Posted on 05/23/2004 4:55:49 PM PDT by wagglebee
In one of his fireside chats explaining a new federal program, President Franklin Roosevelt laid down the intellectual basis for what has become known as the safety net.
"Unemployment relief is, of course, not the permanent cure. The permanent cure lies in finding suitable jobs in industry and agriculture for all willing workers."
Since then, our society has long offered temporary assistance to those who need it, on the condition that the recipient make an effort toward self-sufficiency. This balance of rights and responsibilities has formed the basis of modern social policy, most recently reaffirmed with the welfare-to-work reforms of the 1990s.
Yet the Minnesota government has amended the contract, resulting in a one-sided system that expects nothing from those it purports to help. With the use of "I need a translator" cards, available 10 to a page in 11 languages and counting, an immigrant who speaks no English can find perpetual help from government translators who expect nothing in return. This deviation from the norm has the distinction of not only undermining the safety net, but cooling the melting pot.
We must ask ourselves who benefits from this something-for-nothing translation. Multilingual driver's license exams -- not to mention translations in every arena from food stamps to Social Security -- are short-term crutches, but offer no segue into upward mobility. With the government joining the costly, customer-service driven multilingualism of the private sector, it has effectively locked in the possibility that an immigrant can survive in an English-free existence.
No one suggests we banish all translators. The 167,000 limited-English-proficient individuals in Minnesota and 21.3 million in the United States cannot overcome the language barrier in a day. English takes years to learn, decades to master.
Lack of proficiency may be a temporary disability, but is not a permanent condition. While we can dream of the day when we can repair spinal cords or cure cancer, the solution to language problems needs no scientific breakthrough. Instead, we need to follow the script set by other programs.
Unemployment and welfare function not as a safety net, but as a trampoline, helping individuals to bounce back to economic self-sufficiency. Unimpeded translation, on the other hand, is the worst kind of safety net -- a web, gently entangling newcomers who soon come to depend on the cocoon that surrounds them. There's no bounce because there's no expectation that the requestor will aim to become proficient in English.
This is a goalless policy that we must change. By shifting government translation toward an effort-for-reward system, non-English speakers can still receive services in exchange for making strides toward English proficiency. In fact, the solution is quite simple.
The first question asked of an immigrant who produces a card reading "Trebam prevodioca srpsko-hrvatskog jezika" ("I need a Serbo-Croatian translator") should begin with a question regarding which English learning course the immigrant attends. It should not matter whether this is an advanced class at the community college or an informal beginner course held in a church basement. At any level, a newcomer's attempt at bridging the language expanse indicates movement toward an independent future.
For the immigrant who has not begun the language-learning experience, this question permits follow up with a list of English programs in the area. Through suggestion, it enforces the notion that English education is critical, rather than belying it by providing translation for nothing. Weeks later, the immigrant may return having learned only the first words of English, just as the unemployed worker may have yet to obtain a job. Both still have a long way to go. But both are swimming laps, not merely treading water.
In a land of immigrants, a citizenry that speaks a common language is a civic necessity. It is time for our government -- the designated instiller of civic virtue -- to transform our language efforts into a policy that translates into self-sufficiency and citizenship. For our government's accent should always be on encouraging our newest residents to learn English.
Bought a new weed trimmer yesterday. With great satisfaction, I ripped the non English portion out of the owners manual and burned it. I then vowed to do this with everything I buy in the future.
...perpetual help from government translators who expect nothing in return. This deviation from the norm has the distinction of not only undermining the safety net, but cooling the melting pot.
We have to fight for English to continue as our only official language.
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