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Nashville Residents Rally to Reject 'English Only'

Two days after President Obama's historic inauguration ceremony, voters in Nashville, Tenn., rejected a proposal to make English the city's official language…

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Two days after President Obama's historic inauguration ceremony, voters in Nashville, Tenn., rejected a proposal to make English the city's official language. The ballot measure would also have prevented government workers from communicating in other languages.

   The proposition, which cost city taxpayers $350,000, was defeated Jan. 22 by a broad coalition involving the Christian community, business and political leaders, civil rights groups and staff and students at Vanderbilt University. When first introduced, it was considered a shoo-in. But on Election Day, he proposal gained only 43.5% voter approval.

   Williamson Herald columnist Tim Chávez lauded a grassroots effort led by the Nashville's religious community. The movement gathered active support from Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church, the Jewish community and the African American Baptist congregation and Evangelical Christians.

Chávez, a founding member of Our Lady of Guadalupe Parish, credited senior Pastor Enoch Fuzz of Corinthian Missionary Baptist Church as instrumental in reminding voters that "English Only" was just a bigoted extension of "Colored Only."

   Funded largely by ProEnglish, an Arlington, Va.-based organization that describes its mission as "to educate the public about the need to protect English as our common language and to make it the official language of the United States." ProEnglish contributed $82,500 of the $89,722 raised by the proposal's supporters.

   Community opposition raised triple that amount.

   The outcome seemed in doubt until the very end. Final polls shown the race even, with 21% of likely voters still undecided. Pastor Fuzz called a hasty press conference on Election Day to make a final appeal.

   "It took many efforts to produce one result," Chávez told Hispanic Link News Service. He noted that Democrats and Republicans were equally opposed to the proposition. "There is still a lot of injustice out there," he added, singling out a need for immigration reform.

   According to the U.S. English Foundation, 30 states and at least 19 cities have declared English their official language. Had the measure passed, Nashville's population of 600,000 would have made it the largest U.S. city to adapt such a policy.

   (Grazia Salvemini reports for Hispanic Link News Service in Washington, D.C. Email: [email protected]).

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