It takes more than a language to unify a nation

[Dennis Baron]

The bilingual ballot requirement, not to be confused with the
translation of foreign opera and ballet requirement of the Federal
Voting Rights Act, applies in certain well-defined situations and
does not require ballots in hundreds of different languages
everywhere in the US, as the US English types would have us believe:




• more than 5 percent of the citizens of voting age of the State or
political
subdivision are members of a single language minority and are limited-
English
proficient;
• more than 10,000 of the citizens of voting age of the political
subdivision are
members of a single language minority and are limited-English
proficient; or
• in the case of a political subdivision that contains all or any
part of an Indian
reservation, more than 5 percent of the American Indian or Alaska
Native citizens
of voting age within the Indian reservation are members of a single
language
minority and are limited-English proficient. (42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a(b)
(2)(A)(i); 28
C.F.R. 55.6.)
In addition, the illiteracy rate of the citizens in the language
minority as a group must be
higher than the national illiteracy rate. (42 U.S.C. 1973aa-1a(b)(2)
(A)(ii))

In several states (eg, California, New Mexico, and Texas) materials
must be available in English and Spanish statewide. In these and
other states, the requirements are decided according to the
population in a political subdivision. Many California counties add
additional languages to English and Spanish.  Orange Country, CA,
adds Chinese, Korean, and Vietnamese; LA county adds Chinese,
Tagalog, Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese.  The requirement of the
current federal voting rights law, which expires this coming August,
kicks in when the population the voting-age speakers of a given
language WHO ARE ALSO LIMITED in their ENGLISH PROFICIENCY surpasses
as threshold number (5% of the state + LEP; or 10k in the subdivision
+ LEP)  AND that group has an illiteracy rate > national average.

California, New Mexico, and Texas were Spanish-speaking before they
were Anglo (and before the Spanish came, things were different
linguistically too, remember?)  And as Bethany says, the requirement
is to have such things as referenda and initiatives, and candidate
position statements available in the relevant languages.  Did you
ever vote on a referendum where a "No" vote actually meant "Yes"?
It's hard enough to figure these things out in English.  Hard enough
to figure out what the law means in English, too, since legal
language, despite the fact that we think of it as so precise, is not
known for its transparency.  (Hey, Bethany's actually a lawyer, she
doesn't just play one on TV, so she should know).

Dennis



At 2/24/2007 11:27 AM, Judith Marie wrote:
> Hi all,
> When I voted in November in Berkeley, California, I first had to
> choose
> which language I wished to use. The choice was between Chinese,
> Korean,
> Spanish, English or Tagalog [sic].
> It seems to me not unreasonable that since only U.S. citizens vote,
> and
> that one has to pass an English language test to become a citizen, the
> ballet should be in English.

I guess some of us dance to a different drummer.

Joel

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org