Alaska Make Native Languages Official

Considering how right wing the state legislature of Alaska is I'm a little surprised but they passed a bill that made the Alaskan Native languages (along with English) the official languages of the state.
Sure the bill has no legal weight but it's a thumb in the eye of all the assholes who run around saying that English should be the official language of the US.
I can't tell you how many times I've had to listen people whine about having to deal with the press 1 for English or having to listen to people talk in Spanish at the stores.
The "My grandparents had to learn the language." lectures, completely ignoring the Yiddish sections of New York and towns that spoke mostly Swedish are funny as hell.
But the one they all ignore is the schools where they burned kids on stoves for speaking their Native language instead of English.
So now Alaska has finally recognized that mistake.

I have to admit that I have an issue with people who work phone customer service and can't be understood or can't understand me.
I own that piece of bigotry however it applies to people with heavy accents of any kind.

Alaska OKs Bill Making Native Languages Official : The Two-Way : NPR

 

Considering the exceptions in so many laws that boil down to "fuck Alaskan natives," I'm really surprised that they did this. Pleasantly surprised, but still surprised.

 

Well, they were there first.

I kind of have the same issue with people who have a problem with Spanish being used for official purposes (although I think not encouraging people to learn the the "main" language of a country does more to harm integration than anything else...), at the end of the day it was the Spanish who conquered the Americas first, not the English. Especially when its somewhere like Texas which basically is an occupied territory of Mexico.
(and ok, I might be exaggerating... but the Spanish DID to more to kill and capture lands from the native people's than the English)

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And I mean, you don't have (Ok, you dont have MANY) people in the UK insisting that insit to speak Gaelic rather than English (which is obviously a mixture of the languages of the invading Saxons and then Normans), but those people who do want to speak Celtic languages like Welsh, Cornish, Gaelic etc are supported and even encouraged in school etc to keep it alive as a second language.

I think you could make the same argument for any native language, it is a way for people to keep hold of their own history and identity.