Nashville English Only Amendment is counterproductive and turns the clock back on Constitutional rights.
Analysis of the Davidson County English Only Voting Initiative Debate:
The english only discussion in Nashville is an interesting micro-chosm of a larger societal tension between the global and the local. But in 2009 it seems like its a bit misguided–with the those in favor trying to oversimplify the issue and ignoring the Constitutional ones. It should not be an immigration issue–it should be a Constitutional one. Our fourteenth Amendment means with must respect the interests of minorities. Will we allow the xenophobic fear drums to be beat to such an extent that we suppress and exclude minorities in the heart of the Volunteer state?
Laura Creekmoore’s analysis in on-point:
Here’s what we in Davidson County get to vote on Jan. 22, 2009 — up or down:
“English is the official language of the Metropolitan Government of Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. Official actions which bind or commit the government shall be taken only in the English language, and all official government communications and publications shall be in English. No person shall have a right to government services in any other language. All meetings of the Metro Council, Boards, and Commissions of the Metropolitan Government shall be conducted in English. The Metro Council may make specific exceptions to protect public health and safety. Nothing in this measure shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law.”
The shell-game part of this is that all official government communications are already in English. The beer board hasn’t suddenly started conducting its meetings in French. The key provision here is the word “only” in the second sentence. Meaning, the government won’t provide for any translation of, well, anything.
Key Points to Consider in the English Only Debate:
• On this issue of constitutionality and the fundamental dignity of human beings
• On the issue of being compassionate and loving to refugees and immigrants
• On the issue of the economic ramifications it seems to only encourage international companies to stay away
• America is a melting pot–attempting to white wash, ignore, and erase that flys in the face of truth and reality
• Increasingly immigrants are members of the middle class and provide cultural and economic vitality to the Nashville community.
• Finally, Nashville’s international prestige and credibility would suffer. Saying we won’t do business with people who don’t speak english turns our back on our principles of Southern hospitality and allowing the Nashville to be known for exclusion, racism, xenophobia, and hate.
Our universities, our pastors, our business leaders, and even our major Karl Dean has come out against the English only vote initiative.
If you are interested in the issue, please read the rest of Laura Creekmoore’s analysis of the Nashville english only Amendment. I hope we as a city can have the wisdom, hospitality, and compassion to vote against this wrong-headed voting initiative.
For More Nashville English Only Bill Discussion and Resources:
• Nashville is For All of Us Nashville English Only Website
• Faith Leaders For All of Us Christians Against the Nashville English Only Amendment
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Thanks for raising awareness of this issue. There is no doubt that Nashville and TN which are already lagging behind other metros and states in many economic development areas will suffer more because of this measure. Imagine the plight of some Japanese or Korean executives arriving in Nashville for a meeting at their company branches. The companies will have to chaperon them around the city and the city hall if they have some business to do with the city or state government. This is the exact opposite of what is happening around the world. In countries like China, Brazil and India state and city governments are bending over backwards to attract international companies. This contrast is going to matter a lot. This parochialism, xenophobia and racism are diseases that will slowly eat away at the strength of the cities, states and nation from the inside. All reasonable people should vote against this amendment.
Just because I think English should be the official language in which to conduct business does not make me any less compassionate than you. The moral high ground does not belong to you. I have yet to read one good reason for voting against this measure. When I go to France I expect to have to speak French. Are we any less diverse than the French? Hardly. In the past most immigrants came to America with the intention to assimilate into the “American” culture, not try to instill their own culture inside America. That is the difference.
Andrew,
Thanks for expressing your opinions. Actually and perhaps unfortunately you speak unconciously from a position of priviledge. English is the default, so although at times we have to adapt, generally people.
Our option seems rather clear cut between a more inclusive and empathetic perspective toward immigrants which respects their dignity as persons no matter the language they speak. The alternative is to treat them as second class citizens. You may not see that as less compassionate, but the mayor, community leaders, and I happen to.
I know these are complex and hard issues to deal with–I hope a more loving, compassionate, and hospitable perspective is the what we live out as Nashvillians and Christians.
God bless you and your decision,
Nathan
What you think of as ‘compassion’ is really keeping people down and holding them back. It is not compassionate to maintain the racism of low expectations. Case in point – my father in law who immigrated to this country from Latvia. He knew absolutely no English and there was no support system for him whatsoever. No government documents in Latvian, no translators. To pay off his debt to his sponsor and to the government, he had to work alongside Hispanics who had been here for years and spoke no English. He learned English and raised a family and was successful because there was no other option. He loves this country and is devoted to it. You should be ashamed to misuse the expression ‘Melting Pot’ as you do. Just to inform you – Melting Pot means that people come here and learn our language, our system of laws, government and culture and assimilate. What you are promoting is ‘balkanization’. That is NOT what America is about – and the sooner we turn this destructive and insidious notion of diversity and multi-culturalism around, the sooner we will all identify ourselves as Americans and not a poly-glot of hyphenated – whatevers. By the way, I have friends and business associates from Egypt, Korea, Kenya, India, Japan, China, Russia, Germany, Brazil, Cuba and Sweden and somehow or another they all manage pretty well without the government spoon feeding them translations and services in the languages of the country of their births. And lastly with regard to the 14th Amendment. Unless you have translators available and publish in the languages and dialects of 194 nations worldwide, you are not serving minorities fairly or equally – in fact you are practicing discrimination. When you talk about racism and bigotry you need to look in the mirror.
Time we stopped with the liberal garbage! Those against this bill are pro-illegal immigration, too. I am an American with Italian/Irish roots. My granparents learned the language. We have too many cultures here to pay the costs to accomodate everyone. Get real KoolAid drinkers. You can pay the costs. I am sick of it and so are many AMERICANS!! The pandering to those who are too lazy to learn the language or who have NO vested interest in this couuntry needs to end NOW. WAKE UP!!!!
Vandy prof–all of you pot smokers from the 60s have messed with the minds of a few generations. Time you all crawled back under the rock you came from –and the LIB from MASS is an ASS and needs to go back to the place where Teddy “the swimmer” hails from. How did this city get so stupid is beyond me? Picking a jerk who is not “from around here”. I escaped from Jersey to get away from the self-hating (typically well-off white male) lunatics who have many sections of NY into 3rd world dumps. You “progressive thinkers” are so destructive to America–with your marxists views. Wish you would all get the hell out of my country and go to Russia where you belong as you are un-American wackos.
@ readers I’m going to try to edit the above comments.
You are right that we don’t want the melting pot to evolve into a Balkanization. However, in encouraging English–that is a balkanization. Thats exactly what English above all else is.
I think before you spout assertions of Balkanization it might be wise to assess exactly how many languages our services as delivered in–using the law like a knife to exclude and ignore a minority is far more replicative of a balkanization effect than a couple extra languages that our services are delivered in.
The effect of this law is literally the creation of zones where services would not be provided or provided on a fundamental different level–that is the real Balkanization if any exists. If you fear the immigrants are too close to you, then guess what you’re neighborhood probably won’t get as good services under the english only referendum.
Second, what is the threshold to Balkanization, is metro government providing services to visiting dignitaries from China, India, Mexico, or Japan really balkanization.
Thanks for the conversation. I’m glad that your father was able to make a life for himself in the United States. I hope you can see that the provision of 14th amendment rights is never ever false compassion.
I think providing services for visitors in our state is a “reasonable accommodation” and ultimately makes us all more safe and a better community–which doesn’t triage its members based on ethnicity, skin color, and language.
What if you were in France and they said “We don’t serve Americans” This is the same logic that led to the two bathrooms policies of the 1960′s–except worse–because people could actually die.
Wow are you off on a lot of your viewpoints. Saying “we don’t serve Americans” and asking those to learn the language when they come to this nation are two different things. Someone can not change their color, where they came from, their sex for instance. But they can learn the language. I for one am sick of pressing 1 for English as if I am a guest in my own country. Lets keep in mind these people are comming HERE. Not the other way around! I agree with Cameron. You do not understand what built this country. Assimilation means you learn the language and do not go around expecting to be catered to. What would happen if no one who came here learned English? Germans, Italians, Koreans, Japanese–it would be chaos! But now we are expected to cater because some people can not understand that this is not about leaving people out. They make that choice. They make the choice not to learn the language. If thats their choice let them live with it.
As a practicality, its necessary to ease the transition. When they learn to walk, we give people time to learn. When they learn to drive a car, we people them time to learn.
Instant language assimilation is just impossible. If that’s what you were really worried about–you could provide low cost training. Alternatively, I sense a more covert agenda in most of those that favor this proposal.
Additionally, the english only proposal risks creating “zones of indifference” and “zones of suffering” which make immigrants victims and (at least for me) destroys what it means to be America.
Finally, the 14th Amendment is the quintessential fundamental American value.
I see. So your point of view is we should provide for ALL immigrants that come here right? Because anything less would be “discrimination” right? So how about we do this. Lets start with your blog. Are you going to print it in not only Spanish (because there are immigrants here from ALL over the world) but also German, Korean, Japanese, Italian etc? Should we have stop signs 10ft wide by 25 ft high with Stop, arrêter (french), anhalten (german) for just some examples? Diversity is great but its being taken to the extreme. Why learn the language of a nation when you can be catered to in the language you know? How many things in German do you see? How many times does a phone board ask you to press 1 for Japanese? If we are going to cater lets not discriminate and cater to everyone. Just be prepared to roll out the money for translation as many cities and counties and states are doing.
Mr. Compassion in Politics,
you said that without someone holding their hand, immigrants cannot learn English through total immersion. You’re wrong. People that have done so are all around us. Immediately, no. But you miss the point. My father in law came here because he and his family were political and economic refugees and had no choice – yes, there was another choice – be murdered. That generation of immigrants up until the more recent wave of illegal migration, assimilated and jumped into the melting pot, not out of it into a bunch of separate little casting molds called ‘YouNameIt – American’. Those coming to America LEGALLY are told and encouraged to prepare to speak and understand English and most of the nations they come from teach English as a second language in order for their citizens to be able to do business and visit countries like America. That’s the concept upon which our orderly process of Immigration is based on – adjustment, compatibility with the culture, skilled labor and assimilation. I know for a fact that the nationalities I mentioned plus numerous others, do NOT need the kind of services that the initiative proposed eliminating. What is really going on is that pin-headed liberals and ‘progressives’ driven by some kind of misplaced and inappropriate guilt feel compelled to pander to one particular ethnicity. I’ll also throw predatory capitalism in the pot as well – they want to keep that ethnicity poor and dumb by protecting them from the impetus and imperatives that brought greatness to all the other minorities that immigrated to America. Why – cheap labor, the underground economy and un-taxed payrolls. If you choose to continue to be naive, be my guest. I don’t.
Cameron,
Two important points to glean from your discussion: under the english only amendment people who are suffering under brutal dictator will be force to endure either the hardship of a brutal dictator, perhaps including genocide in order to get services in Nashville. This isn’t hyperbole, because we experienced a high immigration both of Kurds and Sudanese individuals. To doubly punish those who have experienced such atrocities–things and unmitigated horrors we can only imagine– makes me shirk in horror.
Our process of assimilation is based on becoming an American, but that is always balanced against diversity. People have a right to their individual cultural identities. For us to cripple and crush that seems repugnant to me.
Maybe we can agree to disagree–but I think you would like to use a stick to encourage immigrants to assimilate, while in contrast I believe that using a carrot honors their heritage, dignity, human rights and safety far better.
Predatory capitalism is not unique to America. At least in America we’ve had some progressive reform to create a degree of accountability.
Your way of thinking is what is called “exteme diversity”. Let me give a example. If someone has a pain in their leg do you give them 62 bottles of medicine because medicine is good? Diversity is good but when its taken to the extreme that you and some others are saying such as a common language–its not good.
This is ONE country with people from many backgrounds. Part of being one country is a common language we all understand so that we can talk with each other as we are doing on this blog. As I stated practice what you preach. Consider rewriting this blog in not only Spanish but also the hundreds of other languages to “include” everyone like you have said. This way you do not discriminate against anyone.