We translate things into languages for groups politically powerful enough or those who have enough political power behind them.
I tutored a group of ESL learners long ago. No services were provided for them. The city wasn't huge and had Ethiopians, Somalis, Kenyans, Russians, and dozens of other languages. It would require a staff of a couple hundred translators to provide services for them. We helped people here who could get green cards get greencards and then pass the citizenship test; they often still couldn't function, but they learned enough and memorized enough to answer the questions. I watched one stare, helplessly, when he went to vote and didn't understand the poll worker enough to be able to sign the poll book correctly and answer a few basic questions to help him navigate the voting process. It was truly sad; but the pollworkers weren't able to be fluent in a dozen languages, and what was there in languages other than English neither could cover every necessity nor every language needed.
Where I teach now there's a newcomer program. The teacher helps the kids who come in and know Spanish. They're the target. The Mayan-speaking kids, the kid who speaks Arabic, the Russian speakers don't get the help. It's based both on numbers--the more minority you are, the less help you get, but the less support you get outside of school. One high-school test required for graduation the call went out to locate a bilingual dictionary for a kid who was floundering on the test. She failed because the school handled 10 languages and hers was #11. She'd transferred to the school a week before. She couldn't not take it; and she'd have to retake it next time it was offered.
Learn English, no problem. It was the same argument I heard in Europe in the '90s and it's a reasonable one. The majority isn't held captive by whoever happens to show up. It means I have little sympathy for people who arrive and really can't speak enough to survive. I saw Americans whining about the same thing in some places in Europe, where the indigenous population was expected to have obligations to those who arrived but the arriving population had no obligation to its hosts. It flipped the script in uncomfortable and biased ways.
It's a burden to nurse them along and say, "You don't need the majority language to function," then have them land in a situation where everybody has to be their keeper because they're helpless after being in-country for a long time. I've been there and knew not to impose on everybody else for my decisions.
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