Renata Soto took the stage at Casa Azafran Wednesday afternoon and greeted the large crowd that had gathered there in Spanish.
No doubt some in the crowd understood her, but she then translated.
"Since this is the celebration of the victory against English Only, it's only appropriate that we only speak English today, is that OK?" she said, to laughter from the crowd of elected officials, activists, attorneys and other community leaders who had come to mark the occasion — that being the fifth anniversary of the defeat of the aptly nicknamed ballot initiative that would have required the Metro government to conduct its business exclusively in English.
Then-Mayor Bill Purcell vetoed Eric Crafton's English Only bill in 2007. But it didn't go away, and eventually got a special election. On Jan. 22, 2009, voters defeated the amendment by a wide margin, with 56 percent voting against it while 44 percent voted in favor. Had it passed, Nashville would have become the largest city in the country with such a law.
Eben Cathey, of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition reminded Pith of a fact he said is often left out of the story — 10,000 immigrants went to the polls that day, many of them casting the first American vote of their lives.
Soto, the founder and executive director of Conexión Américas (and the Scene's Nashvillian of the Year for 2013), recalled that many in the room were providing transportation to the polls or making phone calls to voters on that day.
"I distinctly remember knocking on a door in an apartment building in Antioch that morning," she said. "A man twice my size opened the door and, before I was finished with my first sentence, he screamed at me and said 'just go back to Mexico' and slammed the door. I wanted to tell him I was not from Mexico, but that was not the appropriate moment."
Behind the next door though, she recalled, was a more cordial elderly woman who thanked Soto for her work and said she was headed to the polls to vote 'No' on English Only.
"We are here to celebrate that it was that elderly woman's voice which prevailed that day," Soto said.
She introduced Tom Negri, the former managing director of Lowes Vanderbilt Hotel and founder of Nashville For All of Us, the coalition that united opposition to the amendment. Negri thanked a long list of organizations, activists and others, making a point to note that workers and businesses stood together against the amendment, and even recognized "our political opponents who stepped up and spoke in our ads, proving Nashville is indeed for all of us because we did those ads jointly."
After some words from the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce's chief community development officer Debby Dale Mason — who blogged about the anniversary last week — Negri introduced Mayor Karl Dean, the man, Negri said, "who was not afraid to stand up for what was right, had been bold when we needed him to be bold, provided a steady hand to guide us when we needed it."
Dean said when he's out speaking to people about Nashville, he often tells them about his "two proudest moments as mayor."
"One of those moments was the way our city responded to the flood in May 2010," he said. "But the first moment I like to tell them about is our city's defeat of Englsh Only. They were both defining moments for us as a city. Points in time when we came together as a community and overcame an incredible obstacle that some people thought would be impossible to surmount."
In both cases, Dean said, "it wasn't what my office was doing that mattered so much, or what anyone in government was doing that really shaped the outcome. It was the people of Nashville and the way they came together that defined us as a place that cares about each other and knows how to make a collective decision that is in the best interest of all."
He invited the crowd to imagine what would have happen if the vote five years ago had gone the other way. He noted the national media attention and growth Nashville has experienced over the last five years, cited large events hosted by the Music City Center and pointed to Nashville's upcoming role as host of the NCAA Women's Basketball Final Four.
"Can you imagine any of that happening," he said, "if we had become a city that replaced its welcome sign, with signs that read 'you're welcome here, but only if you speak English'?"
Speaking to reporters after the program, Dean said the "real story here is how smart the voters of Nashville are," lauding them for "turning back a measure that would have set us back, I think, years and would've kept us from moving forward in the way we have moved forward."
Still, the political battle over the English Only proposal was an often-bitter one that brought Nashville the kind of national attention most of its leaders would like to avoid. Asked if that might not be a reason to avoid bringing it up, the mayor rejected the notion.
"We're the only major city in the United States who was tested in this way," he said. "And we passed the test. We passed it very soundly, and that's a good thing. That's something we should be very proud of."
