NASHVILLE, Tennessee. A wave of relief swept through Nashville yesterday as voters turned down a proposal to make English the official language of the booming metropolis known as “Music City USA”.
Nashville skyline.
“Ah jest don’t see how you can take a man who’s already a high school graduate and start gradin’ how he talks,” said Buddy Emerson, a session musician who has played behind Porter Wagoner and Minnie Pearl, among others. “Ah think it’s un-American to make people speak good English.”
Porter Wagoner
Nashville is the fastest-growing metropolitan area in the state, registering a 17% population gain between 1990 and 2000. That influx of residents has been fueled primarily by Asian, African and Hispanic newcomers, as well as a large Kurdish community. “lt would have been a lot easier for the city to absorb small Kurds,” said Councilman Eric Crafton, sponsor of the measure. “Just take a look at the two kinds of cottage cheese in the dairy case at the grocery store and you’ll see the difference.”
8th grade English teacher: “If I can’t arrest ‘em, can I at least use pepper spray?”
The ordinance would have granted powers of arrest and detention to English teachers, a group that has been at a disadvantage in its struggle to impose rules of grammar and syntax on Nashville’s adolescents. “So many of our students say things like ‘Gene Ray don’t like Shania Twain’,” notes Abigail Hartnett, an instructor at Dolly Parton Consolidated Regional High School. “If you tell them to say ‘Gene Ray doesn’t like Shania Twain,’ they come back at you with ‘That’s what I jest said’ or ‘Don’t make me no nevermind’.”
Twain: “Tell Gene Ray he can kiss my grits.”
Twenty-eight states have adopted English as their official language leading to concerns that the nation is becoming more xenophobic, but supporters of Nashville’s new measure say that criticism doesn’t apply to them. “I’m not xenophobic,” says Veneta Suter, a receptionist at an insurance brokerage here. “I got a booster shot last summer.”
