Section 203 of the Voting Rights Act (enacted in 1975) requires some districts to provide ballots in multiple languages, but only certain languages. The law "relies on data about race and ethnicity as a "proxy" to identify the protected language groups." That means since the Census Bureau officially categorizes Middle Eastern or Northern African speakers of Arabic as white, and since Haitian Creole is considered an Indo-European language, neither language is protected under this law. The intention of the law was to counteract low voting participation in communities for which "there is a historical record of evidence showing they've faced voting and educational discrimination." But those in these federally protected language minority groups are not the only communities who struggle to vote because they cannot access the code in which ballots are written. [Published on 06-26-2022]

An interesting intersection between Standard Language Ideology / monolingualism in American education (which this article argues against) and the validity of Creole languages (Haitian Creole). On Haitian Creole: "While the vast majority of Haitians speak Creole exclusively, French remains the chosen language of the nation’s power elite. For more than two centuries, Creole has been attacked as inferior, as a poor dialect of French rather than a language in its own right, and as a limitation for its speakers. DeGraff said even Haitian intellectuals have contributed to these ideas about Creole, with scholars arguing that the language limits people from thinking abstractly; that people need French to evolve, mentally; and that Creole has no syntax or orthography. All of these things, DeGraff says, are false. And major universities in the United States have created departments to teach students Haitian Creole, recognizing its international relevance and linguistic value." Also, the article mentions that teaching language is fundamentally tied to teaching culture. When we devalue native languages, we devalue the culture of the speakers. Dual language programs like this not only help native speakers connect to their culture and their family histories but also help L2 speakers appreciate and respect the culture. [Published on 04-07-2017]

A 2013 interview on NPR's Here and Now with sociolinguist John Rickford about the testimony of Rachel Jeantel, a speaker of Haitian Creole, Spanish, and African American English, during the George Zimmerman trial.

Report on how the defence lawyer in trial of Trayvon Martin's killer tried to make Martin's girlfriend's testimony sound less convincing by discrediting her and her non-standard English.