NewsMax.com
Friday, March 23, 2001

It all sounds innocent enough, as though then-President Bill Clinton was merely requiring the federal government to be more helpful to Americans who don't speak English.

But a growing number of members of Congress are expressing concerns that the result would be nothing less than the erection, with tax dollars, of a modern-day Tower of Babel, from which would flow federal documents – even highway signs – in multiple foreign languages.

It's the latest battle in the war to foster a multiplicity of languages rather than to support the traditional common language – English – for a nation of diverse backgrounds.

And it's more than a philosophical tug of war. It also has to do with the costs, so far not calculated, of providing special services to the country's growing number of non-English-speaking immigrants.

According to the Associated Press:

Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., who wants Congress to repeal the Clinton-Gore administration's variety of proposed rules to help people with "limited English proficiency," said, "I'm concerned about the price tag, but I'm mostly concerned about the principle.

"Putting out crutches for people who do not speak English well is not a way to encourage people to perfect their English."

One of the new Republican president's first actions after taking office Jan. 20 was to put on hold a number of rules ordered by the outgoing Democratic administration.

The Department of Housing and Urban Development – now headed by Mel Martinez, a Floridian born in Cuba who spoke no English when he arrived in America as a refugee at age 15 – is awaiting direction from the White House on what to do.

A Bush spokesman, Scott McClellan, said Thursday the president has yet to review the Clinton order.

At least 30 members of the House of Representatives, mostly Republicans, including Rep. Dan Burton of Indiana, chairman of the Government Reform Committee, want Congress to wipe out those rules.

The movement is being led by Rep. Bob Stump, R-Ariz., a veteran of the battle against multilingualism.

Last fall, Arizona voters opted to do away with the state's bilingual education. Two years earlier, they made English the official language of Arizona, requiring its use in most government transactions, but courts struck down that measure.

Stump said that, as a result of Clinton's directive, when the Bush-Cheney administration came to power it discovered the Justice Department was having documents translated into 30 languages and the Department of Transportation was considering replacing traffic signs now in English.

In a letter to his House colleagues, Stump wrote that by abolishing the order, Congress "will not only alleviate a costly mandate on recipients of federal funds, such as state and local governments, but also protect our great nation from further language barriers."

This is unwelcome news to ardent proponents of multilingualism.

Gabriela Lemus, director of policy for the League of United Latin American Citizens, said:

"I'm very discouraged, even saddened. What is the message? We're not including people?"

Noting that Bush, who speaks Spanish as well as English, has been sending inclusive messages to the Latino community, she added that "my fear now is this is just all lip service – we're being taken for a ride."

In Denver, Vicenta Herrera, who interprets for her mother, who moved to America from Mexico and speaks little English, ridiculed elected officials in Washington:

"They're all high and mighty. They don't need to speak any other language."

Kush Bambrah, an attorney for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, argues that non-English-speaking Americans are entitled to special help.

America, he said, has to choose between "disenfranchising these populations or trying to embrace them and what this country was founded on."

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