Salt Lake Tribune

January 21, 1998

EDITORIAL
Drop English-Only Bill

The hundreds of Utahns who marched on the Capitol Sunday have a valid question: What is the value of an English-only law?
    Lawmakers, who pertinently began their general session on Human Rights Day, should waste no time giving them this emphatic answer: ``Nothing!''
    Such an answer entails the quick defeat of House Bill 189, Rep. Tammy Rowan's proposal to outlaw the publicly funded translation of certain government information.
    Rep. Rowan insists there is nothing racist about her bill; that her goal is simply to encourage immigrants to learn English as quickly as possible, for the sake of national unity. As evidence, she cites the provision that would funnel funds saved from translations into education programs for newcomers.
    But the discriminatory, disdainful nature of the bill is obvious. It would be fine for the state and its subdivisions to use foreign languages in tourism and economic development, for example, yet it would be prohibited to print welfare pamphlets in multiple languages.
    If not racist or ethnocentric, the measure is at least elitist. It implies that people from other countries are welcome only if they have lots of money to spend.
    As the Salt Lake City Council, Ogden City and the Salt Lake City-County Health Department have recognized with recent resolutions, nothing will be gained by a government failing to take reasonable steps to communicate with its newer constituents. Rather, good will and productivity may be lost as immigrants struggle to cope with new customs, laws and bureaucracies, all against a language barrier.
    It is not as if the English language, U.S. unity and government solvency are at stake when information is translated during a person's transition to residency. The global use of English in commerce, aviation, entertainment and diplomacy ensures its dominance.
    And because English is required for the best jobs and to fit into communities, immigrants already have a strong incentive to learn it quickly. Utah only spends a few thousand dollars each year to translate public information.
    In honor of diversity and equal opportunity for all, principles inherent to this nation, legislators should quickly discard misguided, divisive measures like H.B. 189.