Associated Press

English-Only a Hot Issue
Utah voters will see proposal on Nov. ballot; backers defend plan as official criticizes it.
By Hannah Wolfson, ASSOCIATED PRESS

SALT LAKE CITY - A proposal to make English Utah's official language will be on the November ballot - a move that supporters trumpeted yesterday at a news conference that quickly degenerated into a shouting match.

If voters approve the proposal, state agencies would be prohibited, with some exceptions, from conducting government business or printing information in any language except English.

"This is about maintaining our common language, this is not against other languages," said Mauro Mujica, who heads U.S. English, a national group that supports English-only measures. "This has to do with one country, indivisible, with a common language."

But opponents - and there were about 50 at yesterday's gathering, most carrying signs reading "I Don't Speak English (Only)" - insist official-language efforts would make many tasks impossible for new immigrants.

"We have all of these people resettling in this state, in this city, who require medical treatment, whose children require good educational opportunities," said Salt Lake City Mayor Rocky Anderson, who joined the crowd of protesters berating Mujica. "Your movement would tell us as a government entity that we can't provide that information in their native tongue."

Immigration is expected to help drive the West's booming population growth, according to the Census Bureau, and that influx of immigrants has made English-only a hot topic in the region. Utah's predominant immigrant group, Hispanics, are expected to increase from 138,000 this year to 265,000 by 2015, according to Census projections.

Twenty-five states, including Alaska, California, Hawaii, Montana and Wyoming, have adopted official language laws, though their impact has varied. Some simply recognize English as a state's official language but include no other mandates, while others require that English be used on all state ballots and public school documents and for government functions and activities.

Getting the issue on Utah's ballot is a victory for English-only advocates, who have been trying to push their measure through Utah's Legislature for three years. The English-only measure gathered 74,656 signatures, well over the 67,188 required, according to the lieutenant governor's office.

The initiative declares that in most cases English should be "the sole language of the government" and that "all official documents, transactions, proceedings, meetings or publications" should be in English.

The proposal lists a number of situations in which foreign languages would be acceptable, including in court cases where translation is necessary and when the public's health or safety is at issue, such as in the case of disease alerts. It also exempts tourism, including the 2002 Winter Olympics.

The measure stipulates that any state funds set aside for providing official services in Spanish or Chinese or any other foreign language should be spent instead on programs that teach English as a second language.

"What we're trying to do is make it so all of us have an equal opportunity," said Frank Nichiguchi, who is of Japanese descent and one of the first signers of the petition.

Utah's official-English push began in 1997, when Rep. Tammy Rowan, R-Orem, introduced an English-only bill in the Legislature, which adjourned before addressing it.

The following year, Rowan's proposal was defeated in committee, and in 1999 a different version made it to the floor, only to fail again.

So U.S. English, which claims that at least 75 percent of Utah residents support English-only legislation, made the state one of its targets for a ballot initiative and spent about $50,000 campaigning.

"These were bureaucrats that were trying to impose their legislative ideals on the populace of Utah," said Mata Finau, who organized the demonstration as head of a group called Utah Common Voices.