Thursday, July 11, 2002
CNSNews.com: Mandatory Spanish?
CNSNews.com carried a story yesterday, "More Cops, Firefighters Forced to Learn Spanish to Keep Jobs" (full disclosure: I am quoted in this article). A few important points need to be added.
English First is not suggesting people should be required to speak English. Encouraged, yes. Required, no.
America is a free country. But that freedom needs to work both ways. While immigrants are free not to learn English, the rest of the country should be equally free not to provide translations on demand for people who don't wish to speak English.
Some immigrants and most of their self-proclaimed political leaders seem to think everyone in the United States must adapt to them, with predictable consequences for this already too-divided nation.
On May 2, 2001, ABC's Nightline aired a program, "English: Who Needs It?". ABC's camera's followed Blanca Alfero as she proved it was not necessary for her to learn English to live and work in Washington, D.C. Again, its a free country.
But ABC's voice-over notes that Alfero "is so used to being able to speak Spanish whenever she wants, that she is taken aback when her bank has no Spanish speaking teller on duty one day." Alfero proceeds to lecture an African American bank teller on her linguistic duty: "(Through translator) It's very important. When one does not speak English, they need to be able to speak Spanish."
What of bank customers who would prefer to do business in Mandarin Chinese? Or Hungarian? Either that busy bank teller must take an awful lot of language classes or Alfero and her fellow immigrants could bother to learn a little English.
|posted by Jim on 2:41 AM|
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