Projo Politics Blog

When Governor Carcieri said “Amen to you buddy” to the WHJJ caller who questioned why the state needs so many English-language interpreters, devoted radio talk-show listeners heard: “Amen to you, Buddy.”

In recent days, that now-famous caller has emerged from behind his radio moniker: “Buddy from Johnston.”

He is Bruno “Buddy” Tassoni, 71.

He says he is a fit 153-pound, 5 foot, 4 inch grandfather who plays tennis, violin and mandolin, is nearing his 50th wedding anniversary in April. He says he calls talk shows “two or three or four times” a week, among other reasons because he is on a “crusade” against the expenditure of public dollars to educate, subsidize and provide state-paid interpreters for “illegal aliens” who enter the country illegally and then have “anchor babies” so they can stay here.

“I just want to see people in this country be in here legally. That’s my biggest gripe,” said Tassoni.

“This illegal-alien problem: why am I pursuing this? I’ve got children. I’ve got grandchildren … I’m not prejudiced. I’m not prejudiced at all,” he said. “But ESL (English-as-a-second-language) children are in the school system here in Johnston and my granddaughter’s got to go to school and I’m afraid that she’s going to be held back because of what’s happening.

“You know the senators and people who have money, this is never going to be a concern. They’ll put their children in private schools. They’ll live in gated communities in beautiful homes. We don’t have that luxury as people of lower middle-class so…why do we have to educate people in this country with their parents here illegally — they have a baby which is an anchor baby — why should we have to pay for that?”

Carcieri’s “Amen to you” came in response to this question from Tassoni: “The court system, they have like, I don’t know, maybe a half-dozen interpreters. I don’t know if that number is accurate or not, but why can’t we just eliminate those jobs and have the people that [have] got to go court that don’t speak English bring a relative or a friend to interpret for them, like our grandparents did many years ago? That’s my question. Why can’t we eliminate those interpreter jobs?”

Carcieri told the caller he “said the same thing to our people.” As the hunt for expendable jobs brought to light one department with eight Spanish-speaking interpreters, “I said why are we, at taxpayer expense, providing interpreters for people who want benefits from us? It seems completely illogical to me.”

Since then, the Carcieri administration has targeted four state interpreters in the human services arena for layoff, but not court interpreters which, when faced with criticism from the ACLU and other groups about his initial comments, Carcieri said he never intended to cut.

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