KUER News Transcript: October 16, 2000
By Steve Spencer
KUER's citizen panel had a different kind of
debate when they took on the Official English ballot initiative
last week. Instead of the grilling they usually give candidates,
panelists debated experts on the measure and each other
in a heated discussion about whether English should be designated
Utah's official language. KUER's Steve Spencer reports.
SPENCER: The ballot initiative dictate that the government use
English for all documents and transactions, except for those
needed for public safety, health, and education, among other
exceptions. The controversial movement started in Utah five
years ago. After state lawmakers rejected it three times, organizers
backed by a national group gathered signatures to put it on
the ballot. Now, it's in the hands of voters. Emotions among
this panel of voters are running hot as Joe Hunter of Utahns
for A Common Language tries to calm the waters.
HUNTER: "Now I have heard words about
rejection, I've heard racism, I've heard divisiveness. They
are not found in Initiative A. They are found in the rhetoric
of the people who do not want Initiative A to pass. If it
in fact is divisive, which it apparently is, it is the fault
of the proponents, my being the lead proponent. That is our
failure to communicate. The initiative doesn't do that. Its
intent is to give people the opportunity and the official
encouragement to be able to unite with a common language."
The encouragement needs to be official,
Hunter says, to protect Utah from the expense and complexity
of having to equally accommodate every one of the 120 language
groups represented in Utah.
HUNTER: "I could take you on a tour of
other states and show you that what has happened is that it's
become very difficult to draw a line and say where do we stop
in providing state services, documents, etc., in different
languages?"
At the same time, says Hunter, the initiative
says the State Board of Education will make rules that promote
teaching English to everybody while also promoting foreign
language learning. For Vic Roblez, a retired engineer and
son of Mexican immigrants, that one provision strikes home.
VIC: "When I was a kid, our parents would
take the responsibility to teach us English. That's not here
now. (EGGINGTON: "Oh yes it is.") Now, everyone wants help
to do what the parents should've done and should do. That's
why the initiative is required, because we will not take the
responsibility to do it ourselves."
But BYU linguistics professor Bill Eggington
says immigrants are learning English at astonishing rates.
It's just that more immigrants arrive all the time. From the
outside it appears there's a group of people not learning
English, says Eggington, but that's because people learn English,
move away and are replaced with new immigrants.
Hunter argues that not having government
services available in one's native language would help encourage
people to learn English and integrate into society faster.
But Egginton says research shows it will do exactly the opposite.
EGGINGTON: "We have to realize that for
adults, it's a very difficult thing to learn another language,
a very difficult thing. So what does the research tell us?
Basically, if people live in an environment of rejection,
then they're not going to acquire the language that quickly.
I see official English as waving a flag that says environment
of rejection."
Egginton cited several studies during
the debate, but they weren't enough to change the mind of
Ray Warner, an ardent supporter of the initiative from the
beginning.
RAY: The common language has made America
the one united nation that it is. That's the most important
thing in America, is the common language.
Panelist Marta Roseto also came in sure
of her opinion-that the law would not unite anyone into a
common whole, but would be divisive Utah.
MARTA: We are divisive already here now.
So if this initiative passes, and I'm afraid that it might
be passed, it will be excluding and divisive.
Right now, polls show the majority of
Utahns support the measure. I'm Steve Spencer, KUER News.
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