Possibly not since September 11, 2001 has an American mayor attracted as much attention as Hazleton's mayor Lou Barletta. The only possible exception might be Mayor Ray Nagin of New Orleans. But both New York's former mayor Rudolf Giuliani and Mayor Nagin had the advantage, if you want to call it that, of leading great American cities caught in the throes of terrible tragedy. It was hard for them to avoid media attention, even had they wanted to.
Lou Barletta is different. Mayor of a former coal mining town of not much more than 30 thousand, Barletta decided to stand up and be counted on a vital public issue: illegal immigration. And he and Hazleton have now done so, by passing a law designed to make it very hard on illegal immigrants who come there.
Is the mayor--and is his city--right to have done so? It remains to be seen what the courts will say, of course; yet I know a number of people whose instinctive response to their actions is an emphatic, "Yes!"
In an open letter which can be read online, Mayor Barletta has made it clear that he--like most of us, a descendant of immigrants--does not oppose people coming to the United States legally, in search of the fabled opportunities of America. But he as mayor has been faced with rising crime, demands for bilingual police, and a populace living in fear, plus great additional municipal expenses, all caused by people who have no respect for American values and no legal right to be in the country.
He takes pains, too, to make clear that, when it comes to language, it is not Spanish he is opposed to, but the expense of forcing the government to function in ANY second language. In effect, he asks, if one additional language, then why not a second, a third, a fourth, and so on? Residents who know, or who have experienced, the history of Bethlehem will know just what he means. Once the city was largely German-speaking, a distinction it gradually gave up in favor of fuller participation in American life. At one time, too, members of at least 50 ethnic groups lived on the South Side of Bethlehem. This implies that at least 50 languages must have been spoken there--including, by the way, Spanish. There were at least a few people from each of most of the Central and South American countries from the early years of the neighborhood; and there were quite a few Mexicans in particular.
But none of the 50 plus South Side languages was proposed as a second language for the city, let alone the country. And why not? Because it was acknowledged that if newcomers sought to be in the United States, it was for benefits the United States had to confer--such as safety from oppression, and economic opportunities. To gain those benefits they needed to learn to some extent to fit in; and that meant learning the language of the country--English. Unless we want to have the kind of linguistic and cultural divisiveness that they have in Canada, it should still mean English. What people speak to each other is their business; but at work and in dealing with the government it must be English. It can't be an undoable challenge. Your ancestors learned it, and so did mine.
Taking one consideration with another, as they used to say, what Mayor Lou Barletta is trying to accomplish makes a lot of sense to me. What do you think?