AP Interviews Metro Health, Kurdish Immigrant on English Only

In an Associated Press report just out, a Metro Health Department official wonders whether their inspectors will be forced to tell non-English-speaking property owners that their grass is too high in English only.

And a poignant interview with a Kurdish Nashvillian demonstrates just how unhelpful English Only would be for non-English speakers:

Remziya Suleyman, 24, a Kurdish refugee from Zaxo, Iraq, moved to Nashville in 1992 with her family. It took her three years to learn English in Nashville public schools.

Her 43-year-old mother, however, still struggles.

"She doesn't know how to read and write English even after being here for 17 years because, like many other refugees, she had to work three jobs at one point for the family to survive," Suleyman said.

Eric Crafton has never shown that immigrants are not learning English fast enough to warrant a law that would outlaw any Metro attempt to help them out from time to time. The comments of Ms. Suleyman indicates that the net effect of a New English Only law would be indifferent and inhumane.