A claim by activist Dolores Huerta, an outspoken Hillary Clinton supporter, about Bernie Sanders supporters chanting “English only” at a campaign event appears to have been debunked.
Huerta attended a campaign event after the Nevada Democratic caucus on Feb. 20, but said her offer to translate from English to Spanish was shouted down by Sanders’ supporters.
“I offered to translate & Bernie supporters chanted English only! We fought too long & hard to be silenced Si Se Puede!” she wrote on Twitter.
She initially didn’t say how she could identify Sanders’ supporters, but later told Think Progress that the room was divided into two--with Clinton’s supporters on one side and Sanders’ supporters on the other.
Actor Gaby Hoffman added: “I was also there. No one shouted English only except the moderator. I was very tuned into this.”
The main problem appears to be the fact that Huerta is a Clinton supporter, meaning she wouldn’t be a neutral translator. The moderator said that unless a neutral translator was found, the caucus would need to continue in “English only.”
The Voting Rights Act, though, requires that translated voting materials and language assistance or interpretation services be made available in areas with a certain concentration of voters with limited English proficiency, noted the Washington Post. And Las Vegas is one of those places.
“All of that being the case, the real culprit would seem to be the Democratic National Committee (or the Nevada state Democratic party) for failing to provide voters whose sole or preferred language is Spanish with the resources to fully and properly participate in the wonder that is representative democracy,” said Gawker.
The Department of Justice, which enforces the Act, didn’t comment on what happened, nor did the committee or state party.
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