Thursday, March 19, 2009

La Audiencia Publica

Check out the huge, 3-column box ad in this morning's Northwest Herald for a Public Meeting to be held by the Kane County Division of Transportation at Randall Oaks Golf Club.

This meeting has something to do with Longmeadow Road, Route 31 and Route 62. And that's about I can get out of the ad, because the announcement is in the Spanish language. Not Spanish and English. Only in Spanish!

I'll admit that I have been saying since 1974, "I must learn Spanish!" When I was doing the Deputy-thing in Colorado, I knew a day would come when I needed Spanish. Actually it came one night when I stopped a car with four Mexicans, none of whom admitted to speaking English. I knew they understood me, though, because, when I told them to keep their hands in sight, they did.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I have said this many times in 35 years. And saying it has not helped me learn Spanish. I studied Latin, German and Russian, but I never learned the language spoken now by 35% of the people in the U.S.

But the question this morning is, "Why is this Public Meeting announcement in Spanish only?"

3 comments:

Gus said...

And here's the answer from the Kane County Planning Department:

"The notice for the upcoming Public Hearing was previously published in the NW Herald (in English) on March 5th. The notice for the upcoming Public Hearing was scheduled to be published in the NW Herald again today (in English), but it was inadvertently published in Spanish. The NW Herald has apologized for this mistake and are planning to rerun the notice in English tomorrow."

Another Lawyer said...

I'm not sure understanding that you have to put your hands up, is a good understanding of the English language. Very often, I encounter court personnel and police officers who "suspect" that almost all individuals that claim to only speak spanish are only acting. In my opinion that suspicion is a type of racism.

Gus said...

You raise a good point about suspicion approaching racism. It could, depending on how it's applied. I hadn't thought of it that way. Thanks!