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Armenian Language Induced Inhabitants Of Washington Suburb To Take D

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  • Armenian Language Induced Inhabitants Of Washington Suburb To Take D

    ARMENIAN LANGUAGE INDUCED INHABITANTS OF WASHINGTON SUBURB TO TAKE DECISIVE ACTIONS

    21:45, 27 November, 2012

    YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 27, ARMENPRESS: It was the Armenian threat that
    caused Carroll County Commissioner Haven N. Shoemaker Jr. to act.

    As reports Armenpress referring to The Washington Post, after hearing
    that a Washington suburb had spent a fortune translating some land-use
    documents into Armenian, Shoemaker proposed an ordinance that would
    make English the county's official language. The measure has opened a
    fierce debate in this once-rural farming community, where the rolling
    countryside is now dotted with rapidly spreading bedroom communities.

    "It's divisive," said Dane Manges, 31, a Manchester resident who
    works in Cup, a tea bar on Main Street here. He thinks the ordinance
    distracts from more substantive threats to the community's traditions
    and heritage, such as rapid suburbanization. "These things could be
    maintained without an 'us' and 'them' mentality," he said.

    But Commissioner Richard Rothschild said the ordinance has nothing
    to do with xenophobia and everything to do with common sense.

    "If you immigrate to America, then you're going to learn our language.

    I'm not going to learn yours," Rothschild said. "It's simple - when
    in Rome, do like the Romans."

    About 35 miles northwest of Baltimore and bordered to the north by the
    Pennsylvania line and to the south by Howard County, Carroll seems an
    unlikely place to discuss a threat from any foreign language. Although
    the Latino population has more than tripled since the 2000 census,
    its numbers are still small: In a county of 167,134 people, only 4,363
    residents, or about 2.6 percent, are Latino. More than nine out of
    10 people are white and native-born and speak English in their homes,
    Census Bureau data show.

    The county is also about as politically conservative as Maryland is
    liberal, with 65 percent voting for Republican presidential candidate
    Mitt Romney. Divisions there over growing diversity and immigration
    reflect the nation's divide on the topics. Some residents think the
    proposed ordinance is necessary to preserve American culture and its
    idea of the melting pot. Others think the measure is nothing but
    a symbolic form of barbed wire that suggests immigrants should go
    elsewhere. If the ordinance is approved by the all-Republican board,
    Carroll would join Frederick and Queen Anne's counties in passing
    such a law. A public hearing on the measure is set for December 11.

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