Diamondback Online - The University of Maryland's Independent Daily Student Newspaper

Since its inception, the United States has faced a series of failed attempts to declare English as its official language. In a 1780 letter to Congress, Founding Father John Adams encouraged the establishment of an academy for "correcting, improving, and fixing the English language" in an effort to "unite all America in the same language."

While Adams' academy proposal never actually came to a vote, it was one of the earliest examples of scared Chicken Littles flocking to promote and protect a language that wasn't actually facing any threats. District 2 Councilman Jack Perry's recent push to establish English as the official language of College Park is another step along that same path.

Citing how he's "sick of kowtowing to minority factions" and the government shouldn't be responsible for translating documents into "the Hispanic language" or "Tagalog, whatever the hell that is," Perry demonstrates a profound misunderstanding of a democratic government's obligation to provide for all of its citizens - even the non-English-speaking ones.

In a city where 17.9 percent of the population(as of 2000) speaks a language other than English at home, which also houses a university priding itself on multiculturalism and diversity, an argument against providing Spanish translations - as a bare minimum - reeks of laziness at best and bigotry at worst.

Perhaps instead of worrying about whether or not the city - it's fairly safe to assume nobody's bothering Perry to personally translate things into "the Hispanic language" - will continue providing multilingual translations, Perry should dedicate his attention to more important issues.

Say, crime, seen most recently in Monday's and Tuesday's violent robberies.

Or Santa Fe Café owner Mark Srour still jerking the city council around about the installation of sprinklers.

Or the Purple Line.

Or East Campus.

Pick an issue, and chances are it's going to be more important than declaring English as College Park's official language.

Sensing the pursuit of such a petty issue would be unpopular, Perry complained "everybody's going to tell me I'm wrong. I've been there before."

And maybe there's a reason for that.

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