You may be confused on how immigration works

"All city of Chicago employees should have to take a class in Spanish, it would be a lot easier [than hiring interpreters]" - Hispanic Defendant

You, sir, are an entitled moron. But thank you for learning English.

But I think you may be confused (about a lot of things). Let's review by what "easier" means, shall we?
eas·y

adj.   eas·i·er, eas·i·est Capable of being accomplished or acquired with ease; posing no difficulty: an easy victory; an easy problem. Requiring or exhibiting little effort or endeavor; undemanding: took the easy way out of her problems; wasn't satisfied with easy answers. Free from worry, anxiety, trouble, or pain: My mind was easy, knowing that I had done my best.

So it would be "easier" to force every employee of the city of Chicago (In 2004 the city employed 35,978 individuals; excluding employees of Chicago Public Schools, Park District, Water Reclamation District, Transit Authority, Housing Authority, and City Colleges- according to http://www.city-data.com/us-cities/The-Midwest/Chicago-Municipal-Government.html) to take enough Spanish classes to become proficient in a second language than hire interpreters to assist individuals that have not bothered to learn to speak English? Somehow that doesn't seem right. According to my math ("I was told there would be no math!"), the cost of reimbursing or providing Spanish classes to roughly 36,000 individuals is more than hiring even 100 interpreters. Maybe you are not familiar with municipal government. Unfortunately, I am. So let me just give you a glimpse into it. They are inefficient, typically irresponsible, slow moving, and capable of making even the most straight forward of problems absurdly complicated. In fact, I am almost surprised the city realized hiring interpreters would be cheaper than requiring all employees be bilingual. Well done city of Chicago, you didn't fuck this one up.

I should also point out that you were in a county court house. Which means most of the staff is employed by Cook County. You probably meant that it would be easier if all Cook County employees were required to to learn Spanish.

I don't just have a lot of jugdment about this speaker, but RAGE. This is one of those areas where I break from liberal thinkers and embrace conservatives on this point. If you move to a new country, it is probably a good idea you learn the language spoken there. I understand that America is a country of immigrants, but they all fucking learned English (or at the very least had the decency to be reclusive or apologetic about their failure to learn the dominant language). All this talk about "official language" is bullshit. No one needs to pass a law to know that the official language it the one all the signs, laws, and important documents are written in. No one has ever provided an interpreter to English speakers in this country, that should tell you something.

So how about this asshole, I just start moving to various countries and demanding they all learn English for my conviencence. Oh, I know, there are millions of Spanish speaking people moving to the United States.
I will skip the part where many of them are not legally in this country. I like cheaper goods so I guess illegal immigrants and below minimum wages are something that comes with the territory.
Moving on. There have been various waves of immigrants throughout American history, but there wasn't a push to change the unofficial language from English to German or Italian or Chinese or whatever. I'm sorry, we can't play favorites here. It would be unfair to all the other immigrants that are respectful enough to make an effort to assimilate and adjust to their new country.

So good luck pushing that referendum through. I don't like your chances, it turns out we are clever enough to limit voting and other civic powers to citizens, and they typically speak English.