HIALEAH, Fla. — Alex López, 41, a construction worker from Guatemala, can get by at job sites with limited English. He understands tools and supervisors’ directions, but when he took Florida’s 50-question driver’s exam — now administered only in English — he froze and failed.
Until this year, Florida offered the written driving test in Spanish. In February the state changed course: both written and oral licensing exams are now given only in English and no translators are allowed. The shift, advanced by Republican lawmakers following a deadly crash involving an illegal U-turn by a commercial truck driver, was praised by Gov. Ron DeSantis as a safety reform.
Supporters say English-only testing improves safety and helps immigrants assimilate. State Rep. Berny Jacques (R-Seminole) argued that drivers need to understand road signs and that making English the required language for the test aligns with Florida voters’ 1988 decision to make English the state’s official language. Jacques, who was born in Haiti, said the rule will encourage newcomers to learn English.
Opponents say the policy unfairly burdens Hispanic and other minority communities and that there is no proof that limited English proficiency translates to more dangerous driving. Adriana Rivera of the Florida Immigrant Coalition warned the change could push people to drive without licenses in a state with sparse public transit, creating a class of people at risk of criminalization for everyday tasks like getting prescriptions. She also said the rule could particularly affect Puerto Ricans in Orlando and other non-English speakers across Florida.
Florida is now among a small number of states that require English-only driving tests, and it is the largest state affected by the policy given its diversity: roughly one in three residents speaks a language other than English at home.
Miami-Dade County, with a Hispanic majority and many Spanish and Haitian Creole speakers, has felt the impact. The state policy took full effect in April. Language politics have long influenced Miami; after the 1980 Mariel migration, the county once limited taxpayer-funded programs offered in languages other than English, a restriction that was later repealed. Manny Díaz, a Cuban-American leader who helped overturn that earlier ordinance and later served as Miami mayor, said he was disappointed by the new statewide rule and called it unnecessary and harmful for a multilingual county.
Local driving schools that serve recent immigrants have adapted their curriculum. At Speedway Driving School in Hialeah, instructors reworked lessons to prepare Spanish speakers for an English-only exam. Johannes González, an instructor, acknowledged he can’t make students fluent in a few classes, so he teaches mainly in Spanish while drilling the English vocabulary and test formats they will face. He uses slides with sample questions and highlights cognates — words that look similar in English and Spanish, such as velocity/velocidad and pedestrian/peatón — to help students connect meanings.
Classes have grown longer because more people fail on their first try. The school now charges a flat fee so students can return as often as they need. González said those over 50 often find the computer-based format harder, and owner Yuri Rodríguez reported enrollment declines as some potential students decide not to try because they fear failure.
On a recent Saturday, eight students squeezed into a classroom papered with road signs. They ranged from someone who arrived from Colombia two weeks earlier to Yaima Fuentes Pérez, 41, a former journalist who immigrated from Cuba a year ago and recently received a green card. Fuentes said she needs a driver’s license to attend an accounting program and wished the test were still available in Spanish. She acknowledged that English is dominant in the U.S. but noted that many Latinos live and work in Florida.
After weeks of study, Fuentes missed only one question on the written exam. López was not as fortunate: he failed again and returned to class to keep memorizing keywords and practicing test techniques, hopeful he will pass next time.