Discrimination Against Language...What is American Coming too?

?Que? No lo entiendo. Translation: What I do not understand. It is becoming apparent that if a person does not speak what we as Americans call english, then that person is breaking a law, a law that does not against, a law that some Americans have created in their own minds. Something needs to be done to protect theses people that have all the right to be here in the U.S. and speak their fluent tongue just as much as we do. Don't think other tongues are being discriminated? Read the following story and its links.

According to an editorial in the New York times, police in Dallas have been giving tickets to people who could not speak, or understand fluently, english. The tickets were an outrageous $204! In the main article about this situation, which was written by Scott Goldstein in the Dallas News, it is said that, "Dallas police wrongly ticketed at least 39 drivers for not speaking english over the last three years." Most of these 39 drivers, according to Scott's article, were pulled over, charged with for their violation, but also charged for being a "non-english speaking driver." As stated by the New York Times, "all but one of these drivers were Hispanic."

I would say that this is an eye opening situation to what our nation is breaking down too. Most people do not want to focus on the bigger problems in our world, such as our growing national debt, our crippled economy, starving people near us and far away, so they begin cracking down on the little things that frustrate them, or confuse them.

One may say that the ticket incident was a fluke in their computers or a complete accident, but could a fluke or an accident happen 39 times over a three year period? And the ticket case is not the only situation where people of different languages are discriminated against. Kids are discriminated at school, adults and teens are discriminated in the work place. It's heart breaking to claim but, the evidence is all over, and if one pays attention then they will see and hear it.

I have heard kids, and adults alike, say "If they cannot speak english they do not need to be here," and when I hear that said over and over again, I laugh to myself, because our U.S. Congress never sat down and said, "The official language of this nation is English." Mind you that what we call english is really not english, it is a mix of nations, tongues, and regions I like to call American English because there is no other language like it. That being said, shouldn't we as a land of equal opportunities accept these other languages and the people that speak them? These people enrich out nation and bring variety and diversity.