English-Only laws in AZ

Fri Sep 24 13:53:03 UTC 2004

Hi, Susan, 

I checked on these two people, and we have 5 books by James Crawford, but none by Richard Ruiz. A Google search showed him up as a professor in the LRC with lots of awards. I also found an article he wrote for the Arizona Star. In it was this very remarkable paragraph, remarkable in the sense that like Vygotsky's knowledge that text was a second order process 100 years ago, people knew 30 years ago that if you don't understand the vehicle language, you can't apprehend what it is transporting: 

"Lau v. Nichols was decided by the Supreme Court 30 years ago in 1974. It relied on the Civil Rights Act of 1964 (yet another anniversary) to reverse a practice by San Francisco schools that provided no educational services to Chinese children that would allow them to understand the language of instruction. While Lau is often seen as mandating bilingual education, it did not; it did, however, say this: "There is no equality of treatment merely by providing the students with the same facilities, textbooks, teachers and curriculum; for students who do not understand English are effectively foreclosed from any meaningful education."  "

I didn't know this was a law. I don't know why we are still battling the issue if there was a Supreme Court decision 30 years ago. Even though we have technology, and even though we have native speakers of multiple languages in the academy, and even though there is much research that shows that the transport language is irrelevant in learning mathematics and the sciences, we still try to cope with the masked bigotry and discrimination of English-only materials. 

I think people need to re-think the paradigms of learning. Today, for the first time ever in history, younger people know more are many things than younger people. This is especially true in technology. If we are going to save the languages and the cultures, I think we need to find ways to incorporate the skills of the younger people, those "kids" who don't want to learn their native language and culture because it doesn't seem to fit with what is current, into developing vibrant, meaningful, useful content. This includes repetition and recursion from computer science, osmosis and diffusion from biology, epidemiology, diabetes and multiple sclerosis from medicine. Alzheimers, and on a fun day, making traditional foods. Here, believe it or not, "traditional food" has come to mean "fry bread"! 

Just my thoughts from the isolated, lonely room of Technology for Meaningful Learning. 

Mia

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Susan Penfield 
  To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU 
  Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 8:24 AM
  Subject: Re: English-Only laws in AZ

  Mia,
  You are right. However, many people (like James Crawford, Richard Ruiz, and others) have tried to do this. The problem seems to be the matter of getting it out to the general public even though numerous articles,, citing the cognitive value of being multilingual, have been published in newspapers/magazines aimed at non-academic audiences. Still, somehow it never gets for-fronted when politics becomes involved. 
  Susan
    ----- Original Message ----- 
    From: MiaKalish - LFP 
    To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU 
    Sent: Wednesday, September 22, 2004 7:12 AM
    Subject: Re: English-Only laws in AZ

    There is a lot of Psychology research that shows that people who master more than one language are much "smarter", to use a short-cut, than monolingual people. This research would make a stunning case if people assembled it, and I think would be much more effective than the ideological arguments people use in this type of discussion. 

    Mia

      ----- Original Message ----- 
      From: Matthew Ward 
      To: ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU 
      Sent: Tuesday, September 21, 2004 5:06 PM
      Subject: Re: English-Only laws in AZ

      One of the depressing things about the AZ situation, for me, is that while there are still many countries with repressive laws that affect minority languages, most countries appear to be moving in a direction of more and more tolerance.  It really is against a worldwide trend.  Even CHINA is liberalizing its language policies to some extent--why are we falling for this stupidity, when time is so very short?  

      It also really makes me very angry that that English-Only movement has used all of this rhetoric about helping immigrant kids learn English and used it against indigenous American languages.  It's not that I support English-Only in ANY form, but I do feel quite certain that when most Americans vote for these laws, they don't intend to vote against Native American languages.  It's very, very devious and evil.  If I understand Prop. 203 properly, I think that it needs a 75% vote to significantly alter it.  The only real hope is that lawsuits and the courts will block it.  I believe that's what happened in Alaska:  Native groups challenged the English-only law (another one of those laws by Unz and his gang of bullies) and it's stuck in court as a result.  I remember reading an article in which some idiot representative of the English-only movement in Alaska said something like "We're not against preservation of Native languages, but they have to be practical.  They couldn't use them if they go to Germany."  Well, hell!  You could condemn some of the largest languages on earth on that particular grounds.  

      We all need to get a lot more politically savvy.  I've found that people really respond to certain kinds of rhetoric--you can say things like "Prop. 203 reduces Navajo, an American language that helped win WWII, to the status of a foreign language."  People really turn their heads when they hear statements like that.  Most Americans instinctively recognize the rightness of preserving indigenous languages, but when they think that they are voting for "English for the children," then most never even think about indigenous languages.  I'm not a nationalist, but we do need to point out strongly that were are preserving our own American culture here.  The other side is brilliant at appealing to people's emotions--we need to do the same thing.  We are, after all, on the right side of this issue.  

      Susan Penfield wrote:

All,
I'm sure this is a pattern affecting endangered languages in many corners of the
world. Thanks for this perspective on the Tucson and Canadian situations. For
an indepth discussion of Prop. 203 in Arizona, see this page on James
Crawford's Language Policy website:

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/az-unz.htm

It contains a complete explanation of the origin of Prop.203 (spinning out of
California...) and the current status of this legislation.
The tenor of 'English-only' arguments, although aimed at the Mexican-American
population, is clearly a threat to anyone working on indigenous language
revitalization and we should all be aware of the hidden agendas in this type of
language policy.

Best,
Susan

Quoting Rolland Nadjiwon <mikinakn at SHAW.CA>:

  Interesting Anecdote:

Proposition  203, English only, is not a recent proposition.  My wife and I
and our children were living in Tucson at the time it more of an issue.
There was a major opposition to it by the Mexican Americans. One of the
outspoken families was the Rhonstadt family, an old family with signatures
on Spanish/ American documentation predating Texas/New
Mexico/Arizona/California statehood. The protests resulted in a response of
the nature that the proposition would not be rescinded but it would not be
enforced. It appeared, at the time, many people did not realize the extent
of the Mexican American remaining in the southwest even to this day and had
intended the legislation to be used against the Dene and other native Tribes
in Arizona. The Mexican American response seemed to be a total surprise to
White rural populations who strongly supported it. Perhaps that is part of
the reason why you find 203 is "poorly crafted and even more poorly
implemented...."

The only reason I am aware of this legislation, is because of the two
official language legislation in Canada for French and English. That
Canadian decision around the same time as Prop 203 was 'very' controversial
in Canada.

Here in the city where we live, we had moved to Tucson for my wife to do her
Grad work at UofA, the mayor, a somewhat colourful/notorious personality,
rescinded the legislation and declared Sault Ste. Marie, ON. as an English
only city. Both my wife and I were unaware of the Mayor's actions. However,
people who knew where relocated from were saying, "Hey, you come from that
English only city up in Canada."
"No. Canada has two official languages by Federal Legislation: English and
French."
"Oh no. Your mayor just declared your city an English only city."

Of course it didn't work. I could never figure why he did that considering
he is Italian and, probably, the largest language group in Sault Ste. Marie
outside of English, as Hispanic is in Arizona.

However, our Native Language programs are taking a beating here in Canada
also because of official language legislation where we are neither included
or excluded.

-------
wahjeh
rolland nadjiwon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Susan Penfield" <sdp at EMAIL.ARIZONA.EDU>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 9:16 PM
Subject: Re: English-Only laws in AZ

    Matthew,
Thank you for bringing this to everyone's attention. It is particularly
troubling since, in the beginning of the process, Native people were
assured, repeatedly, that they would not be included in the application of
this
poorly crafted and even more poorly implemented (my opinion, put mildly)
proposition.
Susan
----- Original Message -----
From: "Matthew Ward" <mward at LUNA.CC.NM.US>
To: <ILAT at LISTSERV.ARIZONA.EDU>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2004 3:55 PM
Subject: English-Only laws in AZ

      Just wanted to mention that I've been in touch with ACLU Arizona about
the issue of Prop. 203, the English-only law, affecting Native immersion
programs.  It does indeed seem that Window Rock Public Schools may risk
losing funding by continuing their immersion programs, and the issue may
have to go to court.

We all need to be vigilant in letting people know that these
English-only laws do not just apply to immigrants--they also endanger
efforts to preserve Native American languages as well.  I suspect that
if Azizona voters had understood the effect of this law, they wouldn't
have voted for it in the first place.

Matthew Ward

Susan D. Penfield, Ph.D.
Department of English
   The Writing Program
   Second Language Acquisition and Teaching Ph.D. Program (affiliate faculty)
   Indigenous Languages and Technology
Southwest Center, Research Associate in Anthropology
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721

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