Texas Town Adopts Spanish as Official Language
August 15, 1999 - 0:0
EL CENIZO, Texas Mexico lost Texas in an 1836 war, but the battle for cultural supremacy along the Rio Grande goes on. The City Council in the heavily Hispanic border town of El Cenizo, just south of Laredo, Texas, has voted to make Spanish its official language and to declare the community a "safe haven" for illegal immigrants, officials said on Friday. From now on city business will be conducted in Spanish which will then be translated into English for official documents to meet the requirements of Texas law.
Mayor Rafael Rodriguez told Reuters that most of the people in El Cenizo, including him, speak only Spanish. Many are first-generation immigrants, both legal and illegal. "In past administrations, the meetings were done in English and they did not explain anything," Rodriguez said. The result, he said, was widespread apathy in the ramshackle town on the banks of Rio Grande. The measure, enacted by the council last week, drew a sharp response from English first, an organization based in Fairfax, Virginia, that advocates making English the United States' official language.
The group's executive director, Jim Boulet, said El Cenizo may be the first U.S. town to have adopted Spanish as its official language -- a step that policy makers should take as a "warning sign" of things to come. "Will we call this town America's first Quebec?'" Boulet asked. "Language divisions rather quickly lead to other divisions." "It proves we really need a national language policy sooner rather than later," he said.
Rodriguez says the City Council's intent is not to usurp English or create divisions, but to make local government more accessible to the town's 7,800 residents. "What we are looking for is that the people of the community who attend the meetings and who only speak Spanish be able to voice their opinions," Rodriguez said. The "safe haven" ordinance forbids city staff, which consists of one employee and two volunteers, from helping the U.S. border patrol find illegal immigrants or inquiring about someone's immigrant status.
The intent, Rodriguez said, is to avoid meddling in peoples' lives. "We are not protecting them and neither are we turning them in," he said. City secretary Elsa Degollado estimates the town's population currently includes 1,000 illegal immigrants. Rodriguez himself crossed into the United States illegally from Mexico but became a U.S. citizen in 1995. (Reuter)
Mayor Rafael Rodriguez told Reuters that most of the people in El Cenizo, including him, speak only Spanish. Many are first-generation immigrants, both legal and illegal. "In past administrations, the meetings were done in English and they did not explain anything," Rodriguez said. The result, he said, was widespread apathy in the ramshackle town on the banks of Rio Grande. The measure, enacted by the council last week, drew a sharp response from English first, an organization based in Fairfax, Virginia, that advocates making English the United States' official language.
The group's executive director, Jim Boulet, said El Cenizo may be the first U.S. town to have adopted Spanish as its official language -- a step that policy makers should take as a "warning sign" of things to come. "Will we call this town America's first Quebec?'" Boulet asked. "Language divisions rather quickly lead to other divisions." "It proves we really need a national language policy sooner rather than later," he said.
Rodriguez says the City Council's intent is not to usurp English or create divisions, but to make local government more accessible to the town's 7,800 residents. "What we are looking for is that the people of the community who attend the meetings and who only speak Spanish be able to voice their opinions," Rodriguez said. The "safe haven" ordinance forbids city staff, which consists of one employee and two volunteers, from helping the U.S. border patrol find illegal immigrants or inquiring about someone's immigrant status.
The intent, Rodriguez said, is to avoid meddling in peoples' lives. "We are not protecting them and neither are we turning them in," he said. City secretary Elsa Degollado estimates the town's population currently includes 1,000 illegal immigrants. Rodriguez himself crossed into the United States illegally from Mexico but became a U.S. citizen in 1995. (Reuter)