Quotas Take Oakland
From the land of Ebonics.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director, English First.
April 27, 2001 9:20 a.m.

akland, which made headlines in 1996 when its Board of Education decided to teach Ebonics, is once again poised to become a trendsetter in political correctness. Oakland's City Council is expected to grant final approval to an ordinance imposing language quotas for city-government jobs on May 8th.

The Oakland ordinance would require "future city employees who deal frequently with the public to speak either Spanish or some dialect of Chinese — preferably Cantonese — in addition to English."

Oakland City Council President Ignacio De La Fuente, who drafted the ordinance, claimed "it's our responsibility to provide access to our services," and described it as "an extension of affirmative action."

Another supporter of the ordinance, Councilman Danny Wan, argued that "[Oakland] has an obligation to make sure all our services are accessible to all of the taxpayers in the city."

Government officials used to use words like "responsibility" and "obligation" when they discussed the need for immigrants to learn our national tongue. Too many government officials are now saying, "don't bother to learn English."

Tragically, some immigrants are listening. On March 2, 2001, ABC's Nightline news program was devoted to the topic, "English: Who Needs It?". Viewers watched as an immigrant from El Salvador, Blanca Alfero, demonstrated how she got by in Washington D.C. without speaking English. Yet Alfero felt entitled to lecture a bank teller who could not understand Spanish:

Voice Over: "In fact she [Alfero] is so used to being able to speak Spanish whenever she wants, that she is taken aback when her bank has no Spanish-speaking teller on duty one day. . . . She even urges the teller to learn Spanish."

Alfero: (Through translator) "When one does not speak English, they need to be able to speak Spanish. . . . [S]ometimes I go and they say nobody speak Spanish. So I go."

Thankfully, some immigrants remain determined to make a place for themselves and their children in America. They are demanding English classes, instead of the linguistic welfare they are being offered these days.

Mexican immigrant Rosalie Salazar recently complained to the New York Post's Andrea Peyser that her eight-year-old girl, who was born in America, had "been in this school three years" but has learned "almost nothing" about reading, writing, or speaking the English language.

Mrs. Salazar knew that English was the language of opportunity. I suspect Blanca Alfera knows this too.

Oakland might provide English classes to its own Salazars and Alferas. Instead, in addition to the proposed language quotas for government jobs, the city plans to create a "translation center" with initial operating costs of $200,000 - $300,000.

In addition, Oakland City Council Legislative Analyst Lupe Valdez determined it would cost the city "at least $228,000 if all 38 city departments translated just five brochures into two languages, and $361,000 if a third language was added."

(These cost estimates may still be far too low, given that translators are in short supply. The New York Times reported on April 16th that the FBI cannot recruit enough qualified people to translate wiretaps of suspected terrorists.)

Public outcry eventually forced Oakland to retreat from its endorsement of Ebonics. Perhaps public revulsion to Oakland's proposed language quotas will spark a similar retreat.