English-speaking immigrants earn more than twice as much
     U.S. Census data reveal that English-speaking immigrants in the U.S. earn twice as much on average as their non-English speaking counterparts. The data was highlighted in a 2004 Educational Testing Service report on the literacy of U.S. immigrants. It showed immigrants who speak English "very well" had incomes of $40,741 compared to $16,345 for immigrants who do not speak English. The whopping disparity shows up at every education level, demonstrating that there is a huge economic reward for speaking English.
      The Census data is conclusive proof that accommodating the native languages of non-English speaking immigrants is a bankrupt policy that should correctly be characterized as "anti-immigrant." Commenting on the report, ProEnglish Chairman Bob Park said, "The most important things public officials can do to help immigrants achieve the American dream is to encourage them to learn English, and to avoid making it easy for them to continue using their native language."
      "The sad thing is that today U.S. politicians are falling all over themselves in a mad scramble to accommodate demands for government services in foreign languages," he added. "There is now indisputable evidence that such accommodation not only hurts our country, but harms the interests of the very immigrants the politicians claim to help."

Language insult triggers violent response
      Two Pakistani employees of a Wendy's restaurant in Alexandria Virginia were arrested and charged with felonious assault after they followed a customer to his landscaping truck and used tools from the victim's truck to beat him. Apparently the two Pakistani immigrants were outraged at the victim's earlier comments that they should learn to speak Spanish in order to accommodate the restaurant's Spanish-speaking customers and employees.
      Following the arrests The Northern Virginia Journal newspaper published an editorial entitled "Maybe Just Learn English." The editorial pointed out that the confrontation would never have taken place if everyone involved spoke English. The column prompted ProEnglish Executive Director KC McAlpin to write the following letter to the editor, which the newspaper published Jan.18.
      Thank you for your Jan. 6 editorial "Maybe just learn English."
      The violent reaction of the two Wendy's employees to the comment about their failure to speak Spanish to customers is a classic example of the divisions that arise between people who can't speak a common language. It also is testimony to the inevitable failure of policies that help perpetuate language divisions in the name of "feel-good" diversity.
      Accommodating those who don't speak English should be seen for what it is: a deeply patronizing attitude whose main purpose is to make certain people in our society feel morally superior to others. It's not about helping immigrants, who overwhelmingly want to learn English and are fully capable of managing on their own.
      Americans should never feel apologetic about insisting that new immigrants learn English and assimilate to American culture. That's the price, eagerly paid by generations of immigrants before, for the priceless privilege of immigrating to the greatest country in the world.

Settlement forces county to increase Spanish language voting materials
     County officials in Westchester County NY, recently agreed to settle a federal lawsuit that accused the county of violating the Voting Rights Act by failing to provide adequate Spanish language ballot information to Spanish-speaking voters.
      The county said that it had fully complied with the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which requires counties having at least 10,000 voters belonging to a "minority language" group to provide bilingual ballots and voter information in that language. But the Justice Department lawsuit accused the country of not doing enough.
      The 14-part settlement requires the country to translate all public election materials into Spanish; train all poll workers to know the Spanish-language voting requirements; investigate all complaints of hostility by poll workers against Spanish-speaking voters; and post poll workers at every poll where there are 100 or more voters with "Hispanic surnames."
      U.S. Attorney David Kelly trumpeted the settlement, "This lawsuit demonstrates the federal government's commitment to ensure that all voters, including those with limited English proficiency, are provided with legitimate and meaningful access to our electoral process."
      "The government's position is hogwash," said ProEnglish Chairman Bob Park, who accused the Justice Department of ethnic stereotyping bordering on racism. "The federal government is forcing Westchester County to assume that everyone with a 'Hispanic surname' speaks Spanish. That's racial profiling in my book, and it is outrageous that our government thinks it can classify Americans that way," he added.
      "The last time I checked, only U.S. citizens could vote in federal elections. And the law requires immigrants to pass an English test in order to naturalize. So why is the federal government forcing localities to print ballots and voting materials in other languages?" asked Park. He pledged that ProEnglish would launch an all out effort to repeal the bilingual voting requirements of the Voting Rights Act when it comes up for renewal.

EEOC decision follows the law!
      Although it may be just an anomaly, a recently announced Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) sanctioned settlement rejecting demands of some Spanish-speaking employees to use Spanish on the job at a Boston area health center, shows that there are at least some EEOC districts willing to obey the law.
      The dispute surfaced over a year ago at the Whittier Street Health Center in Roxbury that serves a very diverse, largely immigrant community from twenty different countries. After English, the most common language spoken in the community is Spanish.
      An emotionally charged battle broke out when the Center's African American CEO, a native of Sierra Leone, created an English-on-the-job rule. That led to official complaints of "racial bias" being filed against her by some of the Center's Spanish speaking employees, and angry demonstrations organized by Hispanic community activists.
      The manager defended her actions saying she was prompted by complaints from patients, including African immigrants, that they felt ill at ease and offended when employees used Spanish when speaking in their presence. She said her policy was not "English-only," but "English first."
      The EEOC endorsed settlement announced this January affirmed the manager's rule requiring employees to speak English on-the-job, unless otherwise requested by patients, except during breaks and personal conversations.
      This endorsement of an English language workplace rule by the EEOC district office in Boston, appears to conflict with decisions by EEOC district offices in Phoenix and elsewhere. Those policies are to target and prosecute employers like the owners of RD's Drive-In Restaurant in Arizona, that have an English-on-the-job rule.
Software translates official as "swampy weed"
     Washington Secretary of State Sam Reed is learning not to take translation errors personally.
      A web-based translation program used by the Secretary's office recently translated a public statement about his proposal for "statewide mandates to restore public trust" into "Swampy weed suggests whole state order recover open trust." A Korean translation read: "A plant reed proposes national mandate to recover public property trust."
      Both the Chinese and Korean translation options were removed from the website in January with no notice when they would be restored.
      "It's not a perfect system. It does the best it can," said Matthew Edwards, the agency's Webmaster, in an interview with the Arizona Republic newspaper. "We pulled it because of the complaints. If it's totally confusing, it's worthless."

Rep. Peter King renews repeal of Executive Order 13166
     U.S. Representative Peter King (R-N.Y.) introduced a new bill in Congress, HR 136, to repeal Executive Order 13166 (EO 13166). That's President Clinton's order requiring federally funded agencies and contractors to provide translation and interpreter services for people who don't speak English.
     Rep. King, who introduced an identical bill in the 108th Congress, also has pledged to reintroduce legislation to make English the official language and cut-off federal funding for bilingual education.
     "Rep. King is an outstanding congressional leader and long time friend of the official English movement," said K.C. McAlpin, executive director of ProEnglish. "We salute him for taking the lead to revoke E.O. 13166 through congressional action, and we look forward to working with him to pass HR 136 in the 109th Congress."
     ProEnglish also has filed suit against E.O. 13166 in court challenging the legality of U.S. Department of Health and Human Services rules to implement E.O. 13166. A decision in the case is pending (see story).
Florida Senator Breaks Senate "English" Tradition
     Newly elected U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) shattered a 216-year tradition recently when he delivered part of his maiden Senate speech in Spanish. He became the first person in history to deliver part of his maiden speech in a language other than English.
     The Florida Senator, who won election by a slim margin last fall, used the occasion to explain why he supported the confirmation of Alberto Gonzales, President Bush's nominee for Attorney General.
     ProEnglish welcomed Senator Martinez's election because he came to the U.S. as a 14-year old refugee unable to speak a word of English. His election is eloquent testimony to the success of the 'Melting Pot' ideal and the opportunity America offers to immigrants who learn English.
     But despite his understandable pride in his achievement, some of Senator Martinez's remarks in Spanish seemed unnecessarily divisive. For example, addressing Spanish-speaking Hispanic voters, Mr. Martinez assured them that Mr. Gonzales was "one of us." And he argued that partisan politics shouldn't be allowed, "to deny us this moment."
     Nevertheless, ProEnglish has high hopes Senator Martinez will enlist in the battle to make English our official language and to keep the American dream alive for future generations of Americans.
Anti-statehood candidate wins narrowly in Puerto Rico
     Anibal Acevedo Vila, the candidate of Puerto Rico's pro-commonwealth PDP Party was declared the victor by the narrowest of margins in the island's 2004 gubernatorial election. As reported in the December issue of The ProEnglish Advocate, Vila led the pro-statehood NPP Party candidate, former Governor Pedro Rosello, by 2 tenths of 1 percent following the initial vote count. But Acevedo Vila's razor-thin margin managed to survive a lengthy recount and a bitter court challenge over the outcome, and he was declared the victor.
     Despite losing the governor's race for the second time in a row, the pro-statehood NPP won a sweeping victory in the legislature taking control of the Commonwealth's upper and lower house. The NPP also won the resident-commissioner's office - Puerto Rico's de-facto representative in the U.S. Congress - creating a sharply divided government for the next four years.
     The divided government reduces but hardly eliminates chances that the Spanish-speaking Commonwealth will make a serious bid for statehood. Despite his party's stand in favor of remaining a Commonwealth, Governor Vila has promised to convene a major all-party conference to re-examine Puerto Rico's status.
Mass. AG threatens nursing homes over English policies
     Massachusetts Attorney General Thomas Reilly is warning nursing homes that their English-on-the-job rules may violate their employees' civil rights. Although the Reilly memo cited Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) guidelines, it contradicts a recent EEOC-approved settlement involving English-on-the-job rules in the case of a Boston area health clinic (see story).
     Reilly's warning attempted to equate language with "national origin," despite the fact that this false equation has been consistently rejected by the courts.
     Reilly mailed his advisory to nursing home owners and operators in January, and threatened legal action if English-on-the-job rules failed to comply with federal civil rights law. The action came in response to pressure from self-described "immigrant-rights" advocates who claimed that requiring workers to speak English on the job imposes an unfair burden on immigrants.
     Reilly's memo prompted ProEnglish to send an urgent message to its email alert list asking them to protest Reilly's action by using ProEnglish's online Fax Center to send him a Fax.
     The Fax letter reads in part, "For many sick and elderly, nursing homes are their homes. They can feel very isolated and anxious if employees speak a foreign language in their presence." The message also tells Reilly his advisory opinion is legally flawed since "It relies on EEOC guidelines that have been consistently rejected by the courts and found to be an illegal use of the agency's power."
     If you have internet access, you can click here to go to the Fax Center at ProEnglish's website to send a message to the Mass. Attorney General asking him to revoke his warning.
English-speaking Miami employee forced to resign
      A 26-year veteran employee of the Miami-Dade Water and Sewer Department in Miami, Florida was forced to resign her job when her manager and fellow employees had insisted on speaking Spanish to her knowing that she could not understand the language.
     According to Elizabeth Gibson's December 31, 2004 letter of resignation, her bilingual supervisor ignored her repeated complaints and continued to conduct departmental meetings in Spanish. This effectively cut her off from the flow of information and created a hostile work environment that made it impossible for her to do her job.
     Complaints of discrimination against English-speaking employees and job applicants are on the rise in many localities with large numbers of Spanish-speaking immigrants. Native-born English speakers are often told not to even bother applying for jobs if they can't speak Spanish. In other cases like Gibson's, long-time local government employees are being ostracized and harassed into quitting their jobs.
     Meanwhile Gibson has filed a discrimination complaint with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). But it remains to be seen if the agency will even bother investigating her complaint, while it stays busy prosecuting cities like Altus, OK (see story p. ____) with perfectly legal English-on-the-job policies.
Refunds for unintelligible college instructors?
     In a move sure find favor with many a U.S. college student - past, present, and future - a North Dakota legislator recently proposed a bill to let students attending the state's university system claim a tuition refund if they could not understand the heavily accented English used by a teacher.
     For decades students have complained about not being able to understand the foreign teaching assistants - usually here on temporary work visas - that are hired as classroom instructors by many colleges and universities. Frustrated by thick foreign accents and unintelligible speech, students wind up dropping or doing poorly in classes simply because they can't understand the teacher.
     North Dakota State Rep. Bette Grande hit on the idea of letting college students claim a refund of a portion of their tuition arguing that as "the paying customer," they had the right to get their money back if the product is bad. Grande's bill would also have removed a teacher if 10 percent or more of the students in a class complained about the teacher's English.
     A spokeswoman for the North Dakota university system criticized Grande's bill saying the system shouldn't be forced to hire instructors "that only speak with a Midwestern accent." But Grande countered that a university's commitment to diversity in hiring should not take priority over educating students.
     Grande's tuition refund proposal was eliminated in committee. But a requirement that the state university system begin assessing the English speaking ability of its faculty was retained.

Bilingual ed industry takes revenge on business leader
      Prominent California businessman Reed Hastings lost a bid to be re-nominated to the California State Board of Education due to angry opposition from the state's bilingual education industry. Hastings, widely known as the founder of Netflix, incurred the wrath of Democratic leaders when he changed from being an opponent to a supporter of English immersion teaching methods in the state's schools.
      Hastings had been one of many business leaders who publicly opposed Proposition 227, the citizens' initiative banning bilingual education that California voters passed by a 2-1 margin in 1998. But when the test scores of California students learning English in immersion classrooms skyrocketed in the wake of Prop. 227's passage, Hastings changed his mind and became an avid supporter of immersion teaching methods.
      Today just 8 percent of children learning English in California's school system continue to be taught in their native language, thanks to a waiver provision in the law. But that percentage continues to fall as yearly test results demonstrate the superiority of English immersion teaching methods.
      Despite the fact that Hastings is a major donor to the Democratic Party and long-time liberal Democrat, his nomination was rejected because of opposition led by Democrats like State Senator Martha Escutia. She stated that they opposed him because of his support for English immersion.
      Republican Governor Arnold Schwarznegger had re-nominated Hastings who had been appointed to his first term by Democrat Governor Gray Davis. "As a long-term Democrat, it's just kind of ironic to be shot down by Democrats," said Hastings.