- Police officers and firefighters, sworn to serve and
protect, sometimes find it difficult to communicate with the Spanish-speaking
victims they're trying to rescue. But the growing demand for emergency
responders to communicate in Spanish is "political correctness run
amok," according to some conservatives.
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- "If a fireman or a policeman or someone happens
to speak the language and can help someone, more power to them," said
Jim Boulet, Jr., the executive director of English First, an organization
dedicated to making English the official language of the U.S.
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- "But [speaking Spanish] is a courtesy, it's not
a legally enforceable right," Boulet said.
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- However, according to Dr. Sam Slick, president and CEO
of Command Spanish, Inc., "the country's largest provider of occupational
Spanish training," teaching emergency responders to communicate in
Spanish fills a "very important need."
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- According to Slick, the United States has millions of
either Spanish-only speakers or those that are "limited English proficient,"
which he defined as "primarily Spanish speakers with a very small
amount of English."
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- "How do you attend to those needs in any kind of
conceivable way?" Slick asked.
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- Command Spanish offers clients, including "many
local, state, federal and private agencies" a curriculum that is "workplace
specific," Slick said.
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- "We teach firefighters how to control fires and
crowds and save people's lives at a fire scene, but we don't teach them
fruits and vegetables," Slick said. "We don't teach them how
to arrest people, because firemen don't arrest people. We teach them only
what they need to know."
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- In some cases, Slick said it's mandatory for emergency
responders to learn Spanish.
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- For example, Slick said, the State of Texas mandates
that its police officers learn to communicate in Spanish as a requirement
for their intermediate police certification. Command Spanish offers customized
Spanish courses to both the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and the
Texas Probation Academy for an undisclosed fee.
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- "It generates an awful lot of money," Slick
said of Command Spanish's local, state and federal government contracts.
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- When asked just how much money Command Spanish earns
from its government-funded contracts, Slick said "those records are
closed," assuring CNSNews.com that "It's a very lucrative business."
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- "Some of the money being spent for all of this mandatory
translation would buy a ton of English classes," English First's Boulet
said. "The government is sending the message, 'If you come to America,
don't bother to learn the language. We'll tell you everything you need
to know.'"
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- Russ Bergeron, a spokesman for the U.S. Immigration and
Naturalization Service, explained that there is "no law which requires
an individual -- even if they do acquire a functional ability to read,
write and speak the English language -- there's no law that requires them
to use English.
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- "In terms of our people having to have an ability
to speak Spanish, I think the need for that is obvious," Bergeron
said. "If you can't speak their language, then obviously it becomes
very problematic from a law enforcement standpoint."
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- Roy Beck, the executive director of Numbers USA, a public
policy group in Washington that studies the annual numbers of legal and
illegal immigration, wants to know why only the Spanish-speaking immigrants
get this "extra consideration" from the police and firefighters.
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- "In every city, there are dozens of immigrant languages
being spoken. In some cities we're talking about 120-140 languages,"
Beck said. "All these other people are being really ripped-off."
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- Tim Richardson, a senior legislative liaison with the
National Fraternal Order of Police, said the current preference for Spanish
stems from the fact that it's the second most spoken language in the United
States.
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- "In general, I think [learning Spanish] is going
to make the officer a more valuable person to his community, so it's a
good thing," Richardson said.
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- But Richardson said local and city police departments
should be cautious when considering mandatory Spanish courses, especially
if the order is coming down from the federal level.
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- Richardson has no objection to such a mandate if "it's
a decision reached by the state and funded and the officer is not forced
to buy his own Spanish lessons."
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- "You're, in a sense, arming that officer with that
tool," Richardson said of teaching police officers Spanish.
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- Richardson said police departments should first determine
their personnel and equipment needs before spending money to train several
or all officers in a second language.
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- "I think it's probably, in many cases, unrealistic
to expect every officer to be bilingual," Richardson said.
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