U.S. English Chairman Slams New York City Multilingual Law

Statement from U.S. English, Inc. Chairman Mauro E. Mujica

On Wednesday July 23, New York City Mayor Mike Bloomberg signed Executive Order 120, requiring every city agency that has direct interaction with customers to provide language assistance in Spanish, Chinese, Korean, Russian, Italian and French Creole. The order requires that each agency maintain a Language Access Coordinator to oversee the provision of oral and written translation.

“As an immigrant who settled in New York City after arriving from Chile, I always marveled at New York City’s legacy of successful assimilation. For more than 150 years, immigrants from all over the world came to America’s melting pot, learned English and became part of the city’s proud heritage without the need for multilingual government. It would be a shame for Mayor Bloomberg’s legacy to be the end of this proud tradition and turning the Big Apple into a place of a half dozen linguistically isolated communities. 

“I am also appalled that Mayor Bloomberg chose six languages in a city of hundreds to single out for special treatment. In a city that has never favored one group over another, I find it sad to see that the Mayor has placed some nationalities on a pedestal while discounting the contributions of dozens of others. I will be very interested to see what the Mayor says the next time he is in front of any of New York City’s 50,000 Arabic speakers or 45,000 Tagalog speakers. 

“Finally, I find it quite ironic that Mayor Bloomberg’s Executive Order comes at a time when both New York State and New York City are anticipating massive budget shortfalls. At a time when we should be reducing the size of government, this multilingual executive order raises costs. Furthermore, it bears the long-term cost of inhibiting English learning among immigrants by providing the crutch of permanent assistance. 

“When Mayor Bloomberg ran for office in 2001, he promised New Yorkers an end to maintenance bilingual education programs and a return to helping people learn English by teaching overwhelmingly in English. Almost seven years later, it appears that this promise has been abandoned, replaced by a policy that will raise the cost of government, stratify immigrants, and impede the proud tradition of assimilation and language learning in New York City.”