A delegate says he will push to make English the official language of the state and Baltimore County after residents applauded his sign ? “Speak English” ? at several Independence Day parades.
“People were … giving us the thumbs-up, double thumbs-up as we passed. It was like watching ?the wave? at the ballpark,” said Del. Pat McDonough, R-Harford and Baltimore counties, who waved his flag at parades in Dundalk, Kingsville and Bel Air.
McDonough has sponsored several attempts to make English the official, legal language of the state and has pledged to introduce such a bill again in 2008.
“I think people feel that other languages ? particularly Spanish ? are being forced down their throats,” he said. “People feel like their system of belief is being forced out.”
However, the debate over making English the “official” language ? which would require all government business and paperwork be conducted exclusively in English ? misses the point of helping immigrants assimilate, said Roy Appletree, executive director of the Foreign-born Information and Referral Network in Columbia.
FIRN, which assists recent immigrants with translation services, government paperwork, job placement and housing searches, gets so many clients seeking to learn English that they have to be turned away, Appletree said.
He said the state should devote more funding to schools, community colleges and outreach programs that teach English as a second language.
“One way to get immigrants involved in speaking English is to support it,” Appletree said. “Let?s get over this.”
