Comments on: Spanish-Speaking Firefighters of America

By: Jaime Pickering

Jaime Pickering — Sat, 01 Jul 2006 02:14:20 +0000

Learn more

If you would like more information about the Oregon Department of Forestry’s Interagency Crew Contract, contact:

Jim Walker
Oregon Department of Forestry
Protection From Fire Program
2600 State Street
Salem, OR 97310
PH: 503-945-7437
email: jwalker@odf.state.or.us

This backgrounder was created and posted on June 30, 2006.

I could be wrong but maybe i should say hi Jim Walker.Just my opinion. but seems strange that site was created today by him then the post.

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 21:04:00 +0000

LaShawn,

It appears you’ve been mislead by the person speaking for the ODF. Take a look at this link:

http://egov.oregon.gov/ODF/FireCrewLanguageRequirement.shtml

It specifically says this:

There is a requirement that supervisors be able to communicate with the workers for whom they are responsible. This is essential to ensure that all personnel are made aware of safety hazards that can develop quickly in firefighting.

Consequently, if private companies elect to hire crew members who do not speak English, those supervisors must be bilingual or multilingual.

and this:

The test will also assure they are able to translate important fire operations and fire safety information to their non-English speaking crewmembers.

This language skill assessment has been used to test 80 contract crew leaders this spring, with 40 more to be tested in July. The assessment will become a required element in contracts in 2007.

By: Jaime Pickering

Jaime Pickering — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 23:23:01 +0000

Hi..what contract do you want? Both the national and the inter agency contract have it. and just for the record it’s not just about english(well maybe it is)

I have seen spanish squad bosses pass inspection for speaking english then out on the line someone doesn’t understand them and they redo the test and fail..at this point the contractor is in non compliance and is sent home..a contractor can lose working that year..means lost jobs for the fire fighters that work for the contractor…over in vale oregon their crew bosses don’t even speak english, they use a crew rep.

i’m going to start sitting on the oregon capitol steps every friday at 9 am in Salem, oregon.

Oh by the way i recieved a letter today terminating my MoU. I’m no longer able to provide training. Oh and they also stripped me back to a entry level firefighter. I wonder how many Firefighters have to Die before they see the made a mistake. Call me, come talk to me on the steps of the Oregon Capitol, Support me. My Family, the contractors, the firefighters themselves need HELP.

By: Joseph Hauser

Joseph Hauser — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 17:43:30 +0000

I will start off by saying I totally disagree with the firing of these fire-fighters. Do we need more Spanish speaking fire-fighters? Obviously, or maybe we need more english speaking hispanic fire-fighters. Are there any incentives on learning to english or spanish by these firefighters other than being fired if you do not speak spanish?
I just graduated the fire academy and many instructors stressed the need for spanish speaking firefighters. How many instructors and cadets actually spoke or intended on learning to speak the language? One brainiac was but he could also tell you the square root of who gives a hoot. That being said I would like to stress my need for english speaking immigrants.
You have to know what it takes to be a fire-fighter to fully understand the disappointment. The classes, the training, ce hours, medical training. You never stop learning and on average it takes up to thirteen applications to get hired. Its not just filling out a sheet of paper either. It is based on examinations, agility tests and a board review.To finally complete this is an accomplishment. Oh, then you get fired because you cannot speak a foreign language. It almost makes you wish you were born blind.

By: Rick

Rick — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 16:36:57 +0000

Oh I have taken action about Oregon’s illegal alien problem.

I read the blogs just to get a better sense of what’s happening

By: syn

syn — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 11:03:50 +0000

So when the English language is overtaken by the Spanish language what will happen to those who speak Chinese, Arabic, French, German, Danish, Italian, various African tongues etc., when they need public service?

Are all the Spanish-speakers going to be required to learn multi-languages in order to retain their jobs?

Bilingual (spanish/english dominant) is itself racist and inclusive.

By: Doug

Doug — Tue, 27 Jun 2006 05:42:25 +0000

Charles Krauthammer has a very topical commentary on the back page of the most recent Newsweek (or Time-I don’t recall which). Look for it-as usual, Charles makes a lot of sense.

By: John

John — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 22:00:18 +0000

I want to make one thing clear, I’m not advocating requiring govt employees to speak spanish, or penalizing those who don’t I’m simply saying, it’s a useful skill, like typing, or being able to calm a civillian for a cop, and it should be sought and rewarded, because it has a value, but it should by no means be required.

By: John

John — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 21:41:30 +0000

La Shawn, I agree whole heartedly, I dunno if I’m misreading or you misunderstood my post, but I agree, communicating with coworkers is key, and as most employed folks in the US speak english, so should their coworkers, I do believe though, that bilingual is a necessary evil in some professions. While a firefighter might not be as necessary as some professions (it doesn’t matter what language they speak, if a guy in a yellow suit and an oxygen mask kicks your door down an flames are everywhere, you follow him.) But in the cases of police officers, and coast guard (if I recall my recruiter offered me a bonus if I spoke fluent spanish). With the fact that there is a statistically larger per capita crime rate in latin american communities (I don’t have the numbers in front of me and feel free to disagree, this is from what I’ve seen and experienced.) It seems reasonable that police be given some special dispensation for either learning or already speaking spanish. Like it or not, they’re here and we need to manage it, a bunch of yelling at eachother in different languages won’t get us anywhere. I have been told by people in that pile that when you do a boarding on a cuban refugee boat or a south american drug smuggling boat, that life is much easier when you speak it. As I told someone who was trying to argue with me that it’s unwise for a girl to be walking around wearing next to nothing alone at night (appearantly she has the right so that absolves her of using judgement): In a perfect world, things would be that way, but you have to accept that whether it’s right or not, you have to plan not to go out at night alone, you have to lock your house when you’re gone and you have to accept that there are people that don’t speak english, and until we get things otherwise, we need to lock our doors, plan ahead and have cops that speak 2 languages. Not cops that speak spanish, cops that speak spanish AND english. Learning a new langauge passibly is not that hard, I speak servicable spanish and I suck with languages other then english. I went to HS with a girl who spoke English, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, and could read Sandscrit, BEFORE SHE GRADUATED! And was well on her way to being fluent in Japanses, if one person can do this before High School ends, how hard can it be for a spanish speaker to learn how to get by in english?

By: Glamchild

Glamchild — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:37:03 +0000

Here’s something to remember: Even if the Firefighters, or anyone else, did learn Spanish it wouldn’t be enough.

They would have to learn “street” Spanish.

There are two kinds of Spanish. The grammatically correct Castillian Spanish, from Europe, which is what we all learned in high school ….

….and then there’s the “Mestizo” or slang/street Spanish, spoken by the vast majority of illegals.

They are two different vernaculars, with different dialects and word meanings.

Oh, you can get by a little….but bad communication is bad communication, in my opinion, unless we are all on the same page and speaking the same language.

By: La Shawn

La Shawn — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 20:03:28 +0000

Being able to communicate with coworkers is key, John, and though it’s not illegal, American businesses contracting with the government shouldn’t hire people who don’t speak English. Requiring English-speaking Americans to be bilingual in order to get firefighting jobs is mad. Now if you’re a business owner serving a Spanish-speaking clientele, it makes sense. But it’s wrong and unfair for a government agency to require it or a businesses doing business with the government, in my opinion.

I’m going to follow up with the information officer for the name of the contractor.

By: John

John — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:57:20 +0000

This is raising a number of good points. As has been said many times, it’s useful in some cases to have bilingual civil servants, firefighters, police, people in the post office. Read that word carefully though BILINGUAL. Not spanish speaking, BIlingual, make sure there is a difference. We want to hire people who speak Spanish and English, they’re useless if they can’t speak with their coworkers. Now I may be confused, but these are the firefighters contracted to the forest service, presumably contracted to fight forest fires, now excuse me but I’m pretty sure the lovable forest creatures don’t speak spanish any better then they speak english. What’s the difference.

As to the general problem of America pandering to the non-english speakers, it’s just like affirmative action, the more we hand to them, the less they’re going to reach for. We need to make it harder to live here without speaking english. I’ve travelled internationally and you can get reasonably by without speaking the language, but life is much much easier when you do, hell, life is easier when you speak english. In Russia and Japan, you’re hard pressed to go somewhere that english is not at least passibly spoken. I went to see “The Day After Tomorrow” in Tokyo and it was in English with japanese subtitles. While it might be a little self centered to actually say it, THE WORLD SPEAKS ENGLISH. It’s the international language of Business, Air Traffic, Ocean Traffic, and many other things, learn it and you can get by nearly anywhere.

By: Heliotrope

Heliotrope — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:47:58 +0000

#14 Montie Burchett: Thanks for giving me an incentive to reread my words in #8 above.

I do not mean to imply that our emergency first responders should be bi-lingual. I am 100% in favor of aliens/immigrants learning to communicate in English immediately.

My reference to bi-lingual cops is that the other language capabilities would be an important asset. I can not see any reason to having a cop who does not speak English.

By: dave

dave — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 19:17:00 +0000

if there’s a job requirement related to the business, its not unequal treatment to fire people who fail to meet it.

By: suek

suek — Mon, 26 Jun 2006 17:25:53 +0000

>>Can you imagine going to Mexico and expecting to get a job in THAT nation and NOT being able to habla the lingo??>>

Not a problem…as a foreign born person, even if you are a citizen, you can not hold such a position.

Interesting, no?