Comp 2 - Unit 1 Blog:
English, the Official Language of Oklahoma
The United States is one of the major centers of commerce and trade where the majority of the
country speaks English, thus most people assume that is the official language. Well, in
Oklahoma, now at least it will be the official language. On November 2nd, Oklahoma residents
voted yes on State Question 751: English official language for OK? This amendment means
that all state business be conducted in English only, the only exception would be Native
American languages.
Kathryn Harvey with Immigration Reform for Oklahoma. said, "We feel the cost alone for
interpretations and printing of how many people require or request their languages be printed
is an unnecessary cost to the taxpayer."
My question is: Do those taxpayers speak English only? The truth is this country is one of
immigrants. There are so many languages spoken in this country that the United States has
never declared an official language so why should a state have to make its own exceptions. I
don’t really agree with the above but if we consider this push, made by State Representative
Randy Terrill, that came up due to a lawsuit by an Iranian couple of Bartlesville who complained
the state refused to give them a drivers license test in Farsi.
In thus case, he is avoiding unnecessary costs for us taxpayers.
Sources: http://www.newsok.com/oklahoma-votes-to-make-english-official-language/article/3510663
http://www.macmillandictionaries.com/med-magazine/May2006/38-UK-US-Culture.htm
I didn’t actually know that this law was even being considered in the State of Oklahoma. Since I live in California I actually have a little bit of a different take on this. Although I do believe in equal rights for citizens, it is becoming a huge problem, because a lot of Mexican Americans are using Spanish as their first language here. It seems that if you are bilingual then you have a better chance to land jobs. It seems backwards that English speaking Americans have to revolve around Spanish. It is ironic that Oklahoma has taken that initiative, considering the amount of immigrants throughout the state. This was a very interesting blog and informative.
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