Posted on 07/10/2002 12:57:16 PM PDT by Schatze
Police officers and firefighters, sworn to serve and protect, sometimes find it difficult to communicate with the Spanish-speaking victims they're trying to rescue. But the growing demand for emergency responders to communicate in Spanish is "political correctness run amok," according to some conservatives.
"If a fireman or a policeman or someone happens to speak the language and can help someone, more power to them," said Jim Boulet, Jr., the executive director of English First, an organization dedicated to making English the official language of the U.S.
"But [speaking Spanish] is a courtesy, it's not a legally enforceable right," Boulet said.
However, according to Dr. Sam Slick, president and CEO of Command Spanish, Inc., "the country's largest provider of occupational Spanish training," teaching emergency responders to communicate in Spanish fills a "very important need."
According to Slick, the United States has millions of either Spanish-only speakers or those that are "limited English proficient," which he defined as "primarily Spanish speakers with a very small amount of English."
"How do you attend to those needs in any kind of conceivable way?" Slick asked.
Command Spanish offers clients, including "many local, state, federal and private agencies" a curriculum that is "workplace specific," Slick said.
"We teach firefighters how to control fires and crowds and save people's lives at a fire scene, but we don't teach them fruits and vegetables," Slick said. "We don't teach them how to arrest people, because firemen don't arrest people. We teach them only what they need to know."
In some cases, Slick said it's mandatory for emergency responders to learn Spanish.
For example, Slick said, the State of Texas mandates that its police officers learn to communicate in Spanish as a requirement for their intermediate police certification. Command Spanish offers customized Spanish courses to both the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the Texas Probation Academy for an undisclosed fee.
"It generates an awful lot of money," Slick said of Command Spanish's local, state and federal government contracts.
Records Closed
When asked just how much money Command Spanish earns from its government-funded contracts, Slick said "those records are closed," assuring CNSNews.com that "It's a very lucrative business."
"Some of the money being spent for all of this mandatory translation would buy a ton of English classes," English First's Boulet said. "The government is sending the message, 'If you come to America, don't bother to learn the language. We'll tell you everything you need to know.'"
Russ Bergeron, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, explained that there is "no law which requires an individual - even if they do acquire a functional ability to read, write and speak the English language - there's no law that requires them to use English.
"In terms of our people having to have an ability to speak Spanish, I think the need for that is obvious," Bergeron said. "If you can't speak their language, then obviously it becomes very problematic from a law enforcement standpoint."
Roy Beck, the executive director of Numbers USA, a public policy group in Washington that studies the annual numbers of legal and illegal immigration, wants to know why only the Spanish-speaking immigrants get this "extra consideration" from the police and firefighters.
"In every city, there are dozens of immigrant languages being spoken. In some cities we're talking about 120-140 languages," Beck said. "All these other people are being really ripped-off."
Tim Richardson, a senior legislative liaison with the National Fraternal Order of Police, said the current preference for Spanish stems from the fact that it's the second most spoken language in the United States.
"In general, I think [learning Spanish] is going to make the officer a more valuable person to his community, so it's a good thing," Richardson said.
But Richardson said local and city police departments should be cautious when considering mandatory Spanish courses, especially if the order is coming down from the federal level.
Richardson has no objection to such a mandate if "it's a decision reached by the state and funded and the officer is not forced to buy his own Spanish lessons.
"You're, in a sense, arming that officer with that tool," Richardson said of teaching police officers Spanish.
Richardson said police departments should first determine their personnel and equipment needs before spending money to train several or all officers in a second language.
"I think it's probably, in many cases, unrealistic to expect every officer to be bilingual," Richardson said.
Copyright CNSNews.com
Phillipines, my experience has been they tend to learn English in school from an early age. Vietnamese, either they never learn it till they come here or their English pedagogy must be terrible there. They tend to be the toughest to understand, and to be understood by.
As I said before, English is typically taught in the schools in Latin America. The biggest problem with Mexico, however, is that so few of the rural kids get much more than a few years of education. They just don't think it's important there, compared to the need to go to work to earn a living for the family, etc. Much as it was in frontier America back 150-200 years ago.
When these people come to this country, as so many do, they are ill-equipped in many ways to deal with our culture.
One of the interesting, though sad, things that happens very often here in southeast Texas, for example, is that many Mexican immigrants are often hit by cars trying to cross busy thoroughfares.
Where they come from, the fastest vehicle they will ever see is a bus or an occasional truck traveling on unpaved roads. They are simply not used to the concept of "traffic" and don't have a feel for how fast a REALLY fast-moving vehicle can come upon you, they try to cross a street and *splat!*
We have probably not had as uneducated and backward a people immigrating en masse to the U.S. since the Sicilians a hundred years ago. The Irish from the mid-1800s are similar.
That's funny. =;^)
I'll bet it's fun times at your place at Thanksgiving.
I suppose it is arguable that in this hypothetical case the victims did not do enough to help themselves to survive.
We must have a common language if we are to communicate; speaking different languages in one country contributes to Balkanization.
Here too --and some pro-illegals actually suggested stop signs be put up on I-10 for the Mexicans who were running over the Rio Grande and then over I-10 because we shouldn't expect them to be used to our Interstates. No one liked dodging a dozen Mexicans on their way to work and worse running over some.
I'd rather have a competent and strong fireman rescuing my family than a weak but multilingual one. We wouldn't expect them to learn sign language before they can save a deaf person. They also rescue babies who can't speak any language.
None of the occupants spoke English, and had, in fact, been shaking their heads indicating they did not understand me. Fortunately, no one died because of this, and all were discharged from the hospital and fully recovered.
I'm not smart enough to solve the problems of the world, and I strongly believe that everyone coming to this country should learn English. However, my job is to save lives and protect property. Any tool that helps me to achieve that goal is worth while, and in Texas, you need to be able to speak Spanish to work with many of the people who are injured or need your help.
The Irish...? You Ba$>ard! (I'm Assuming your male) LOL
That's all I'm saying. Thanks for saying it better than I could.
Alarm comes in to station, Fire & Rescue 1 & 2 respond. Within minutes of the alarm first going out, they arrive on the scene, to find nobody sitting on the curb...
So how does your silly little "dream scenario" play out now???
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