Kentucky court officials to get Spanish language immersion

[Judi Lynn]

Posted on Wed, Dec. 20, 2006
Kentucky court officials to get Spanish language immersion
BRETT BARROUQUERE
Associated Press

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - Prosecutors, public defenders and judges from Jefferson County will begin a Spanish language immersion course in January, a program aimed at easing the transition of a growing number of immigrants in the court system.

The 21 people in the inaugural class include attorneys from the Jefferson County Attorney's Office, Commonwealth Attorney's Office, public defenders and district judges. They will go through a year of multicultural training, including an intense eight-month language course.

The officials will finish their training with a trip to Mexico, where they will live with a local family in Morelia, the capital of Michoacan, for two weeks, studying Spanish, observing the culture and visiting the local courts. The program is similar to the one used by Louisville police that ended with nine police officers visiting Mexico earlier this year.

The idea is to help non-English speaking immigrants navigate the court system more quickly and feel more comfortable making decisions that will affect their lives, said Jefferson County District Judge Angela McCormick Bisig.
(snip/...)

http://www.kentucky.com/mld/kentucky/news/16284364.htm

[acmejack]

1. The judges and prosecutors are the people that need this training all right!!

Any immigrant that runs afoul of the law will have about ten or twenty minutes of contact with them (If that). This is a boondoggle. A bunch of lawyers getting over on the public dime! If I were a Kentuckian I would be pissed off, for the Public Defenders great, for the DAs Bullshit.

updated to include "all right!"

[Lipton64]

2. I couldn't agree more

I don't believe in making English the national language but I have to be pragmatic. These latino immigrants are NEVER going to move past gardener/construction worker social status unless they learn English and start attempting to assimilate at least a little bit. I know a little Spanish from my high school days but no way in hell can I hold a conversation with these guys. I recently heard a story about an immigrant mother who brought her daughter to the emergency room and nobody understood what the hell she was trying to say but it turned out thanks to a Spanish-speaking nurse that her daughter was having a diabetic attack. My ancestors came here and went to school to learn English as a requirement that they get American citizenship. Why are these people any special? One of my old college professors was from India and he made a very good point to me in pointing out he has 2 brothers and a cousin - all of whom are already doctors and engineers and therefore very, very, valuable assets to our economy over say an everyman construction worker who's a dime-a-dozen - who were waiting in line to come over.

My grandparents were refugess to this country but they did everything the legal and proper way. The same thing with my professor's family members. They were doing it the legal way and they were getting shammed and screwed by following the law while millions of others break it every day by hopping the border illegally.

Why should my tax-dollars be wasted in training these public officials in Spanish when we could more properly allocate them to say building up new infrastructures of helping out a poor family get better healthcare? I don't see the point in learning Spanish other than you're a merchant and you want to be friendlier with your latino customers. They need to learn English and come here the proper way. Because otherwise the people who do waste their time coming here the proper way are just stooges and suckers and the rule of law means nothing any more.

Instead of paying for these officials to learn Spanish - why don't we pay to have the people they talk to learn English? I say that's a better investment of my hard-earned tax money.

[phusion]

3. hmmm

"I don't see the point in learning Spanish other than you're a merchant and you want to be friendlier with your latino customers."

:eyes:

[Bridget Burke]

5. My grandparents were immigrants, too.

Back when passing a physical exam was all it took. They also spoke English, coming from a country lucky enough to have had 800 years of exposure to English culture. So they did not have to learn the language before they arrived--as yours apparently did.

Immigration laws definitely need changing. It should not be necessary to spend a fortune on immigration lawyers. And those who cannot begin to spend that much need the ability to come here as workers. Not guest workers or "illegals" but people who have a chance for citizenship & need not fear their bosses.

English is required for citizenship, except for very old folks. But Amendments to the Texas Constitution are hard to decipher for native speakers, so Harris County has ballots in English, Spanish & Vietnamese. And some people who are not yet citizens ARE here legally; but they don't speak good English yet--just like nearly every immigrant group.

A few months ago, my cable system added yet another channel for Hispanics/Latinos/Chicanos. We already have the 4 local stations serving that group, plus another 2 on the higher tier; and there are many more Spanish stations available for extra money. Why was yet another channel required? This one caters to the younger generation. It's all in English.

[rexcat]

7. Well...

are you inferring that Spanish speaking people who come to this country didn't do it the legal way? There are a large number of illegal immigrants from South of the Border but not all who are Spanish speaking are "illegals." I believe that there are English classes for immigrant in most metropolitan areas and many of the non-English speakers take advantage of the classes. What this country needs is more assessable classes to teach English to non-English speaking residents/immigrants. I will take the high road here and assume that people who come to this country, even the Spanish speaking peoples, do try to learn the language but you will always find the exception in any group of people who immigrate here.

I am also a little dismayed at your comment of putting higher value on the profession rather than the individual. I have found the "Spanish" speaking people who I have come in contact with to be very hard working, honest people. More than I can say for some of the professional types I have run up against. There are always exceptions to everything but I think your prejudices are coming through loud and clear.

[ninkasi]

4. An amusing observation

Twenty years ago, my father was in the hospital. My husband and I were there visiting, and a nurse was trotting up and down the halls, asking if anybody spoke Spanish. I came forth, and said that while Spanish was my second language, I'd be willing to try to translate. They took me into a room where a little boy, his arm in a cast, was crying. The nurses were afraid that the child was in pain, but the parents, and little boy, spoke no English.

As it turns out, the little one was okay, but had broken his arm riding a new bicycle, and was worried about his new bike. After questioning the parents, and being given assurance that the bike was ok, the little boy settled down. It's sometimes useful to speak a second language, and any time I see a Spanish speaking person trying to communicate with an English only speaker, I try to help. My Spanish is far from perfect, but gets the job done.

I'd really love to learn a third language now. I enjoy being relatively fluent in two languages, and think it would be good if more of us were.

[treestar]

6. Poor family in Morelia

All 21 gasbags are going to stay with them?

[judaspriestess]

8. the flip side

US is one of a FEW countries that only speaks one language. It is a good thing to be biligual and know a different language. I am bilingual and I have aspirations of learning French which will make me trilingual. Yes, immigrants should learn English but we also need to understand that their education level is very poor, many of them can't even read or write their own language.