English-only amendment is a bad idea that won’t work

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.

I love the last sentence: Nothing shall be interpreted to conflict with federal or state law. Well, it does conflict — for instance, federal law requires voting assistance in other languages if your language minority population reaches a certain percentage. [It's complex, but find the details here. But do note, the DOJ page is out of date -- according to it, you might assume this provision expired in 2007. However, Congress renewed the language minority provisions of the Voting Rights Act in 2006 for 25 more years.] In the 2000 census, 10.1% of Nashville residents didn’t speak English at home. The last document I can find from the census listing areas covered by the federal requirement to provide ballots in other languages [PDF] is from 2002, and no counties in Tennessee were covered. However, you’d think it’s likely Nashville/Davidson County is close to the threshold [detailed in the PDF]. Can I start by saying that a charter amendment that has to contradict itself to comply with federal or state law is, on its face, a bad idea?

I’m assuming that if this amendment passes, the Metro Council will pass requisite “health and safety” provisions as indicated. So that cops and Metro General Hospital employees will still be able to speak to people in Spanish or any other language they see fit. Isn’t that crazy, though? We have to pass legislation to allow cops to speak to people in their own language? So that your doctor can talk to you about your medical history? When we have to make exceptions to our new charter amendment to protect public health and safety, it’s a bad idea.

My great concern is what will happen in the courts. Will the public defender’s office and Metro Courts be prohibited from paying translators? Or prohibited from allowing already-bilingual attorneys to speak Spanish to their clients? Or will this be determined to be a constitutional requirement? And again, if our amendment violates the U.S. Constitution, isn’t that a bad sign?

The issues above would no doubt be sorted out by the courts, should this amendment pass. Here’s a practical issue: Why on earth would we pass an amendment that we know will immediately draw lawsuits the government will have to pay to defend?

But still. If this were the right thing to do, we could justify all the above issues, right? Maybe we’re just on the leading edge of civilization and understanding of human rights. Maybe everywhere, people will shortly be passing English-only provisions.

Let me make the bold suggestion that provisions that serve to divide us are wrong. This provision doesn’t protect anyone. It creates two groups: English-speakers and others. Last time I checked, God didn’t check your passport at heaven’s gate. We are all just people here on this earth. No one better nor worse than their neighbors. Because many of us had the great fortune to be born in the United States, we have the keys to incredible wealth and opportunity unavailable to the vast majority of the world’s population. But we aren’t better than anyone else. How dare we make arbitrary rules that will — in an almost certainty — even prevent other U.S. citizens from receiving health care, an adequate defense in court, or from living in a safe neighborhood, right here in our own city? This amendment would also prevent international tourists from certain access to basic human services. The economy sucks, and we’re thinking about turning away tourists? Never mind them — what about international businesses? I can’t wait to see how Mayor Dean will pitch this to the next carmaker who’s considering Tennessee. “Sure, if your international employees are arrested, or end up in General, we won’t actually talk to them in your native language. But did you see our one light-rail line? Pretty impressive, huh?”

Now, I think proponents of this amendment mean for it to do two things:

• Encourage immigrants [or prospective immigrants] to learn English
• Make Nashville an inhospitable environment for illegal immigrants

No argument from me on the intent of #1. If someone wants to succeed in this country, they will speak English. We won’t have to make them. We could certainly make it easier to learn, but that gets us into a philosophical argument about how welcoming we want to be, exactly, and I’m sure I fall on the opposite end of the spectrum from English-only advocates.

But the second point — well, here’s where I start to get angry. [All this heretofore has just been a warmup. :) ] Nashville is already inhospitable to illegal immigrants. We arrest pregnant women on minor traffic violations and make them labor and deliver a child while shackled to a hospital bed. [Can you imagine the uproar if such a thing happened to a U.S. citizen in Mexico? Honestly.] We make our police officers de facto immigration agents via our participation in the 287g program, giving all immigrants a reason to fear the police, instead of viewing them as public safety officers.

But look what’s happened in 2008. Immigrants are not coming to the U.S. in the great numbers they have been, and in fact, many have even returned home. Why? Again, the economy sucks. There’s no longer such a substantial economic benefit to someone to come here illegally. Sadly for English-only proponents, the economy sucks for regular Americans, too. I know programs like 287g and all the workplace-interventions we’ve seen by the federal government — never mind that massive wall they’re building on our Southern border — are all to protect the spoils of this economy for citizens. News flash: It doesn’t work. Our immigration policy is broken, and until we fix it, no wall or government program, not even an English-only mandate, will stop people from coming here illegally, if the economic opportunity is greater than in their home countries.

Tagged as: English only, Nashville