Should Spanish fluency be required for U.S. workers?

This week, a few of my friends and I were visiting and talking about a Spanish language requirement for some Moses Lake jobs.

As a nearly lifelong Grant County resident, I know this hiring criterion has been present in central Washington for many years.

Now with the tighter labor market, employers can continue to demand more and more from their workers.

One of my friends mentioned how Americans use their ignorance as a measure of superiority.

People from other countries know more languages that Americans, he added.

This friend knows Spanish.

But a bilingual requirement poses a challenge for some to find money to take Spanish classes, my other friend explained.

She feels her investment to pay for extra training wouldn’t be returned because she’s nearing retirement.

There’s also the argument that not requiring immigrants to learn English creates a backlash and reverse discrimination against nonimmigrants.

On the federal level, the Civil Rights Act of 1964 protects citizens’ rights by preventing discrimination based on sex and race in hiring, promoting and firing.

The law also makes it illegal for an employer to not hire or to fire a worker because of a person’s race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

On the state level, 31 American states made English their official language, with Oklahoma being the most recent state to do so in the recent election, according to www.us-english.org.

“This approved constitutional amendment makes English the official language of all government business and proceedings in Oklahoma, with exceptions made for Native American languages and requirements of federal law,” states the Web site.

“Like all other English language laws and legislation, Oklahoma’s amendment does not affect emergency services, languages spoken at home, or citizens in non-government related business,” www.us-english.org states.

Washington state has not made English its official language.

I’m not entirely sure why, but maybe that has to do with the numbers.

Figures from the 2000 census showed that 36.8 percent of Grant County’s population was Hispanic, with 57.9 percent in Adams County.

Statewide, the Hispanic population was lower at 10.3 percent.

Eight years later, figures from the U.S. Census show a 32 percent increase in the Hispanic population for both counties combined.

According to 2008 data from the state Office of Financial Management, Adams County was ranked second and Grant County came in fourth for the largest Hispanic populations statewide.

The Columbia Basin is a rich agricultural area, with much of its farm labor coming from the Hispanic population, providing our area with a valuable labor force.

Some of the farm workers chose to make the Columbia Basin their homes by becoming American citizens, voting and paying taxes.

Others have not become citizens and receive some of the benefits of citizenship without the responsibilities.

I’m sure some learned English fairly quickly, while others struggled to master a second language.

But there are costs associated with providing government-funded education, health care services and some court services to non-English speakers.

I can see interpreters being a necessity, but where does it stop?

Should other government employees, not working as interpreters, be required to learn other languages?

The language issue doesn’t end with native Spanish speakers.

I noticed a sentence on the Moses Lake Community Health Center’s Web site referring to also serving “a growing number of Russian and Ukraine populations.”

In this recession, can we continue to demand more from the government to bridge the gap between English and non-English speakers?

Should the federal law be changed to make English our country’s official language?

Should not knowing a second language be a barrier to job entry?

Share your thoughts by posting comments to this column below.

Lynne Lynch is the Columbia Basin Herald business and agriculture reporter. We don’t know if she speaks any other languages, but two coworkers speak Spanish and her editor has a very limited list of Japanese and Korean words he can use.