Free Republic

"We’ve been told we are anti-Welsh bigots and even fascists,” says Alice Morgan in her soft Welsh accent. The comments she is talking about began when she and other parents raised objections to a plan to turn their primary school in the village of Llangennech into one that teaches only in Welsh. They are worried that some children used to being taught in English won’t cope. Feelings are running high. On one side are those who want to increase the number of Welsh speakers in the country. On the other are campaigners who say the evidence shows this method is...

7/28/2009 - MANAS AIR BASE, Kyrgyzstan (AFNS) -- Thought not traditional Air Force linguists, two multilingual Airmen bring a unique skill to Manas Air Base. Capt. Jecek Dempnaik and Staff Sgt. Maria Hudgeons, who speak a combined seven languages, reduce communication barriers between Air Force members and coalition forces through written translations and verbal interpretations. They are the ears and eyes to the director of the Transit Center here. When acting in this capacity, they are referred to as the 376th Air Expeditionary Wing coalition coordinators and linguists. Shifting tongues between English, French and Spanish is as easy as breathing...

Yesterday, a friend told me that his brother, who is a high school teacher in Phoenix, was going to spend a month in Mexico this summer in an "intensive immersion" program to learn Spanish. He said his brother was doing this to comply with a new requirement from the state of Arizona that he be qualified to teach in a language other than English. He said the new requirement (apparently the result of a law passed by the Arizona state legislature) is designed to force the teaching of all subjects taught in Arizona public schools in Spanish as well as...

"THE SUCCESS of our country depends upon helping newcomers assimilate into our society, and embrace our common identity as Americans," President Bush declared Monday in his Oval Office address on immigration reform. "English allows newcomers to go from picking crops to opening a grocery, from cleaning offices to running offices, from a life of low-paying jobs to a diploma, a career and a home of their own." As the son of legal Costa Rican immigrants whose mother learned English, taught in the Los Angeles City Schools and earned a master's degree from Pepperdine University, I found the President's words pertinent,...

Court rules English-only petitions in SoCal recall were unfair Associated Press SANTA ANA, Calif. - Petitions used for the 2003 recall of a Latino Santa Ana school trustee should have been printed in Spanish as well as English, an appellate court has ruled. The trustee, Nativio V. Lopez, had come under fire for seeking exemptions to the state's English-only instruction requirements and was partly blamed for the district's lack of new school construction. He was recalled by 71 percent of voters. The decision Wednesday by the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals could be used to force election officials throughout...

NPR.org, April 2, 2005 · "Tip O'Neill was correct," says Father Tom Reese, editor in chief of America, the Catholic weekly magazine. "All politics is local... even in the Catholic Church." Reese suggests that instead of focusing on the possible papal candidates as a bookie would look at horses in the starting gate, try to think about the election from the point of view of the electors, the cardinals who cast the votes. "Each cardinal is thinking, how will this candidate go over in my diocese?" Reese says. "If you're from the Third World, you're concerned with people who are...

<p>Oakland, where waves of Asian and Latino immigrants have settled in the past two decades, unveiled a 24-hour hot line Wednesday that gives residents information on 500 city services in five different languages.</p> <p>City officials believe Oakland is the first in the nation to offer an automated phone system in more than two languages. Two years ago, the city became the first in California to adopt a law that requires hiring bilingual staff and translating city documents.</p>

The U.S. Department of Justice has ordered Harris County to begin providing Vietnamese-language ballots and voting material, starting in November. Citing the county's growing Vietnamese population and requirements in the federal Voting Rights Act, the Justice Department ordered County Clerk Beverly Kaufman to print ballots in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. Harris County is the only county in Texas with a large enough Vietnamese population to have triggered the Justice Department's order, and local Vietnamese leaders said the move will help encourage the community's political involvement. "This is a big step forward for Houston's Vietnamese community, because this means we cannot...