test, what purpose is served by limiting its use? (Especially if there is a lot of demand for it.)
If nothing else, it just seems mean-spirited.
My belief is that the government exists to serve the people not vice versa. If there is a substantial number of Georgians who speak Spanish or French or, for all I know, Georgian, then the government of that state should accomodate them. The government has no more business telling its people what language to speak then it does telling them what religion to believe or what sports team to cheer for.
That’s the point you’re missing. There’s no such thing as “the language” in this country. English may be what a majority of us speak but it has no official status. Spanish is just as much an American language as English is. Some Americans speak English, some Americans speak Spanish, some Americans speak both, and some Americans speak neither. But the government shouldn’t be able to decide what language we’re supposed to speak.
Personally, I think “Designating an Official Language” is one of the things the Government should be doing, actually.
Even when I lived in deep SE Texas where I’m from (aka “Northern Mexico”) recently, I saw nary an official state/county/city road sign in Spanish. True, over 80% of (mostly recent) residents spoke Spanish, but English IS, for all intents and purposes, the “official” language of the area, as far as government produced signage goes.
How do you make the leap from being literate enough in English (which is what our road signs are written in) to pass a written driving exam and somehow being forbidden by the government or anyone else to SPEAK/WRITE another language as well? Hell, to use ONLY that language for everything else if you so choose? 
Why is that?
I last took my driver’s license exam in English. “Big deal,” you might say. The thing is, I took it at one of the police driver license testing centers in South Korea. The vast majority of people here, of course, take the test in Korean. Korea’s not having any problems with administering the exam in other languages. Actually, it’s a bit of a benefit to take it in a language other than Korean as the Korean test is 50 questions, while the test in other languages is 25 questions. Regardless of language selected, the testees all get two hours to take the exam. The procedure is:
[ol][li]Go to police testing center and show proof of minimum required training.[/li][li]Purchase scantron sheet and computer marking pen.[/li][li]Provide two current photographs.[/li][li]Submit to security wand “waving” (to check if you have cell phone for cheating by texting someone).[/li][li]Once all testees are assembled in the testing room, two police officers describe the testing procedure and ask if anyone wishes to leave the testing room.[/li][li]Using a bingo number selector, the police officers select two testees to validate that the test is conducted per law.[/li][li]Tests are distributed to all testees so that no testee can see the same test version on another testee’s desk.[/li][li]Once finished with the test, a testee (except for the two validators) may leave the testing room and wait for the scoring to begin at the end of the test.[/li][li]After two hours, the test is concluded and all testees return to their seats.[/li][li]One of the two validators takes the scantron sheets and runs them through a scantron reader. The second validator then takes the sheets and runs it through a second scantron machine.[/li][li]The two validators and the two police officers verify the marks/scores on all scantron sheets and the scantron machine report.[/li][li]If the testee has failed the exam, he must wait a minimum period required by law before taking the exam again. Failing the written exam too many times negates the recorded practice driving experience.[/li][li]If the testee has passed the exam, then he takes the exam report with him to the issue desk, obtains a physical exam form, and goes to take an agility test (squat test) and vision test (for both clarity of vision and color-vision {although the color vision requirement is no longer in law for the license, the law for the test requires it*}).[/li][li]If the testee passes these, he pays the licensing fee and gets a driver license good for approximately nine years.[/li]*The nurse and doctor at my exam got a laugh out of it when I happily told them I’m severely color-blind. Doctor said, "Not a problem. The nurse looked shocked since she didn’t know the new law![/ol]
These procedures are explained in Korean and in the testee’s chosen language. If Korea, a country that doesn’t really have all that much experience with immigration or linquistic minorities can manage to do this so well, I don’t see the big fuss over having the simple driver license that is so common in the US given in a number of languages.
I like English. Teaching the language is even my job here! But I realize that the current push in the US is driven by anti-immigrant and racist sentiments.
Only 11 states currently issue drivers’ licenses to undocumented workers, and Georgia isn’t one of them anyway (none are in the South).
I’m in two minds here. In general, I oppose most legislation which primarily affects undocumented workers. I also support most efforts to make English the de jure official language of the US, primarily because it already is the de facto official language (government publications and legal pleadings are printed in English, for example).
In this particular case, there are two factors complicating things: one, Georgia currently offers the written test in a dozen languages; and two, immigrants are free to drive on licenses issued in their home countries (depending on the language the licenses are printed in).
On balance, I oppose this particular bill, because the fact that Georgians have not previously had issues with non-English-speakers (indeed, English-speaking illiterates) passing their driver’s test suggests that it’s purely a shot at immigrants.
Well, I believe that agreeing on the national language of communication is one of the fundamental things a civilised country should do, and it’s (IMHO) easiest if the Government says “85% of the people in this country speak (say) English. Therefore, English is the official language, and all laws, proclamations, Official Communications, etc will be in English.”
That’s not to say that other languages can’t exist alongside the Official Language as well (New Zealand has Maori as an Official Language despite the fact almost nobody speaks it), but I think it’s important to have an “Official” language that nearly everyone in the country can be assumed to speak or understand.
As has already been pointed out, the existing Georgia driver’s test already has a section that tests the driver’s ability to understand road signs.
And that’s all the English language skills anyone needs to drive a car in the United States. People in other countries manage to drive cars without knowing a word of English. So there’s no valid reason to require a person to speak English in order to get a driver’s license.
Why? I thought this country was supposed to have things like individual liberty. There’s no more reason to say that Americans have to speak English because it’s the most common language then there is to say Americans have to Roman Catholic because it’s the most common religion. Spanish speaking Americans have just as much rights as citizens as English speaking Americans do.
Would you be happy if the government decided you needed to speak Spanish and required you to take a test to prove you could speak it? If not, then why do you think it’s okay for that same government to decide other people need to speak English?
To me, the last sentence of your first paragraph contradicts the first sentence of your last paragraph. You say that all laws, proclamations, etc. will be in English, but “other languages [can] exist alongside the official language.” What does that mean? That all laws, proclamations, etc. will be in English… and possibly other languages?
That’s what’s already happening. It’s already a sound assumption that the majority of people living in the U.S. speak English; there is absolutely no need to impose a requirement like this.
All of this detracts from the problem described in the OP, though, since the driving test is already provided in English. It’s not like people are wanting the driving test to only be provided in Spanish or something - just that such an option is available.
And since such an option is already available - and this new law continues to permit it (e.g., for temporary residents) - one has to wonder why the law needs to exist at all.
Bear in mind (and you’ve been around long enough to know this, surely?) I’m in Australia, not the USA. With that in mind:
I believe it’s important for everyone to agree on an official, nation-wide language of communication- a “Default”, if you will. Language is part of national identity IMHO, and having huge minorities who can’t speak the predominant language of a country doesn’t do anything to foster integration or assimilation or having a national identity, IMHO.
If I moved to Spain or Mexico or Argentina or somewhere that nearly everyone spoke Spanish and had done so since the country was founded centuries ago, then yes, I’d be happy with the Government deciding I have to at least be able to understand Spanish (the language that almost everyone living there speaks) and taking a test to prove it.
Note that I’m not saying “YOU MAY ONLY SPEAK ONE LANGUAGE! ADDITIONAL LANGUAGES ARE FORBIDDEN!” I’m saying that if the country has an “Official” langauge, then nearly everyone should be able to speak or understand that language, in addition to any other languages they may (and are free to) use
The language thing always breaks down into an us vs. them mentality. If THEY want to come to OUR country, THEY should speak OUR language. There’s never any proposed reason WHY this is so. How are we better off?
This is the problem with the Georgia thing. What good does this bill accomplish? We already know a bad thing: people who need to drive will drive whether they have a license or not, thus any attempt to decrease the number of people who pass the test will increase the number of illegal drivers.
How does imposing such a requirement magically fix the problem of “huge minorities” not being able to speak the predominant language? If it doesn’t fix the problem, what exactly is it accomplishing?
Which is already the case.
It’s an incentive to learn the country’s predominant language, and it further sends a message to people wanting to immigrate to the country:"We speak English in this country and if you cannot understand English you may wish to re-evaluate your decision to move here."
That doesn’t mean private businesses shouldn’t be able to offer multilingual services, but The Government themselves should be dealing with things in the National Language instead of having to having to translate everything into dozens of other languages for people who can’t be bothered making the effort to learn said national language.
There are plenty of jobs going in China at the moment, but I can’t speak Chinese and have no desire to learn the language, so rather than moving to China and then insisting that the Chinese Government do everything in English for me, I’m simply not moving to China.
You’re misunderstanding me. My point is that if you live in a (hypothetical) English-speaking country and want to speak Spanish at home or with your friends at the pub or anything like that, go right ahead. But you should also be able to speak or understand English, and the Government should be able to do things like issue driver’s licensing tests in English and reasonably expect you to understand them. They’ve said the national language is English and if you can’t understand it then you’d be well advised to start learning.
No, I didn’t know that. There’s a lot of posters on this board and I won’t pretend I know everyone. I assumed (incorrectly) from your posts in this thread that you were an American.
That said, I disagree with there being any need to push immigrants to learn English. The fact is that immigrants (in the United States) are already learning English - and are doing so quicker than they did in the past. Television, radio, internet, and public schools make it much easier for immigrants to assilimate than was the case a hundred years ago.
You’re missing the point. What right does the government have to decide one language is better than another? The people should be able to decide what language they want to speak and the government should then follow their lead.
Saying a country should speak only English because it is an English-speaking country is begging the question. The United States is not an English-speaking country; if it were, this issue would not arise. Millions of Americans speak Spanish; they have as much right to a government that speaks their language as English speakers do.