HOW GOOD IS YOUR ENGLISH?

There is yet another intetesting battle brewing in Arizona. A Latina candidate for an Arizona city council seat, Alejandrina Cabrera, had her qualifications to run for office challenged. Seems some don’t think her English is good enough. She is a U.S. citizen, not an immigrant, and even she admits her English is rudimentary, but guess what? Most of her would-be constituents don’t speak English at all. They speak Spanish and she speaks Spanish and she speaks English well enough to get by in all of the interviews that have now taken place. So what would be better, a candidate who can conmunicate with the voters she represents or someone the non-Spanish speaking public find acceptable?

The language question can be a touchy one. Yes, you would hope as many people as possible could and would speak English fluently, but then what does that mean exactly? This situation reminds me of the post emanicipation era when freed blacks ran for office. After 200 years of prohibiting blacks from being taught to read or write, white folks  disqualified the freedman from taking office and from voting because of illiteracy. In other words, our English wad not good enough. That situation continued until the Voting Rights Acts was finally passed in 1965. Should we encourage everyone here to speak English? Probably, but  that has nothing to do with whether Cabrera can effectively represent the people of her district.

…just something I was thinking about …

EDIT: The Arizona Supreme Court decided yesterday that Cabrera could be struck. The court looked at minutes of council meetings to assess what level of skill would be needed to understand the proceedings and decided Cabrera did not have the skills! Hope some group volunteers to pay to take this one to the U.S. Supreme Court.