House Majority Whip Brian Nieves (R-Union) said he is surprised by how many people in Missouri think English is the official language of Missouri.

Which is part of the reason why he is fighting to make that a reality.

He said he is not trying to take any rights away from immigrants. The bills are more focused on making sure all official proceedings in Missouri will be held in English, the language that 90 percent of Missourians already speak. He even encourages people to learn and speak other languages, just not during official proceedings.

“We need this law to close the door on crazy happenings like in the case of the town in Texas that has chosen to do their official proceedings in a language other than English,” Nieves said.

Nieves was joined by legal immigrants who said they don’t have a problem with the bills, they encourage them.

Matthem Yu, executive vice president for the Nonstop Creativity Corporation and immigrant from China, said he was shocked when he found out Missouri, as well as the United State,s has no official language.

“Even the Organization of Chinese Americans has an official language, which is written in the bylaws. And all official meetings will have to be conducted in English,” Yu said.

He said having an official language gives us a commonality and brings people together instead of having pockets of culture in our society.

“I think the language itself will unify this country,” Yu said. “And if we don’t treasure it, then we’ll have another language come in and we’ll have to struggle to understand another language to conduct official business.

“To me that becomes counter-productive.”

Another immigrant, Alex Udev from Bulgaria also agreed with the bills.

“My country is smaller than Missouri, and it has an official language,” Udev said. “Turkish, Russians, Chinese all come to my country and nobody ever said “Why isn’t my language the official language?'”

Udev, who happens to speak five or six languages himself, said half the world speaks English so this shouldn’t be a problem.

“I chose to come to this country by myself, someone didn’t make me come over here, so I don’t expect Bulgarian to be the official language,” Udev said. “It should be English, it’s pretty obvious.”