The Government Should Only Be Putting Out Documents In English

23 Feb, 2004 by John Hawkins

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This is simply ridiculous….

A coalition of advocacy groups called yesterday for the (New York) city Department of Education to set up a vast translation network for the non-English-speaking parents of city schoolchildren.

The groups, led by the New York Immigration Coalition and Advocates for Children, also released the findings of a survey indicating that many immigrant parents are often kept in the dark about messages and school meetings critical to their children’s future.

“The New York City school system has systematically failed to provide translation and interpretation services to parents who require these services,” the report reads. “Despite numerous federal, state and local laws mandating translation and interpretation for parents with limited English proficiency, the New York City Department of Education has yet to adopt policies and procedures to address these issues.”

At a news conference in Manhattan, several parents, speaking through translators, described their ordeals.

Ana Cartagena, a mother of eight from Puerto Rico who lives in Bushwick, Brooklyn, said she was once told by a principal that if she wanted to know what was going on in her children’s school, she should learn to speak English.”

Oh the horrors of John Ashcroft’s Amerikkka! A woman who lives in America is being told to learn to speak English. Can the concentration camps be far behind? But, I digress, let’s go back to this tragic tale of people who are too lazy/incompetent to learn the native language of the nation they call their home…

“Paul Rose, a spokesman for the Department of Education, said that many parent coordinators were bilingual and that language skills were taken into account when they were selected.

He said that parents who call the mayor’s 311 hotline with school-related questions can get answers in other languages and that messages sent to parents from the chancellor are translated into eight languages: Spanish, Chinese, Russian, Korean, Urdu, Arabic, Haitian Creole and Bengali.”

Bengali? Urdu? Hey, I’ve got a crazy suggestion…so crazy that it just might work! I suggest that we send all the papers home in English and we let the parents learn the language. If it’s too tough for them to figure out, then maybe they can go out and meet some people who actually speak English and have them translate it for them. It’ll be fun and as an added bonus, it’ll help them to assimilate. And trust me, if you’re moving here from almost anywhere they speak Arabic or Haitian Creole, the faster you shake off the backwards habits you learned in your home country and start getting Americanized, the better. Sure that’s harsh, but it’s also true.

In all seriousness, an article like this should raise all kinds of obvious questions. Like, why are there large groups of people living in the United States who don’t have even a basic command of the English language? Why in the world should we allow anyone to stay in the US or worse yet, become a US citizen if they can’t even speak English?

Now I know some of you think that’s “mean” to say, but have you really thought about the implications of this? What kind of job can you get in America if you only speak Russian or Spanish? You’re going to be picking lettuce, washing dishes, or doing some other kind of manual labor. It doesn’t matter if you were a doctor or a rocket scientist in your native country, if you can’t speak English, your options are limited here.

Furthermore, how can you assimilate into our culture if you can’t speak English? Do we really want a nation filled with “Russiatowns” and “Little Haitis” where all these immigrants go so they can hang out with other people from the “mother country”? Do you really think that’s good for America? We need immigrants who want to come here, assimilate, and live the American Dream. To do that, you need to learn the language and the last thing we should be doing as a society is making it easier on people who haven’t even bothered to learn English.