No Hablo Inglés

I don't really want to cover the national language amendment issue, at least not in this post. It's been said that such an amendment would be purely symbolic, and/or could be divisive ("In 1980, Miami-Dade county approved an English-only ordinance... But thirteen years later, it was unanimously repealed after policy makers determined it had only served to divide the community."1). Really all I have to say about a national language amendment is, it's not all about you, Mr./Ms. English-speaking American. (shrug)

But there's another language issue - some folks seem to think that if you don't speak English, you don't deserve to obtain any of our public or social services. Or that people who work in the service industry shouldn't have to learn to speak even the least bit of Spanish. I think people who feel that way need to travel a little bit... the farther the better. To go places where people aren't like them, to see how some cities, even in the U.S., manage to do the "melting pot" thing at a whole 'nother level than you'd ever get here in the Midwest.

If you travel, or otherwise pay attention to the whole wide world (which we're all guilty of forgetting to do from time to time, but hey...), you'll notice that while most of the people you talk to speak your language, most of the people in the world probably don't. Here's a list of the most spoken languages in the world according to the Ethnologue, a widely cited reference for languages around the world. According to this, more people speak Spanish than English. And more people speak Mandarin Chinese than English and Spanish combined.

"But I'm not talking about what people should speak in other countries; I'm talking about what they should speak in Lafayette, or the United States." And I say in response, "It's the 21st century, we've gone global, okay?!" People come from all over the world to live and work here and anywhere else jobs or family bring them. Should immigrants learn English? Yes, it'll serve them to do so. Should we deport them or deny them services if they don't? That just seems absurd and ignorant to me. It also seems counter-productive to fostering a healthy community.

I googled the term 'social services', and stumbled across this vision statement for the town of Culpepper: "Every individual and family in Culpeper will achieve optimum well-being in a community that fosters self-sufficiency, independence, health, safety, and mutual support." I really like that vision. And I think that suggesting folks who don't speak English don't deserve services does nothing towards that vision.

Photo 1 (sign) taken by "/kallu" http://flickr.com/photos/kallu/172147322/

Photo 2 (rock) taken by "eloc" http://flickr.com/photos/eloc/275420964/

"I'm for immigrants, as long as they're legal"

I hear that argument a lot, and on some levels it makes a lot of sense - we have laws, those laws protect us, we are safer because we have them. Why should we do anything for people coming into this country illegally? Well, there are actually compelling reasons why. And I think most people who are against "sending them all home" aren't for breaking the law, they are simply for fixing what's wrong without hurting the economy, breaking up families, and/or treating human beings like luggage.

Blake Hastings, Executive Director of the Free Trade Alliance San Antonio wrote an article, Immigration Reform: Its About the Economy Stupid, in which he points out:

"Opponents of a larger guest worker program argue that these undocumented workers are taking jobs away from Americans or, at a minimum, causing wage depression particularly for lower skilled jobs. However, there is no credible research which backs up these claims. The first question would be where are the 7.8 million Americans currently looking for work? The fact of the matter is they dont exist since we are at full employment. Therefore, the argument that these undocumented workers are taking away jobs from Americans has no basis in fact."

Mr Hastings goes on to say:

"Imagine 5% (those 7.8 million undocumented) of the total U.S. workforce leaving the country in a relatively short period of time because their employers are getting squeezed by enforcement actions. What would happen to the economy? At a minimum, we would experience an economic recession and those sectors most dependent on undocumented workers (agriculture, hospitality, construction, food processing and domestic) would be devastated. Worse, we could see food shortages, rapid inflation in many sectors and major disruptions to the economy. For example, over 95% of all new entrances into the agricultural workforce of the U.S. for the past decade are undocumented, accounting for over 20% of the total sector employment. How do we get the crops from the fields to our dinner plates if 20% of the farm workforce is suddenly gone?"

So suggesting that illegal immigrants just pack up and leave just doesn't have merit - it's more complicated than that.

Arnold Schwarzenegger is about to unveil his goal of bringing universal health care to California, including about 1.6 million undocumented immigrants who live there. It's way too early to say whether his plan will actually move forward, but the very fact that the Governor is considering such a thing again points out that not everyone sees illegal immigrants as luggage that should be shipped back home. These people live and work in our state, let's make sure they have health care... there is logic here, folks. I am better off working next to someone who's been immunized and is getting treated for any health-related issues than I am working next to someone who isn't. I'm better off living next to someone who's getting the same coverage I am should a flu pandemic break out. You can look at it as a good thing for you, if you don't want to look at it as a good thing for them, is the thing.

What I'm trying to get at, is that not everyone in Lafayette thinks illegal immigrants should be sent packing. Some of us believe there is value in having them here, and we need to fix the system so that those who aren't murderers or drug dealers can stay and work and feed the family they brought with them and send money home to the one they left behind. That's how I feel when I hear someone say, "I'm for immigrants as long as they're legal."