Friday, January 7, 2011
English Only?
In the Vanderbilt University Immigrant Community Assessment report we learn that a recommendation of the experts is to, 'Increase the supply of bilingual advocates - counselors, lawyers, and social workers - who can advocate on behalf of non-English clients and patients, and on behalf of those who are not fluent in English' in the Nashville community. This brings up the issue that faced Nashville a couple of years ago with the English Only bill. Do a little research on this measure. What are the pros? What are the cons? Which way would you have voted?
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Pro. - more understanding for the person taking the test
ReplyDeleteCon. - there are so many people in our community that do not speak English fluently
As far as driving licenses go I think that I would have voted yes since it is true that people on the road must be able to read traffic signs, of course, unless there is a section on the test for that then, I believe that if the person had past the test then they proved that they are responsible enough.
Pros.- less paper will be used if everything is only written in english
ReplyDeleteCons.- there are already a lot of people in Nashville that speak more than just English, even outside of Spanish; there are hundreds of other languages. It would be harder to to teach English to thousands of people rather than just adding another copy of the document or other employees that are fluent in multiple languages.
I personally would have voted against the bill, saying that government papers should not be only in English. In my opinion, since Nashville has more immigrants than most people we should want them to become helpful citizens, not just people that are taking up space. We want them to be able to drive and to be able to work. So why not have multiple copies available to multiple different languages. We do not need an ENGLISH ONLY BILL, because either way we go we still have English. So, why not be considerate and allow the immigrants or other non English speaking people a chance to better themselves? Seeing that half the people that voted yes are the same exact ones that are complaining about how many immigrants or foreigners are not working or doing anything to help. By voting yes for the bill Nashville would not have been trying to help at all.