TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

Petra Villanueva lives in Arvin and just like a good deal of its residents, she speaks mostly Spanish. A stay-at-home mom, Villanueva has become a well-known figure at school board meetings where board members cringe when she gets up to speak on issues important to the community. She is not shy about expressing her opinion and calling for public accountability.

And she has remarkable knowledge about the law, procedures and parental rights when it comes to education -- she's able to cite chapter and verse of No Child Left Behind.

One day she'd like to run for public office. But there's one thing holding her back. She's not proficient in English.

"I can understand it, but speaking it is difficult for me," Villanueva said.

Which is why Villanueva identifies with the situation of another activist in Arizona, Alejandrina Cabrera. A U.S. citizen, Cabrera was running for a spot on the city council of San Luis, which has a population of about 25,000. But political opponents of Cabrera raised a challenge I had never heard before. They said she was not proficient in English and therefore should not be allowed to run for public office. A court agreed.

Cabrera was given a series of interviews and tests in English as ordered by the court. The man who gave her those tests though, William Eggington, a professor of English and linguistics at Bringham Young University, appears to have somewhat of an issue with English himself, at least the way it's spoken or misspoken here in the U.S. He's from Australia, and anyone who has seen Crocodile Dundee knows pronunciations can be different. So that led to at least one misunderstanding between the good professor and Cabrera. Eggington asked Cabrera about "summer." But she said he pronounced it "summa," which happens to be the nickname for the community of Somerton. Cabrera said this threw her off.

Her English skills were ultimately deemed to be too low -- called "basic survival level" by the professor -- to adequately perform the position of councilwoman for a border city where more than 90 percent of residents are Spanish-speaking. The Arizona Supreme Court upheld the lower court's finding.

The ruling meant Cabrera is not qualified to run for public office and her name will be kept off the March ballot in that city's elections.

Like Alejandrina Cabrera of San Luis, Petra Villanueva of Arvin communicates with residents in Spanish and has a good grasp of community issues. Villanueva is aware of her limitations in not dominating the Shakesperean language. Which is not to say, however, that a public official can easily dismiss her.

"When somebody gets me mad or treats me like a second-class citizen, the words in English somehow come out of me and I let them know what I mean with a few choice words," Villanueva said.

But this case makes you wonder. While the law in Arizona requires politicians to speak and write English, it fails to say just what that means. Does it mean you speak and write it flawlessly? If that's the case, no doubt a good deal of politicians would fail it. Or does grade-school level suffice?

If history is any indication, the challenge thrown at Cabrera in Arizona will be tried elsewhere. After Arizona passed its infamous SB 1070 and similar laws targeting undocumented workers, other states copied similar measures. A check with the California Secretary of State reveals California does not require candidates running for public office to know how to read and speak English.

"Any person in California can run for office as long as that person is a registered voter and otherwise qualifies to vote for that office," said Shannan Velayas, California Secretary of State spokeswoman.

Some wonder if it's best left to the voters to decide whether a person is fit for office, which is usually the way elections are decided. You have to admire the courage, tenacity and unselfishness of someone with limited English speaking skills to throw themselves into a very public life for wanting to serve their community. There have been several such people already elected on local school boards, utility districts and city councils. And they are to be applauded for doing so, using bilingual skills to reach out, understand and build a bridge between two cultures. Certainly no one is denying the importance of learning English.

Ultimately the case of Alejandrina Cabrera will have more to do with politics than with language. And you can bet opportunistic politicians will weigh in. Do you recall what Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich said when he was speaking about bilingual education?

"We should replace bilingual education with immersion in English so people learn the common language of the country and so they learn the language of prosperity, not the language of living in a ghetto." Gingrich said.

Gingrich later wound up apologizing. In Spanish.

Petra Villanueva is not being deterred by the case in Arizona. If anything, it strengthens her resolve to keep learning English and encouraging her children to correct her grammar. While she has been to English classes, she finds those offered in Arvin to be too basic and lacks transportation to go elsewhere.

But her lack of not speaking English did not stop her from being an advocate for parents when she was raising four children of her own in Boyle Heights. If Villanueva were to find herself in Cabrera's shoes, she doesn't hesitate about knowing what to do.

"If that were to happen to me, I'd enroll in every English class I could find. That wouldn't stop me," Villanueva said.

Jose Gaspar is a reporter for "KBAK/KBFX Eyewitness News" and a contributing columnist for The Californian. These are Gaspar's opinions, not necessarily The Californian's. Email him at elcompa29@gmail.com.