Letter: English-only bill just makes things worse

Sunday, May 28, 2006 | 7:39 a.m.

The rhetoric on the illegal immigration issue has escalated exponentially to the level where now racist literature is appearing in predominantly Latino and black neighborhoods, and more racist groups are making themselves known throughout the USA.

In its infinite wisdom, with no other pressing issues to worry about, the U.S. Senate, under the authorship of Sen. James Inhofe, passed English-only legislation.

This legislation does not calm down the hubris that the illegal immigration issue has created, but exacerbates the problem.

In a country that was formed by immigrants and populated by millions of immigrants with diverse ethnicity, how does the good senator propose to encourage or enforce this legislation? Send the National Guard to all the Chinatowns, Little Italys, Little Havanas, Mexican Pueblos of the major cities of the U.S., to include Puerto Rico and America Samoa, and force the thousands of old immigrants to learn English, immigrants with the English language proficiency a grade lower than our "Decider In Chief," and who have resided in the USA longer than the senator's age.

This whole issue isn't only about illegal immigration anymore. It is now about immigrants, and it validates a recent newspaper article that contained quotes from professor Walt Wolfram, social linguist at North Carolina State college: "It's never about the language ... It's about the cultural behaviors that are symbolically represented by language. That's what scares us."

Joe Beltran, North Las Vegas