Posted on 02/13/2010 11:54:54 AM PST by ConservativeStatement
TAMPA, Fla. — He was 28. She was 11. Her parents said they gave consent, claiming cultural norms of the Guatemalan highlands. But in Dover, Florida, a little girl with a baby raises questions.
When deputies came, Teodoro Pablo-Ramirez understood only some of what they said, according to his lawyer. He speaks no English and little Spanish — just the Mayan tongue of Mam.
The indigenous language, understood by few interpreters, has stymied court cases across the country. One interpreting service in Washington resorted to recruiting a Mam speaker out of a jail lobby.
In Hillsborough Circuit Court, two cases, both too serious to dismiss, are stalled for lack of a Mam translator. In one, a 4-year-old Wimauma girl was raped. The details are locked inside her mother, who speaks only Mam. And last year, Pablo-Ramirez was convicted and sentenced to life in prison, before the judge granted a motion for retrial.
The court could provide only Spanish interpreters.
In Spanish, the word "trial" is juicio.
In Mam:
Tun txi jun xjal twitz aj kawil.
(Excerpt) Read more at bostonherald.com ...
Wonder if they understood enough English to apply for welfare bennies.
obviously illegally in the US
All cultures are equal, no culture is inherently wrong, blah, blah, blah.......
What the hell are they doing here. What possible contribution to our society might they make? It is high time that we take a more ...selective... approach to who we let visit this country, reside in this country, emigrate to this country. A plain-faced cost/benefit analysis, applied to the individual, is entirely within the realm of reasonableness.
One of the few types of government interference in citizens’ lives that I could support is making it mandatory to know English well enough to conduct all your legal affairs in it. You can’t really know what the Constitution says, or what any of our laws are, if you can only access tehm second-hand, via translation. And some of these people with obscure languages can’t even do that because they don’t know anyone who can translate from their language into English. Lock them up with a combination of hard labor and mandatory English lessons until their English makes them fit for trial. The 4-year-old’s mother too, even though she’s supposedly just a witness — we have no way of knowing that unless she can talk to us, and we know she didn’t protect her daughter. How the eff was she going to call 911 or even yell out the door to neighbors for help, when somebody’s in the act of raping her preschooler, if she can’t speak anything but “Mam”?
The only way anyone should be allowed to enter or stay in this country if they can’t communicate in English, is if they’re legally classified as mentally incompetent and have an English-speaking legal guardian who’s living here legally and is fully responsible for them.
I’m sure they understood they could go to the hospital emergency room and get free treatment.
Yep, even if ACORN can’t understand them either. Because ACORN doesn’t care if they’re actually eligible or not. Just make up stuff to make the form show they’re eligible.
In the second case, the government’s “expert witness” looks like a goof ball.
Performing the rape Americans won’t perform and speaking the jive Americans won’t speak.
You do realize that we already have those regulations, right? This Ivy Leaguer skipped the border between checkpoints, like 99% of all illegals. The other 1% overstayed their visas.
We are getting a lot of this language and cultural differences as excuses for committing crimes also here in California:
This is from Greenfield California in the Salinas Valley
Greenfield Father Awaits Deportation After “Selling Daughter for Beer”
Posted: Jan 13, 2009 5:36 PM PST Updated: Nov 02, 2009 3:37 PM PST
GREENFIELD, Calif. - On Tuesday, new information became available regarding a case involving a Greenfield father, 36-year-old Marcelino de Jesus Martinez after he allegedly sold his 14-year-old daughter for marriage.
Despite rumors of arranged marriages occuring on the Central Coast, police in Greenfield say a case hasn’t reached this level in at least six years.
The payment plan included $16,000, 150 cases of beer, 100 cases of soda, 50 cases of soda, 6 cases of meat, and 2 cases of wine.
Police on Tuesday confirm the grocery items were not for the father’s personal use, but for a marriage celebration.
They also say both Margarito de Jesus Galindo and Marcelino de Jesus Martinez are possibly cousins and were neighbors in the same apartment complex. Police Chief Joe Grebmeier also confirms both mean are not legal citizens and says DHS and ICE are involved in the case.
Grebmeier says Martinez will eventually be deported back to Mexico, and assumes the same for Galindo.
As reported on Monday, the 14-year-old girl is back at home in Greenfield. Police cannot confirm if the girl has a mother locally, but say Child Protective Services were in Greenfield on Tuesday visiting with the girl. There were no details on the outcome of that meeting.
While enforcing the law, Greenfield Police say the situation is “cultural clash.” Both Martinez and Galindo are some the Western Mexican state of Qaxaca, where arrainged marriages are common and legal.
Martinez remains in Monterey County Jail on felony charges until his deportation.
“One of the few types of government interference in citizens’ lives that I could support is making it mandatory to know English well enough to conduct all your legal affairs in it. You can’t really know what the Constitution says, or what any of our laws are, if you can only access tehm second-hand, via translation. And some of these people with obscure languages can’t even do that because they don’t know anyone who can translate from their language into English.”
I agree, and that’s the way it was 100 years ago, but today political correctness ha taken over and there is no more intense societal pressure to learn the English language, as there was back then.
“until his deportation”
Love to see those words, something we should do to the resident at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
This story is BS. Number one, the sentence above is just about unpronounceable by the human tongue.
Second of all, ancient South and Central Amnerican languages are amongst the most studied in the world. I have at least 3 books on them somewhere.
If ACORN can understand a language only “a few people” this article is definite BS.
SB “a few people” know...
Tun txi jun xjal twitz aj kawil.
Translation: Where’s my Medicaid, Section 8, Food Stamps, and AFDC? Not so difficult.
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