Steve Drazkowski wants English-only to fight "fractionation"

Categories: Immigration

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Steve Drazkowski just wants a little unity.
While his fellow Republicans in the Legislature promise to create more jobs, Rep. Steve Drazkowski wants to make sure that non-English speakers can't drive to theirs.

The Mazeppa Republican, who also wants an Arizona-style immigration policy in Minnesota, is back with his third attempt to make English the official language of Minnesota.

All official state actions and documents would be required to be stated in English only, Drazkowski's bill says. It would also require that driver's license exams take place in English, without a translator.

Drazkowski says this is the perfect way to bring all Minnesotans, immigrants and the native born -- together as one big happy family. No "fractionation" for us.

Yes. We need unity. Just like we used to have back in the day - when we published voting instructions in Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish.

Why couldn't those Scandinavians act more like Minnesotans?

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Minnesota voting instructions in Norwegian.

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Minnesota voting instructions in Swedish.

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Adam Cullen
Adam Cullen

I say we bring back the Scandinavian option! Throw in an opportunity for documents/interpretation in Russian, Irish, Ojibwe, Latvian and whatever other languages may come up. There is a reason that the US does not have an official national language, and this fact should be celebrated rather than denounced. We can have "togetherness" as citizens and use English language as a tool for connecting ourselves, but it should not be used as a blunt weapon for one person's idea of "integration". Fostering an increase in the number of languages would create jobs for translators like myself, and.. wait a second.. "job creation" sounds familiar for some reason..

Brian Douglas Hayes
Brian Douglas Hayes

You know, "Drazkowski" isn't a very American-sounding name. Better send this one to Guantanamo, just to be safe.

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