Alejandrina Cabrera is an American citizen of Mexican descent running for San Luis, Arizona city council. Her name was taken off the ballot after complaints were made, and investigated, that Cabrera is not fluent in English. There are more details in the New York Times article.
I find this case linguistically fascinating and morally confusing:
- She is a US citizen, yet she is from a part of the US that was once Mexico.
- Her constituency is primarily made of Spanish-speakers, yet city council meetings are held in English.
- The story seems to highlight the racist anti-Latino fever in present-day Arizona, and yet the people making the complaints against her are also Latino, for whom English is also a second language.
- Her ability to speak Spanish makes her qualified to represent her majority Latino and Spanish-speaking district, yet her lack of English make her ineligible to work in city government.
How is it that a US citizen does not speak English? Well, for one, being a citizen doesn´t really have a language requirement. If you are born in the US, you are an American - it doesn´t matter what language you speak at home. In the NYT article we learn that, growing up, Cabrera spent a lot of time in Mexico and attended a bilingual education program in Arizona. Bilingual education is meant to help the children of immigrants to transition into English while still receiving instruction in other subjects in their own language. It does happen that some students never really learn English in this type of environment - especially when they grow up in a community that doesn´t speak that much English either.
I think it is significant to remember that Arizona used to be Mexico. Within the border area there are Latinos of various degrees of separation from Mexico. There are those whose families were in the area when it became part of the US, and there are those who have immigrated more recently. Within the community, the use of English varies widely. There are Latinos whose families no longer speak Spanish at all, and there are those who have yet to learn English. The "Latino" community can mean a lot of different things, and in some sense encompasses communities that have little more in common than a Spanish last name.
Cabrera plans to appeal the decision to take her name off the ballot.
3 comments:
Are you kidding me? "I think it significant to remember that Arizona used to be in Mexico." That is stupid statement. How is that significant? Where you live use to be occupied by someone other then you as well. Are you practicing all the customs they did when they lived where you know do? San Luis was occupied by the O'odham Indians before it was Mexico so Mexico must have stole it from the Indians. How about this, this is America. We speak English here. Learn the language if you want to be here. In any other country you would have to learn the language there. That is how grown ups live.
Ok, it´s not like I didn´t expect comments like the one above. I stand by my statement that the fact that Arizona used to be Mexico is significant to the story, as people of Mexican-descent have lived in the area continuously, even after it became part of the US. It makes sense that Spanish is still widely spoken in this area as language cannot be contained by lines drawn on maps. Culture does not play the same rules as ICE. Also, it wouldn´t have been Mexico that originally stole the land from the O´odham people - it would have been Spain. You know, because Mexico was a colony of Spain, before it became independent and cut in half by the US.
A person should speak the primary language of the country they live in. The standardization of English was actually due to a need for different jurisdictions within the UK to be able to communicate with each other without ambiguity.
That this woman does not speak English fluently raises many concerning issues.
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