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The Talk of the Town Oakland may recognize 2 official languages -- and neither of them will be English Norman Matloff |
Wednesday, April 11, 2001
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IMAGINE ENTERING Oakland City Hall and seeing that the workers, from clerks to the city attorney, are either Latino or Chinese. Imagine patronizing the Oakland Public Library, and seeing that the librarians, assistants and pages are Latino or Chinese there, too. Under a proposal now being considered by the Oakland City Council, this scenario could well occur. Recognizing that the city has a significant number of residents who speak only Spanish or only Chinese, the proposal would require the city to fill in city government "public contact" job openings with employees who are bilingual in either of those two languages. Though technically race-neutral, the practical effect is likely to be that the city staff will become virtually all Latino and Chinese. To be sure, Americans ought to outgrow their notorious aversion to learning other languages. But taking high school Spanish or Chinese certainly won't qualify one for these jobs. Indeed, even U.S.-born Latinos and ethnic Chinese, with their limited foreign vocabularies and English-laced "Spanglish" and "Chinglish," will not be able to compete for the jobs with the far more linguistically sophisticated immigrants. The city's policy would provide more meaningful employment to many educated immigrants, who are sorely underemployed in the United States. And clearly there needs to be some bilingual staff in city agencies. But to set a policy which fills all these jobs with just two ethnicities would be disastrously alienating to large segments of society, and harmful to the two specified immigrant groups as well. Though meant to help immigrants, Oakland's policy would antagonize even those who generally support immigration. It could also worsen already poor relations between the immigrant and black communities. A few years ago, an Asian-Latino coalition sued Oakland, claiming that the city awards too many contracts to black-owned firms. The current proposal, made by two members of the city council, one Chinese and the other Latino, may well be viewed in the African American community as an ominous extension of that lawsuit. Moreover, the policy could be one more example of a few ethnic activists pushing policies which enhance their own political power at the expense of their putative constituents. Policies that make it too easy to avoid learning English bring great harm to immigrants. As noted often by Latino and Asian social workers, lack of English economically imprisons immigrants, as it is a major cause of poverty, exploitation by employers and so on. Lack of English is an obstacle to civic participation as well. Many in the Chinese community, for example, have perceived extreme bias in Chinese- language print and electronic media, such as in the 1999 San Francisco mayoral election. Since monolingual Chinese speakers rely on the Chinese press for news, politicians not favored by the Chinese press are unable to compete for their votes. There is a far better solution: Require rudimentary skill in English as a condition for immigration. No, I am not proposing an elitist, Canadian-style "designer immigration" system that favors the upper classes. Instead, simply require that, during the years that an application for permanent residence is pending, the applicant develop basic skill in English. The Immigration and Naturalization Service could even supply learning materials for this purpose. Oakland is about to go bilingual, with two "official languages." But
neither of them is English. Something is very wrong with this picture.
What's Next The Oakland City Council will vote April 24 on whether to mandate bilingual hiring and translation of city documents into Spanish and Chinese. If the proposal passes, Oakland will be the first city in the state to legally require bilingual hiring and translation services. Norman Matloff, a speaker of Chinese, teaches at the University of California at Davis and is active in the Chinese immigrant community. |
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