Lack of first-hand experiences made two Tennessean columnists wrong on the same issue

It's not usual to find two newspaper columnist debating different sides of an issue -- and both be absolutely wrong.

But it happened last month in The Tennessean, under the bylines of Gail Kerr and Phil Valentine. And the ocurrence shows what happens when columnists develop their opinions from second and third-hand sources, and not actual, first-hand experience.

Readers deserve columns written from that kind of experience.

The issue was Councilman Eric Crafton's "EnglishFirst" referendum petition. Of course, conservative Tennessean columnist Phil Valentine was for the proposition. And he was right in writing that there is nothing wrong in requiring immigrants to first learn English before coming to live and work here. Tourism is a different matter altogether, I hope.

Kerr was against the propositon requiring Davidson County government to only conduct its business in English. She said it would cost lives.

Yet neither columnist was writing from direct and continual contact with Nashville's immigrant population. And that's why both of their columns failed.

First, Valentine pointed to certain states eliminating English as a Second Language programs for English immmersion for school children. Valentine erred, however, in making the point that this shift showed that English-only requirements do not harm but help children. ESL education is English language immersion. I know that from being in Metro Nashville classrooms with immigrant children and their ESL teachers for three consecutive years earlier this decade. I also know it because my brother is an ESL teacher in Oklahoma.

Bilingual education was what Valentine should have referred to in making his point. And that is what the states he cited have moved from, with the exception of some school districts where bilingual education is seen as a benefit to non-Spanish speaking children as well. A bilingual child is a very powerful force in today's global marketplace. Valentine's gross misstatement should be corrected in The Tennessean if the newspaper is dedicated to accuracy.

Second, the need of immigrants to learn English first would prevail if wasn't for American businesses wanting cheap, dependable labor to make bigger profits and deliver cheaper prices to American citizen consumers. This nation is grossly obese because food costs are the lowest in the world, thanks to Spanish-speaking immigrants. They're doing jobs that most Americans are too lazy to pursue.

As former Sen. Phil Gramm rightly pointed out earlier this summer, Amerfica outside of its military and their families is a nation of spoiled whiners. More, more, more.

Yet Valentine didn't stress that businesses should not hire the cheapest labor as possible. He didn't demand more strict enforcement of these businesses, and police going home to home in Davidson and Williamson counties to check on the legal status of familiy nannies. Remember, President GW Bush was raised by a Mexican nanny who crossed the border. He calls her a second mother. He spoke glowingly of her during my one-on-one interview with him in the Oval Office in 2004.

So, yes, Phil, you're right about the ideal. But you're wrong about what is actually happening outside in the real world. And that makes the "EnglishFirst" referendum wrong. Laws are not something to be written outside of reality. Double-standards only make this community even more hypocritical.

Now to Kerr. She wrote that people are going to die if Crafton's referendum passed in November. She made that statement from second-hand experience, citing an e-mail from a health care professional.

She was wrong. People are not going to die in the streets.

From my personal experience and family history, both sets of my grandparents came across the border before 1915, fleeing the Mexican Revolution and Pancho Villa and the Federales. Civil wars are terrible things, as folks living here know. People are threatened by simply not taking sides.

Many of immigrants today are fleeing the same kind of threat from Mexico, Latin America and South America. In Mexico, the ongoing war between the drug lords and the federal government has escalated to gunfights in the streets. And the government is barely holding its own. So human beings flee that terror for safety and a better future here. What else can they do?

Sadly, however, our government won't recognize this need as a legal reason to come to this nation. It instead funds governments that are as corrupt as the rebels. American children, who happened to be born to Hispanic immigrants illegally in ths country, are held in prisons around this country, including an infamous one in south Texas run by Nashville-based Corrections Corporation of America. Until the ACLU intervened, the children behind bars were not even allowed crayons to color, according to national media outlets.

Incredible, eh? Makes you proud when you watch all those U.S. Olypmic athletes cry on the medals podium. And this nation has the audacity to criticize the Chinese over human rights.

So being in America, even illegally and without English in local government opetations, is preferable to being back in Mexico and the other countries. My two sets of grandparents had seven and 10 children respectively. This was back in Kansas of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s. Only English was used in all government operations. And not one of my aunts and uncles ever died. And that also includes service in World War II in Pacific and European Theatres. There was no 911 back then on the phone. Nor in many rural communities were there hospitals.

So any contention that Hispanic immigrants in Nashville are going to start dropping dead on the streets is silly. Want the police ... say policia(Spanish). Want to go to the hospital ... tell the 911 operator "hospital" (Spanish and pronounced Oz-Pee-tal). Something wrong with the heart, the operator can memorize the word "corazon" like Al Gore did in the 2000 presidential race. If there is pain, "dolor" ... the list can be short and direct, done by an operator personally, not officially.

I've got to believe most 911 operators are compassionate enough to do that, with the exception of some well-publicized cases. Or a 4-year-old in the Hispanic household can come to the phone and translate that help is needed. Or if it is a child, then a sibling can translate in many cases, or a cousin.

Then, there is what I saw after exiting Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church (La Iglesia Catolica Nuestras de La Senora de Guadalupe) on Nolensville Road. A Hispanic father pulled his late model Ford Taurus to the church entrance. He let out his wife and two daughters (about 4 and 8 years of age) while he parked the car.

So what did the two girls say to their father upon leaving the car? "Bye, Bye, Daddy!"

They already do the communication in English to government authorities for their parents who are trying to learn English. A child's mind is more adept at learning a new language than an adult one. I can testify to that as I continue to try and master Spanish. I am improving. English was the only language spoken in my household when I grew up. But I knew to become a better person and citizen of the world for the most vulnerable, I had to finally master Spanish.

Bilngual ability will be the norm in a generation for every American. USA Today reported that Hispanic numbers since 2000 have been greater in births than people crossing the border. The New York Times reported that Hispanics will double in numbers by the year 2050 --- 30% of the population. Non-Hispanic whites willl comprise 46% of the population. I believe those numbers will be updated soon for the arrival of this distinction by the year 2035.

Ironically, and justly, that will almost coincide with the 500th anniversary of the appearance of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Dec. 1531 to St. Juan Diego north of Mexico City. Her appearance over four days is the only one officially recognized in this hemisphere by the Catholic Church. She appeared to a 42-year-old indigenous Indian for a reason, just as Christ was born in the poverty of a manger 2,000 years ago.

The grave, moral wrongs committed against the people in this hemisphere when the Europeans arrived -- and in this nation with the policy of Manifest Destiny by Tennessean and President James K. Polk -- will be righted. Finally. This is in God's time, not man's.

So the growing influence of Hispanics in the United States will only increase according to Constitutional standards, despite the sick call from some Republicans to take citizenship from what are called "anchor babies". What is done wrong now -- even with Crafton's referendum next year -- will ultimately be corrected in God's time as shown by Our Lady of Guadalupe.

My attorney and friend -- the grandson of German immigrants -- tells me that Hispanics statistically are the fastest to assimilate language-wise in this nation's history. As I wrote earlier on this blog, there were still people in Utica, NY, only speaking Italian in the 1990s, when I lived there.

So why are Hispanics so targeted on language? We know why. Historical bigotry continues. But Hispanics have always been able to overcome, thanks to Our Lady.

Politically, it would be better if I was not honest in revealing my family history and the ability of its members to safely navigate an English-only world. But these difficult times -- as the power structure is forced to give up some of its power -- require complete honesty. Scripture tells us that the truth will set us free.

The real human rights danger in this community is the 287g deportation program, which is enforced and operated according to the color of one's skin. The torture of Nashville mother, Mrs. Juana Villegas (DeLaPaz), and her newborn son demonstrates that.

Yet the Nashville Chamber of Commerce and elected Democratic officials have remained silent about this outrage that is destroying Hispanic families across Nashville. Hispanics -- without documentation to work and live here -- drive in fear. You can even get arrested and deported for fishing without a license. Children -- American citizens -- do not know if their parents will return home at night from going to work.

Mrs. Villegas was tortured by Nashville law enforcement authorities because of authority given them by the Bush administration. And her case is not isolated.

Hispanics here in Nashville will survive the wrong of the "EnglishFirst" proposition. They'll also overcome columnists who really don't know about them from regular, first-hand experience.

Very soon, they won't need anyone to speak for them. Their numbers will suffice to shake down the thunder -- thank you, Notre Dame -- of political and social change in Nashville and across the country. All the wrongs since 1531 will be corrected -- in God's time that endures.