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US: No driver license to Kurdish Lelav
Amedi until she learn English well
1.2.2008
By Allen Shaklan |
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English-only bills in Legislature: New immigrants
couldn't drive
February 1, 2008
Georgia, -- Lelav Amedi is the kind of
American Kurd we should all admire. Lelav is a
hardworking mother of two young children, who, along
with her husband, is a homeowner and a taxpayer.
In her free time, she volunteers at her daughter's
school. There isn't as much free time as she'd like,
because she works full time as a program manager at
Refugee Family Services, an agency devoted to
helping refugees who have fled war and oppression in
their home countries rebuild their lives here in
metro Atlanta. Lelav helps refugee families with
young children prepare to enter school ready to
learn and succeed. She is a success because there
were no barriers to her ability to garner a driver's
license before learning fluent English.
Lelav, who is Kurdish, became a U.S. citizen in
2006. Fearing for her life, she fled Saddam
Hussein's Iraq and arrived in this country in 1997.
She was granted refugee status and invited by our
federal government to resettle here in metro
Atlanta,www.ekurd.net
joining the 50,000 other
refugees who have started new lives in our
community. When Lelav arrived here, she needed a
job. But first she needed a driver's license. So
only a few months after arriving, she took the
driver's license test and passed. Although now
fluent in English, she did not then speak English.
She took the test in Arabic. Having gotten her
driver's license, Lelav began her first job in the
United States.
Given the limits of our public transportation
system, the ability to drive frequently determines
the ability to work. There is a bill in our state
Legislature which, if it had been law at the time
Lelav arrived here, would have barred her from
taking the driver's test and most likely would have
thrown her and her family onto the state's welfare
rolls. If this law is passed, it will prevent many
other refugees and legal immigrant residents, who
want nothing more than to work and support their
families, from doing so.
The bill, HR 413, would start the process of
amending the Georgia Constitution to require that
English be the official and only state language. On
its face, the bill would seem to apply to many state
activities. But because of the policy of our federal
government to provide access to governmental
programs for all, regardless of language barriers,
the English-only requirement couldn't apply to any
state program involving federal funding. Driver's
license testing appears to be one of the few places
the English-only provision would apply.
Refugees and other legal immigrants, who now take
the test almost as soon as they arrive here, would
be barred from taking the test until they could
learn written English well enough to pass.
This bill is a perfect example of the law of
unintended consequences. English is the core,
unifying language of our country, and every new
resident should be supported in learning it. But by
emphasizing the importance of English through this
legislation, the only results would be to prevent
hardworking people from working,www.ekurd.net
forcing them onto state
public assistance. What a waste of tax revenues that
could otherwise be used to improve our schools, our
roads and our environment. We would be preventing
our newest legal residents from joining prior
generations of refugees and immigrants who have
successfully integrated into our community. And we'd
be keeping them from the opportunity of interacting
with English speakers in the workplace, which is the
number one place that refugees learn English. Rather
than support assimilation of new refugees into the
community, the net effect of this bill would be to
isolate them in their homes, without transportation
or employment.
Finally, this bill sends the message that those who
do not speak English are not welcome in Georgia. If
we want to be considered world-class, this is not a
good message for our tourist industry, or our
economy as a whole. More than 1,600 foreign-based
companies have already established operations in
metro Atlanta. Whether it is their executives,
high-tech researchers or a service sector of
minimum-wage workers, international employees are
essential to the state's economic growth and
well-being. Barriers like English-only laws will not
make our state attractive. Our country has a rich
history of welcoming immigrants and refugees who
have helped make this nation what it is today. We
need to keep the multilingual welcome mat at the
front door.
Allen Shaklan is executive director of Refugee
Family Services in Stone Mountain.
ajc com
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