How much is this costing taxpayers and society?
While at the District Court in Waimea earlier this week, I noticed a poster offering foreign language interpretation in several languages, 24 to be exact.
The May 29 edition of West Hawaii Today had an article about the settlement of a lawsuit claiming discrimination against drivers with limited English skills. This as a result of Hawaii’s English-only policy for obtaining driver’s licenses.
How much are these interpretation services costing Hawaii taxpayers? We aren’t really doing anyone a favor by not forcing foreigners who choose to live in America to learn English. After all, wouldn’t they be more job-ready, school-ready and better able to assimilate if they learned English? Of course, they would.
Everything that separates us as Americans divides us and pits us against one another. Rich/poor, white/black, woman/man, haole/local, foreigner/American are a big part of why our inner cities are in so much trouble. Naturally, this is fostered by government, the old divide and conquer to distract us from things like unprecedented debt, top-down government control, thousands of new rules and regs and fees that hamper production and freedom.
We would see a lot fewer terrorists trying to shoot up Mohammad cartoon contests and other intolerances if we all had common language, values and respect for the rule of law and the U.S. Constitution. Offer free mandatory English language classes and we would be doing everyone a lot more good than providing interpretation in 24 languages. This is America after all.
Michelle “Mikie” Kerr
Waikoloa