English as the Second Language: Geeeez, I Don’t Know…

The question regarding Alejandrina Cabrera is poignant.  She is the city council candidate in San Luis, Arizona, who is being blocked from the ballot by political rivals and the courts for not being able to speak English well enough to handle the city’s business.  I am a great defender of HispanicLatinos using, retaining, relearning or strengthening their Spanish.  I believe using Spanish confidently is instrumental in creating secure individuals who can succeed professionally. 

I myself am on a steady diet of enforced reading, listening and learning.  This blog, for example, I write in English and then use a computerized program to achieve a basic translation that I then, using two different dictionaries, laboriously cobble line by line into some sort of presentable form.  Sometimes it takes hours.  The final product is the object of some concern for some friends and family but for me it is a labor of love and in the months and years ahead I am hopeful that it should become a more accomplished work.  Had my parents had the time to teach me Spanish they would have given me not only an important tool to succeed in life but would have saved me from undergoing this painful renaissance.

But back to Mrs. Cabrera.  Here is a public-spirited woman who wants to serve and who presumably wants to do the right thing for her community – and I believe her First Amendment rights are being abridged.  Having said all that, lo siento, Señora Cabrera, pero es necesario, no, fundamental, que su inglés sea eficaz y útil. La lengua es el instrumento fundamental del mando y sin el propio uso del idioma oficial de gobierno usted no podría cumplir sus compromisos y ayudar la comunidad que usted quiere servir. (…I am sorry, Mrs. Cabrera, but it is necessary, no fundamental, that your English be effective and useful.  Language is the instrument of government and without using it properly you cannot complete your responsibilities and help the community you want to serve.)

If all of San Luis spoke Spanish only, then I might have a different set of thoughts altogether.  But the fact is that there are people around you that probably are like many others whose Spanish is limited and it is not for them to make up for any lack on your part.

Having covered city hall as a journalist and knowing how intricate some of those discussions can get – especially during the formulation of budgets and the floating of bonds and discussions over personnel and insurance policies – it takes more than a cursory knowledge of English to cast good votes on decisions that will affect a whole community.  I am not sure that if I lived in San Luis I would want you to vote on raising – or lowering, for that matter – my electricity rates.

The need to know English applies to non-HispanicLatinos of any color as well.  My experience has been that from city hall to Congress, there have been some Anglo representatives of the people whose language and comprehension skills did not qualify them to represent a barn much less a city of 25,000.

You are the ying to my yang, Mrs. Cabrera.  The model for public servants today is the one who can equally, knowledgeably and effectively communicate in English and in Spanish.

You and I with a little work can get there.

Feel free to forward these blogs that deal with business topics on Mondays, politics on Wednesdays and social and personal and professional development on Fridays.  Additional thoughts are published invariably on Tuesdays or Thursdays.

1 thought on “English as the Second Language: Geeeez, I Don’t Know…

  1. In America english should and must always be the first language. I don’t necessarily think the federal goverment should mandate english as the official language. This should be left to the states to decide.

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