UNITED STATES: Battle over Ballots Heats Up Language Row

By Farhan Haq Reprint | | Print |

NEW YORK, Jun 27 1996 (IPS) - When elections come to New York City, voters can usually state their preferences in English or Spanish, Chinese or Russian. From Hindi-speaking Indians to Creole-speaking Haitians, every major language group in the city has help to select their electoral picks at the polls.

This lection may be different. The Republican-led House of Representatives is considering heduled for November, the country’s other linguistic groups are campaigning to block any measures that they feel could deny them equal voting rights.

“The only purpose analyst for the National Council for La Raza, a Mexican-American group. “The perception that there are individuals who don’t want to learn English is misguided.”

According to U.S. census data, some 97 percent of all U.S. residents speak English well. But ‘U.S. English’, a Washington- based group that is lobbying to make English the sole official language of the country, contends that, with speakers ofs at home, she contends, making English an official language would ensure that the country’s public documents and services all reflect the majority’s language needs.

Critics of the ‘English-only’ movement argue that such motives are disingenuous. Far from simplifying public documents or government services, they say, the proposed legislation would make it all but impossible for non-English speakers to vote or woy to get people to vote.”

In Los Angeles, she notes, a 1993 mayoral election required the printing of ballots in seven different languages, a process which cost some 900,000 dollars. She contends that New York language procedures are equally costly, with electoral machines having to be re-tooled so as to inscribe Chinese characters on voting ballots.

Del Valle disputes the idea that ballots in other languages add significantly to costs. “The cost of the initial translation is all that matters,” she says; the other printing costs, she contends, would be incurred regardless of what language the ballots had inscribed on them.

More importantly, she notes, voters in Los Angeles decided to approve multilingual ballots, proving that they would rather incur the additional cost than exclude non-English speakers. She feels the campaign underway in New York will drive home a similar point that “New York is a multilingual city, and is going to stay that way.”

Still, del Valle concedes, the political popularity of the English-only movement is rising. As Hanson notes, the movement is rich with the same sort of symbolic significance as other efforts underway to restrict immigration.

In recent months, for example, conservative commentator and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan drew cheers for his proposal to build a large fence between the United States and Mexico. Congress continues to debate measures that could denn in the workplace, the Court will strike down public English-only rules — but she acknowledCZC OSL098 DAP159 QN SERVSVE .LONASTO AP PR HE

Hongkong: Flyktingar skadar sig själva

Desperata vietnamesiska flyktingar lemlästar sig och injicerar farlig smitta på sig själva för att komma ut ur flyktinglägren i Hongkong, varnar läkare.

Myndigheterna har upptäckt att de vietnamesiska flyktingarna har injicerat sig med råttblod och smutsigt vatten. Flyktingarna hoppas att på så sätt bli sjuka och förda till sjukhus och där kanske få en möjlighet till att fly.

Detta framgår av Hongkongs “Asian Medical News” som har offentliggjort en ny rapport som bygger på läkarundersökningar av flyktingarna.

Läkarna började bli misstänksamma när de upptäckte ovanliga organismer i blodna i slutet av Vietnamkriget 1975.

Den huvudsakliga anledningen till att de fortfarande är i flyktinglägren är att de riskerar mitten av 1997.

Richard S. Ehrlich IPS/ Bangkok 960626