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by demallien
5165 days ago
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Of course. Do you really think that it is unreasonable to expect citizens of a democracy to be able to speak the language fluently? I'm an Australian living in France, and I have to demonstrate fluency in French, and I don't see this as unreasonable. If you have been living in a country long enough to be applying for citizenship, you damn well ought to be able to speak the language - if you can't it is because you have made no attempt to integrate into your host community, and I fully get a country not wanting to embrace you in that case. |
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But, I'm bias in the opposite way.
The US doesn't have an official language. There is a free press with publications in almost every language. And, at least in the states I'm from (California and Washington), voting materials are translated into all the statistically significant languages found during the census. [1][2] (The Federal Government helps too. [3])
I live in Australia now. It's made very clear that English is the official language here. Different strokes for different folks.
[1] See: Voting Rights Language Assistance Act
[2] http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/vot/sec_203/activ_203.php
[3] http://www.eac.gov/voter_resources/voting_accessibility.aspx