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This is a sign in the New York Courts, specifically, Supreme, New York at 60 Centre Street. The biggest line says, in perfectly good language "we speak your language." Why can't the people who come to the U.S. be troubled to learn English? Imagine the expense in operating courts in ll these languages.
Certainly not limited to NY where at least 200 languages are spoken.
Nary a Congress session passes where a Congress Critter does not introduce an amendment to make English the official language, whatever that means. Said Congress Critter claims the bill as an accomplishment no matter it died on the vine, no matter which party controls the majority.
All it takes is 2/3 of Congress people to agree to such an amendment and then 2/3 of all states to ratify it.
Actually, the discussion here is whether the New York judiciary supplying interpreters for non-English speaking litigants and witnesses should prompt outrage, as manifested in the OP.
Yes, it should, and as I discussed as part of the larger picture, is whether immigrants and those living here long-term should be learning the language to be able to succeed in society, which includes the ability to understand court proceedings.
I'm not surprised you see it that way. It is indeed a part of a social justice crusade towards diversity.
Practically speaking, the Court can and should decide whether having certified interpreters and making them available during Court proceedings will help those proceedings run smoothly and ensure that testimony is taken accurately. I honestly don't see this particular Court's decision to provide those services to be anything other than a practical acceptance of the diversity of the area it serves. I know this Court quite well - it is (along with Kings County Supreme Court) one of the busiest in the country and deals with all manner of civil litigation that arises in or has a connection to Manhattan, which is in turn one of the most diverse places in the world. Witnesses and litigants, naturally, can be and often are tourists and immigrants. Nearby Queens County, from which many people commute to Manhattan, is the statistically the most diverse place on Earth.
Given those facts, I don't see how the supplying of interpreters is anything but a practical solution to potential problems that may arise in the common event that witnesses or litigants do not speak fluent English. The alternative you appear to propose, refusing to provide interpreters and demanding that everyone in Manhattan speak English, is the functional equivalent of shaking your fist at the sky - which is to say it might be therapeutic but it ultimately does nothing to address the situation at hand.
Like it or not, America is a melting pot. Speak the language you are comfortable with. Learn English if you wish but know it will help you get by. We are not a dictatorship as much as Conservatives wish we were.
In 1950, my in-laws arrived in the US as displaced people, after meeting and spending years in concentration, displaced people and refugee camps.
They travelled from NY to Chicago and immediately settled in an ethnic community. They somehow managed to be employed, save money, get a mortgage, buy a 3 flat, pay taxes, raise their sons and become US citizens without learning to speak or understand English. They were multi- lingual in several Eastern European languages. Not learning English seemed to be their thing.
This sort of thing has been and remains very common in immigrant neighborhoods.
I would also point out that automatic translation is coming quickly and will likely become workable over the next couple of decades. Dictation software has now reached the point that keyboarding may well become obsolete. And the AI work on language understanding continues to progress.
You have hit a raw point here. Our ancestors to speak English when they first came. They worked during the day and went to night school in order to learn the English language. These night schools were provided by groups such as the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society (which now services other ethnic and religious groups) and other entities. Why can't Hispanic or Chinese people, certainly groups with a critical mass, organize and fund similar night education?
Large cities have always had ethnic communities where native tongues prevail.
I spent a good part of my childhood in the middle of sub neighborhoods where first generation immigrants and anyone who chose to communicate with them spoke German or Greek or Polish. It was an easy walk to other neighborhoods where Hebrew and a variety of Slavic languages prevailed amongst the first generation.
Store signage, food, music and church services were in the predominate language of the area.
People are free to speak whatever language they please, but they can't expect society to change to accommodate them. This has always been the downfall of the left - the lack of understanding that the flip side of freedom is that we aren't free from the consequences of our choices.
We're going to end up as a Tower of Babel where half of us cannot understand the other half. It's already that way in some places, as you drive through, there may be one English radio station and 15 in Spanish.
Come summer, Europe explodes with US tourists, many of whom get worked up if a local shopkeeper does not speak English or won’t accept the USD.
This is a sign in the New York Courts, specifically, Supreme, New York at 60 Centre Street. The biggest line says, in perfectly good language "we speak your language." Why can't the people who come to the U.S. be troubled to learn English? Imagine the expense in operating courts in ll these languages.
I ordinarily agree that we should do what we can do to promote being a monolingual (English speaking) society.
However, the court system has to remain an exception to that rule. No person I know would be so inhumane as to refuse to translate English into a native language for a man from a foreign country who is here accused of a crime. I would expect the same of other nations. I would expect them to translate their language into English for an American charged with a crime. As desirable as monolingualism should be, justice should not depend on the the language that one speaks. The argument is really one of due process under the Constitution.
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