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Is democracy monolingual? - A commentary DALLAS, TX (KERA) - When the judge presiding over the citizenship ceremony quizzed Maria Guadalupe Salazar Nevarez de Diaz about who was President of the United States, she hesitated. Not because the 49-year-old mother of nine and native of Durango, Mexico didn't know the answer; she understood the question. She just couldn't pronounce the name. So she answered another way. In halting English, she replied, "He used to be Vice-President."

Maria Guadalupe was my abuelita, and the man whose name held the fate of my grandmother's future in this country was Harry Truman.

My grandmother passed her citizenship test that day and gained a new status in this country. She could hold her head high and claim the same privileges as any native-born American, but one thing eluded her until the day she died - mastering English.

Had my grandmother known how to read English, she could have fully enjoyed the greatest privilege of citizenship - voting. As it was, she could only take satisfaction in knowing she was participating in the democratic process, though probably not entirely certain about for whom or what she was casting a vote.

Passage of the Voting Rights Act Amendment of 1975 solved the barrier of not knowing English in the voting booth. Or so it was thought.

Federal law mandates bilingual assistance for English-challenged Alaskan Natives, Asian, Hispanic and Native American citizens whenever they number at least 10,000 voters in a jurisdiction, but some areas across the nation insist on implementing their own brand of democracy.

The most common violations usually fall into two categories: the failure to provide bilingual poll workers at sites where it is known the jurisdiction has a high percentage of non-English-proficient citizens, and the failure to provide bilingual election and voting information.

Some jurisdictions get creative in circumventing minority access to the voting process.

For example, the Texas Election Code makes a distinction between interpreting and assisting. The Code states that children under 18 can't be used as interpreters at polling sites, nor can just any relative or friend. The person interpreting must be a registered voter in the same county.

Since most limited English speakers have historically relied upon their children or other relatives who may live outside county boundaries to translate for them, the hardship of complying with the Code at polling sites that don't have sufficient bilingual resources serves to only frustrate those who want to fulfill their civic duty.

Critics of the Voting Rights Act contend it is every citizen's duty to know English. And an English literacy test is required for anyone who wants to become naturalized, except for those who are 50 years old and older and have lived here as a permanent legal resident for 20 years or more.

According to the 2002 Yearbook of Immigration Statistics, more than 136,000 people 50 years and older became citizens last year. It's an age group within the demographics, a U.S. Census Bureau paper contends, that is more likely to exercise their right to vote.

It is a right that should not be challenged, regardless of whether a citizen can read, write or speak the mother tongue of these United States. Because it is a right that is universally understood to symbolize a government of the people, by the people and for the people.

No translation needed.



Marisa Trevino is a writer from Rowlett. © Copyright 2009, KERA