How long have Vietnamese been residing in the United States? It’s been more than 30 years since the fall of Saigon and the influx of more than a million refugees.
But the most basic act of assimilation, namely learning English, seems to have eluded many.
We learn this only because Vietnamese fishermen in the Gulf are complaining that they are not able to avail themselves of replacement jobs during the oil clean-up. Whose fault is that? You snooze, you lose, bub.
And the rush of politicians to supply translators only exacerbates the problem. Why should any foreigner bother to learn English when they can get whatever they want from the government without it?
Local Vietnamese fishermen battle oil, language barrier, Fox 8 TV, New Orleans, May 7, 2010
Because of a language barrier, a large number of Vietnamese fishermen have been out of the loop when it comes to the latest on the oil disaster in the gulf.
Due to language access issues and bad representation, these fisherman are not really sure what to do two weeks after officials discovered the oil well was leaking a mile underwater.
Community leaders hope to clear up some confusion.
Vietnamese fisherman from across the Gulf Coast – from Texas all the way down to Florida – packed the community center at Mary Queen of Vietnam Church in New Orleans East, hoping to finally get some good information.
“The language barrier, you know so they cant understand so well,” said Hung Tran, a local fishermen.
A critical language barrier that has left thousands of Vietnamese fishermen in the dark.
“If we can get somebody from the community to help us, we’d love to hire up that resource to specifically help with this community,” said U.S. Senator David Vitter.
Vitter, along with Congressman Joeph Cao and several local and federal officials, offered help to Vietnamese speaking fishermen.
“And I know a big issue with that vessel of opportunity program is that language issue,” Vitter said.
Boo hoo, we demand help.
Meanwhile, the New York Times scoffed at a small community which decided to make English the language of town business.
Small New York Town Makes English the Law, NYT, May 12, 2010
It’s about 2,500 miles from this green, rural town in the rolling hills near Vermont to the Mexican border at Nogales, but that hasn’t stopped Jackson from making a bid to be New York’s small version of Arizona in the immigration wars.
Or that’s how it is beginning to feel two months after Jackson — which has 1,700 people, no village, no grocery store or place to buy gasoline, no church, no school, two restaurants and maybe a few Spanish-speaking farm workers — decided it needed a law requiring that all town business be conducted in English.
One nearby town, Argyle, has since passed a similar resolution. A third, Easton, is likely to consider one at its Town Board meeting in June. The law has already put Jackson at odds with the New York Civil Liberties Union, which says it violates state and federal law. But in the great American echo chamber, every mouse gets to roar, so Roger Meyer, who proposed the law, feels he is making progress toward protecting the English language from threats near and far.
In California, the drivers license exam is given in 32 languages, but the New York Times thinks that language assimilation is no problema in 2010 America.
