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Federal diversity thugs
By adamg on Sat, 09/17/2005 - 10:38am
Mats is not surprised the city settled the voting rights case:
... Naturalized citizens - who somehow passed the English-only citizenship test - don't know enough English to actually vote, so the fedral gumint forces the City "to provide more bilingual poll workers to speak Vietnamese, Chinese and Spanish and provide more bilingual election information." according to the Boston Herald. (Why waste money on bilingual info? These people don't speak English!) ...
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Comments
How do you know it is a waste of money?
Contrary to what many believe, the official language of the United States is not English; to be more clear, the United States has never declared an official language by law. Interestingly, many of the original documents of the newly formed United States, including the Declaration of Independence, were distributed through the colonies/states in English, German, and French.
So since there is no legal mandate to force any US citizen to know the English language, is it then not unreasonable to make accommodations allowing non English proficient citizens greater access to participation in their community and nation through the voting process? If we can offer braille ballots to the blind, why can't we offer ballots in Vietnamese in Fields Corner? I am not necessarily saying we should, just asking the question.
Right.
This country has no official language. There are many people, especially in large cities, who are born here, as citizens, speak a language other than English at home, attend a school that speaks a language other than English, and work at a place of employment that speaks a language other than English. These people are just as American as someone who is born into an English-speaking household. We're a country with no official language and one where anyone born here can claim citizenship.
Tblade makes a great point that someone being born blind is chance, just like being born into a Spanish-speaking community is. Neither person chose not to be able to read English, and both people did take the time to learn to read SOME language. No one should be denied the right to vote because of their birth.
Another thought...the elections division could just as easily make the default language for the ballots be Russian. This would be just as legal as making it English (see "no official language, op cit). They'd still be required to provide translators or translated ballots for people who don't speak Russian. But they couldn't ONLY provide ballots in Russian, because some people with a legal right to vote don't speak Russian.
http://1smootshort.blogspot.com