U.S. Official Language?

[AngieDoogles]

Originally Posted by Tink

Angie, it's not that I don't care. I've worked in a bank where we had several Mexican immigrants as customers and we did help as much as we could. I've also worked on an ambulance service and know how essential it is to be able to understand what a patient is trying to tell you. My Spanish is very limited, and most of my co-workers didn't know any. Can you imagine how this limited our ability to even fill out the most basic of forms in the bank? Being a small branch, we had only 3 people in house most of the time. There's no way they were going to hire a full time translator to help us.

Ambulance attendants here are on call from their homes as it is. They receive $2 an hr while on call and a set amount per call they respond to. They're volunteers, so get very little compensation. They are however held to the same standards as the professionals in bigger cities, which means if they screw up they'll be sued like anyone else. SO these people don't do the job for the money... they do it to be of service to the community. Many have quit because the risk of them being sued is so high that they can't justify putting their families in that position. If one non-english speaking patient can't get across to the EMT that they're diabetic, or are having an allergic reaction, etc... someone could die and the small struggling municipal service and the individual EMT could be financially devastated. What happens when we don't have ANY service for any of us as a result?

How is that fair? It's really not so cut and dry as you might think. We have welcomed them into our community, but we simply don't have the resources to provide interpreters on all levels for their safety or ours.

Tink, I understand where you are coming from, but Spanish speakers can usually get by. It's difficult, but they manage. My husband and other Americans who speak Spanish help out when they can and often Hispanics have a family member who can speak enough to help them with the necessities. I'm also not saying that it should be required for every business to have a translator. That would be impossible. I just hate the attitude and stereotyping that often comes along with this debate. It really breaks my heart.

I understand the position you would be in as an EMT worker, but it's crazy to just expect immigrants to suddenly and immediately be able to speak English. It takes time and there are always going to be those who, for some reason or other, you can't communicate with--like people in shock. I think that just comes with that type of work. My friend was actually able to help out in a situation in which EMT workers couldn't communicate with a group of Spanish speakers.

I'm sharing her story, because I think you might be touched, even though it's a bit off topic. I'll post it after this so it isn't confusing.

As I said in my first post on this thread, what I disagree with is not allowing native Spanish speakers to take Driver's license and standardized learning tests in the language they are most comfortable with which is what "making English the official language" really means. I think it's discriminatory. The words "Stop" "Yield" "Speed Limit" and so on can be in English, because those are essential when driving, but long complicated sentences that the test takers don't understand really aren't fair at all.