Nashville voters reject racist English-only measure

The people of Nashville, Tenn., have resoundingly defeated a broad-based campaign to spread bigotry, intolerance and divisiveness.

Nashville has a growing immigrant population. Here, an immigrant rights rally, March 29, 2006

On Jan. 22, over 56 percent of Nashville voters successfully defeated a citywide referendum that would have banned government workers from speaking in any language other than English. A strong and broad coalition of progressive, community, religious and other groups mobilized to defeat the racist measure.

Local media reported that 41,752 voters opposed the proposal while 32,144 supported it. Ray Barrett, elections administrator for Davidson County, said it was the largest turnout for a special election in more than a decade.

If the measure had passed, Nashville—a city of 600,000 in central Tennessee—would have been the largest city to prohibit government literature and business from being conducted in languages other than English.

Opponents noted the measure would have told people from other cultures that they were not welcome in Nashville. The city has seen a surge of immigrants coming from Latin America, Africa and Asia, with estimates indicating that up to 10 percent of the population was born outside of the United States.

The English-only proposal was sponsored by Nashville city councilmember Eric Crafton, who also tried making it city policy through a council vote in 2007. That measure was approved 23-14 in Feb. 2007, but then-mayor Bill Purcell vetoed it. Crafton claimed English-only provisions would encourage immigrants to learn English, but the racist argument did not fly with the majority of voters in Nashville.

The organization U.S. English Inc. has been pushing these divisive proposals across the country. The group says that 30 states have passed different types of “English-only” laws. To varying degrees these laws call for the use of English only in state government business.

English-only measures block access to basic government services and jobs to those who cannot speak English. They further cement the second-class status afforded to immigrants, already branded by a number of racist laws that deny them fundamental rights.

The corporate media holds up the new U.S. president as proof that we live in a “post-racial society,” but racism and bigotry are still alive. The anti-immigrant movement is part and parcel of that trend, and English-only proposals seek to tap into racist divisions. The citizens of Nashville can rightly celebrate their forceful rejection of those appeals.