Marshall is the 11th county in Iowa to adopt an English-only law. The resolution, which was passed September 26, requires that county documents be printed, and business conducted, in English. A petition signed by some 2,200 people gathered by members of the Veterans of Foreign Wars led to the supervisors’ vote.

People came from Ames, Des Moines, Urbandale, Waterloo, Coralville, and Tama to attend the meeting. Speaker after speaker condemned the resolution at the hearing, which was sponsored by the Iowa Commission on Latino Affairs. A number of workers from the Swift plant explained the need for translation and pointed out that this law would make it harder for Latinos to get city or county services. A former IBP worker from Waterloo said that both she and her husband had operations for carpal tunnel syndrome and that they had not been able to obtain benefits.

"They violate our rights when they tell us we have to speak English," said Ramona Chávez López, who works at the Swift plant. She said passing an English-only resolution "only makes it worse and feeds into racism." Chávez López said her daughter had been told not to speak Spanish in school, and that her 20-year-old son, who also works at Swift, was told at the cafeteria there that if he didn’t speak English he wouldn’t be served.

Braulio Pereyra, a vice president of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) local that organizes workers at the Swift plant, said 1,400 of the 2,000 workers there were Latino. "It is humiliating to be told that we can’t speak our language and be proud of our roots," he said. "If we are good for labor then our culture and language must be respected."

Sandy Burke, chairperson of the diversity committee of Marshalltown, said that the supervisors had not consulted with their committee or anyone connected to the Latino community before their vote.

Edwin Fruit, Socialist Workers candidate for the 4th Congressional District in Iowa who is also a meat packer, explained that bilingual education needed to be expanded. He also said that the packinghouse companies should provide ESL (English as a second language) classes during the workday with pay and that we needed to demand amnesty for those workers who were constantly under threat from the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) because of their undocumented status.

Sam Carbajal, a former Swift worker, explained how many undocumented workers constantly move from plant to plant to evade the INS, making it difficult for them to obtain any company benefits.

One of the speakers against the resolution was Larry Ginter, a hog farmer from Marshall County. "I have had people from Brazil, Guatemala, South Africa, and other countries visiting my farm," he explained. "They all spoke the universal language against injustice." Ginter said workers and farmers needed their own petition, an idea that was echoed by several other participants. He added that opponents of the English-only resolution should consider a march in defense of immigrant rights.

Others who spoke at the hearing included Ray Young Bear, a member of the Meskwaki Nation and a professor of English at Iowa State University and the University of Iowa, and Heriberto Godina, an assistant professor of language, literacy, and culture at the University of Iowa. Young Bear explained that he was attending the hearing to show solidarity with Latinos because Native people had suffered similar discrimination.

After the hearing, several people commented on the need to organize against this discriminatory law and said that there were many other problems, including police harassment, of Latino workers.

Edwin Fruit is a member of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1149 and is the Socialist Workers candidate for Congress in Iowa’s 4th District. Simone Berg contributed to this article.  
 
 
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