Marco Rubio’s English language proficiency demands for so-called “immigration reform” are his attempts to bend over backwards to racists as if English language proficiency is going to make racists feel better about their stereotypes of dark skinned invaders from the Southern Hemisphere.
Now if there’s one nation that is about as ethnically homogenous as a nation-state can possibly be, it’s Norway, but the Norwegians don’t have a problem with their minorities speaking their own language and being citizens with full equal rights as well as the right to speak and promote their own language. This is what Wikipedia has to say about the status of the Sami language (the language of those historically known as the “Lapp” people or the “Lapplanders,” those terms actually being considered derogatory):
Adopted in April 1988, Article 110a of the Norwegian Constitution states: “It is the responsibility of the authorities of the State to create conditions enabling the Sami people to preserve and develop its language, culture and way of life”. The Sami Language Act went into effect in the 1990s. Sami is an official language of the municipalities of Kautokeino, Karasjok, Gáivuotna (Kåfjord), Nesseby, Porsanger, Tana, Tysfjord, Lavangen and Snåsa.
Sami Language region of Norway
America should be tolerant enough to respect and constitutionally enshrine the rights of ethnic groups to preserve their own linguistic heritages. It’s not like new Americans don’t want to learn English. Most of them are desperate to learn English and will do it on their own while given a chance. The crusade to make English an “official” language and shove it down people’s throats by law is nothing more than malicious excuse to demean and disrespect the native languages of new Americans.
What I’d really like to know is, how many people who support so-called “English only” laws or “English as an official language” laws understand or can actually define the word “proficiency?” I bet a lot of these people are hearing that word for the first time in the current national debate it’s sparking.
About Jan Tucker
The Detectives Diary is an innovative tool combining Private Investigation and Journalism. In 1984, Steve Harvey's Los Angeles Times "Around the Southland" Column entitled Jan Tucker's program of providing low-cost "Opposition Research" services to indigent and working class candidates for public office, "Take Cover: Hired Mudslinger Rides into Town." A 1996 Los Angeles Times article by Henry Chu carried a sub-headline identifying Tucker as a "P.R. Guru." In November 2012, Tucker became Criminal Justice Columnist for Counter Punch Magazine and a commentator for Black Talk Radio.
As a private investigator since 1979 and a former First Vice President of Newspaper Guild Local 69, Tucker takes these skills to a new level in the pages of the Detectives Diary with insightful and unique exposures and analysis of history and current events.
State Director--California League of Latin American Citizens, Former seven term Chairman of the Board of the California Association of Licensed Investigators, Co-President San Fernando Valley/Northeast Los Angeles Chapter-National Organization for Women, former National Commissioner for Civil Rights-League of United Latin American Citizens, former Second Vice President-Inglewood-South Bay Branch-National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, former founding Vice President-Armenian American Action Committee, former First Vice President, Newspaper Guild Local 69 (AFL-CIO, CLC, CWA), Board member, Alameda Corridor Jobs Coalition, Community Advisory Board member--USC-Keck School of Medicine Alzheimer's Disease Research Project
