11/05/00 9:50 a.m.
Lies and Shilling in Utah
English-only opponents work overtime.

By Jim Boulet Jr., executive director, English First---------jboulet@englishfirst.org

fficial English has never lost a referendum vote. This would suggest that Utah is likely to become America's 24th state to make English its sole official language on November 7th. Unfortunately, the state's Republican governor, along with the usual anti-English special interests and their allies in the news media, are all working to defeat it.

State representative Tammy Rowan has been fighting to make English the state's official language for years. Utah's legislature refused to pass her official English bill three times.

She went to the people, with the help of Utahns for Official English. (Utahns for Official English has no connection to English First). The result: Initiative A is on the November ballot.

As of the October 31 deadline for the most recent 45-day-campaign-reporting period, the anti-English side was officially spending twice as much as the pro-English forces. Opponents of Initiative A had spent $39,500 (including $1,582 provided by the Utah Education Association's political action committee), while proponents had spent $19,400 ($10,300 came from U.S. English, a group also with no connection to English First).

This large spending differential does not include the regular, ample and free coverage provided to anti-English arguments by the Salt Lake City Tribune. The Tribune has done its best to make sure those arguments are thoroughly and repeatedly discussed.

All too often, complaints of media bias are sometimes simply excuses for poor presswork. Sometimes though, a newspaper turns itself into campaign literature thinly-disguised as reporting. You be the judge.

On November 2nd, Utahns for Official English held a press conference. Given the coverage, which gave whole new meaning to the term "adversary press," they might just as well not have even bothered. Consider just one paragraph from the Tribune's coverage of the event:

Opponents [of Initiative A], including several politicians, church leaders, minority advocates and educators, say the proposed law will harm immigrants by cutting them off from vital services and by creating an environment hostile to non-English speakers. More specifically, there is some fear the law would prevent schools from teaching students English as a second language; opponents also say it is incongruent with hosting the Winter Games, an obvious multilingual event.

Now consider the Tribune's take on a rally held on October 28th by an opponent of Initiative A, Utah's Common Voices. The story claimed that "few people are willing to publicly support Initiative A." Perhaps this was the reason absolutely no supporters of official English were quoted. This happy coincidence left plenty of room for quotes from anti-English activists.

Tribune readers learned from Angel Gonzales, incorrectly, that "English is the official language of Utah. Floyd Mori of the National Japanese American Citizens League argued that "Do we want to send a message to the rest of the country that Utah does not tolerate people who speak other languages?"

In case anyone missed Mori's point, the Tribune carried another story that same day headlined "The Other Language Issue: Utah's Olympic Image." Never mind that Initiative A has a specific exception for tourism. And never mind that the reporter confessed that "there is no potential pitfall for the Olympics if Initiative A passes on Election Day." There was going to be a story on how a Utah official English law would hurt the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in the state.

Thus the Salt Lake Organizing Committee had "no official comment." Yet the Tribune reporter did the commenting for them, noting that the International Olympic Committee has two official languages (English and French) and three additional "working" languages (German, Spanish, and Russian) and quoted a "linguistics professor at Brigham Young University," Bill Eggington who complained:

Essentially, we're saying, "We welcome the world linguistically for the period of two weeks that the Games are on, but after that period, we'll go back to being a monolingual, English-first, English-only state."

Religion is playing a part in the referendum campaign. An October 30th Interfaith rally against Initiative A included representatives of the Roman Catholic, Jewish, Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ, and Unitarian Universalist faiths. (Lutherans and Buddhist were absent but also voiced opposition.)

Conspicuously absent from this list was the church of choice of 70 percent of Utah residents, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Mormon position on the referendum was announced in August: "The question of how public services are provided to people of different languages and cultures is a matter best worked out between governments and their citizenry."

Utah's Republican governor Michael Leavitt is a firm opponent of the measure, as is Salt Lake City mayor Rocky Anderson. These politicians are standing with people like Lorna Vogt, a spokeswoman for Utah Common Voices, who claims to know what immigrants really think. Vogt argued that immigrants "see it as a clear attempt to make them second-class citizens."

Rather than listen to Lorna Vogt and her politically correct allies, Governor Leavitt and the people of Utah might do better to talk to people like Ada Florian, a Guatemalan immigrant in South Jordan, Utah.

Florian began to learn English in 1998 thanks to her employer, Merit Medical Systems Inc. Now she depends on her English skills in her job in Merit's label-control department. She is justifiably proud of her accomplishment and told the Tribune: "I can go anywhere without help. I just feel proud of myself. I feel 'Oh, I can do it.'"

Ada Florian feels like a first-class citizen because she learned English. English has also meant a better job for her and more income for her family.

Salt Lake City Tribune please take note: English is the language of opportunity in the United States.