Urge Congress to defend English Your Congressmen Current Legislation State Profiles Petition
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to American Citizens and Immigrants Alike For Immediate Release May 8, 2001 ProEnglish strongly urges the Oakland City Council to reconsider its plan to impose bilingual hiring quotas for city employment. The proposed city ordinance, scheduled for a second reading today, blatantly discriminates against native-born American citizens who are not bilingual in one of the designated foreign languages. And it is a demeaning attack on new immigrants because it implies that, unlike past generations of American immigrants, the new immigrants either cannot, or will not learn the language of their adopted country. By encouraging some new immigrants to continue using their native language, it will effectively wall them off from their English-speaking neighbors and the vast majority of the American public who use English. This linguistic segregation will in turn eliminate opportunities for social interaction and economic progress that immigrants might otherwise enjoy, and impair their chance to become full and equal participants in American public life. As the late Senator S.I. Hayakawa said, "English is the key to full participation in the opportunities of American life." ProEnglish wants to state for the record that there is no reason - none - that Spanish and Chinese speaking immigrants cannot learn to speak English as successfully and well as generations of earlier immigrants to America have done. To suggest that new immigrants should be treated differently than earlier immigrants, or cannot succeed on the same basis, is insulting and patronizing, and borders on racism. The Council's new policy - far from leveling the playing field - discriminates against language minorities that fail to reach the 10,000-speaker threshold. In fact there is only one policy that is non-discriminatory: the universal requirement to learn English. ProEnglish is not opposed to the use of officially designated translators where a compelling public reason exists for hiring them -- such as the health or safety of the general population. But ProEnglish is unalterably opposed to making bilingualism a requirement for regular city jobs. In advance of enacting the proposed ordinance, we think the Oakland City Council should answer the following questions: 1. Why does the Council think this new policy will contribute to understanding and help ease the tensions that already exist among different linguistic and ethnic groups that comprise the city of Oakland? 2. If the City Council believes they have public support for the proposed hiring policy, why don't they put it before the voters in the form of a referendum? 3. Why isn't the Council providing the public with an estimate of the added cost that will be incurred to implement this policy, certain to run into the millions of dollars? 4. How many dialects of Chinese will be provided for? Which ones will they be? 5. When there are errors or conflicts among translations and various oral interpretations, which language version will prevail? 6. Has the Council budgeted a reserve for the cost of lawsuits and administrative complaints that are likely to result from this new hiring policy? 7. Will city contractors be entitled to reimbursement from the city for the added costs they incur to comply? 8. How will the policy affect the current racial composition of the city's workforce? 9. Is this quota policy fair to immigrant communities who include a large proportion of English speakers, such as Filipinos or others? We believe that the answers to these questions are vitally important to the future well being of all Oakland citizens, and should be answered before the city embarks on a wasteful and ultimately divisive policy. If Oakland has surplus tax revenues to address the language needs of its non-English speaking residents, we suggest the funds would be far better spent teaching them English. ProEnglish is a national, non-profit organization working to protect America's historic unity in the English language. We believe it is the duty of government at whatever level to promote those things that foster communication, understanding and unity among the American people rather than encourage things that divide Americans into separate groups. Foremost among the things that promote unity is the use of the nation's common language - English. Mr. Sorensen is available for interviews. Call (703) 816-8821 to schedule an appointment.
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