Throw your hands in the air
Posted: Sunday, June 03, 2007 8:21 PM by Domenico Montanaro
Filed Under:
Democrats
From NBC's Domenico Montanaro and Andrew Merten:
To clarify, here's what was said about English as an official language. Gravel was the only one to raise his hand to say English should be the official language. But Clinton makes an interesting distinction, calling English certainly the national language, but "if it becomes official," she said, "that means in a place like New York City, you can't print ballots in any other language."
Gravel: We speak English. That doesn't mean we can't encourage other languages, I speak French and English, and people speak Spanish and English. But the official language of the United States of America is English.
Obama: This is the kind of question that is designed percisely to divide us. You know, you're right. Everybody is going to learn to speak English if they live in this country. The question is not whether or not future generations of immigrants are going to learn English, the question is how can we come up with both a legal, sensible immigration policy. And when we get distracted by those kinds of questions, I think we do a dis-service to the American people.
Clinton: Wolf, let me add that we faced that in the Senate last year, as to whether we would or would not vote for it. The problem is, if it becomes official instead of recognized as national, which indeed it is -- it is our national language. If it becomes official, that means in a place like New York City, you can't print ballots in any other language. That means you can't have government pay for translators in hospitals, so when somebody comes in with some sort of emergency, there's nobody there to help translate what their problem is for the doctors. So many of us, I did at least, voted to say that English was our national language but not the official language because of the legal consequences of that.
