Question Of The Week, 10/01/06
Good morning. In case you couldn't tell I've been very busy lately. This is the first time I have ever gone a week without posting something. It didn't take me long to decide what this weeks question would be after I got on-line this morning. I got an E-mail alert from World Net Daily.com that told about Texas cities being sued for not teaching their police officers to speak Spanish. World Net Daily has posted a poll to see how you feel about this too. This weeks Question Of The Week is. Should cities in Texas (or anywhere else in the United States) be required to teach their police officers to speak Spanish? I'll post my answer in the Comment Section Monday Night.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic.
posted by David Schantz | 1:45 AM
7 Comments:
No, but those in the border areas sure ought to be, voluntarily because it is valuable tool.
I just took the WND poll. Results:
No, legal immigrants should be required to learn English, illegal immigrants should be required to leave 79.05% (585)
I concur with that result.
I happen to be a Spanish major, but I shouldn't have been REQUIRED to be. In fact, when I got my degree back in 1972, lots of people laughed at me and said, "You won't be using your Spanish here in the States, except to teach or as an announcer in an airport." Now that the demographics have changed, I NEED my Spanish, especially at car-accident scenes.
I Concur with AoW.
I always hated Spanish class. I didn't want to learn Spanish, and my feeling was that this is my country... why should I have to learn Spanish?
The lack of ability to speak Spanish (or any other foreign language) should never be a bar to employment by any public entity in the United States (except in jobs where the primary purpose is to deal with foreign countries). Nor should the acquisition of such an ability be a requisite to keep one's job.
Bottom line -- if Americans are being inconvenienced by Spanish speakers, it is our government's job to fix the problem by requiring them to leave the country (in the case of illegals) or learn the English language. We should not have to learn Spanish to accommodate them. It would be like me going to Mexico and requiring them to speak English because I can't be bothered to learn Spanish.
If someone is arrested who can't speak English, the police department can request their embassy to send a translator over. Or the department can retain a translator. We shouldn't be forcing Americans who don't want to learn Spanish to learn it.
I live in New York City, where people speak 120 different languages. Obviously, police, rescue and hospital personnel can't learn 120 different languages, so translators are used. However, I know that some police officers in Chinatown, for example, learn some Mandarin so they can do their jobs more effectively.
If a locality has a large Spanish-speaking population, then police departments should TEACH their beat officers some basic Spanish phrases so they can do their jobs more effectively. That's quite different from teaching people to be fluent in Spanish or requiring a percentage of officers to be bilingual. That would be going too far in my opinion.
Since police officers deal with criminals, I don't think the issue is to teach people English...if people aren't obeying the law, they aren't going to start learning English either...
In America, Spanish should not be a requirement of any job but if you want to be an effective police officer in parts of Texas...you better be able to speak Spanish.
Of course English should be learned but in reality, most immigrants live in insular communities-it often takes a generation until their children learn English.
So you can either stand on principle or do your job.
First I want to thank everyone for stopping by to answer this weeks question. I had a little trouble not giving up my answer when I was posting the question. I also have a problem with people that file a law suit every time they feel they were hurt by something they caused in the first place. My answer to this weeks question, "Should cities in Texas (or anywhere else in the United States) be required to teach their police officers to speak Spanish? No! It would be nice if there were some Spanish speaking officers in areas that have a large Hispanic population. Being able to speak Spanish should not be a requirement for someone that wants to become a police officer. Cities should not be burdened with the cost of teaching their police officers to speak a foreign language. Didn't our elected officials recently make English our official language? Learning to speak it should be a requirement for someone that is applying for citizenship. If they are not citizens or have not applied for citizenship they should be deported.
God Bless America, God Save The Republic.
Of course not... we've got already an international language. Try to click http://assistedlivinglittlerockarkansas.com
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