<div dir="ltr"><h1>We need linguistic diversity</h1><div class="gmail-row-fluid"><div class="gmail-span4 gmail-contains-mini gmail-pull-left"><hr class="gmail-spacer">
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<div id="gmail-div-gpt-ad-1403717915753-6" style="width:250px;height:600px"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Rep.
Steve King, R-Iowa District 5, who is best known for his anti-immigrant
statements, recently reintroduced legislation to declare English the
official language of the United States. He has proposed this English
Language Unity Act seven times without success, but this latest attempt
resonates with President Trump’s fixation on monolingualism. </span></div></div></div><div class="gmail-span8 gmail-next-to-mini gmail-story"><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">The
U.S. has a troubling history with English-only policies and ideologies.
The current administration only adds to the U.S’s bad track record with
language policies, and it reinforces the nation’s failure to recognize
linguistic diversity as a
relevant form of diversity.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Trump’s
English-only rhetoric is, above all, anti-Spanish. Not only was his
campaign the first in several election cycles not to use ads in Spanish,
but he overtly disparaged the Spanish language with mocking
catchphrases. “Bad hombres” is the example par excellence. </span></p>
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<p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">King’s
proposed bill
defines the English language as the “common thread
binding individuals of differing backgrounds” in the U.S., but leaves no
place for linguistic diversity within its definition of what
constitutes a “diverse” nation.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Government
business is already carried out primarily in English, but the enactment
of an English-only policy runs counter to the increasingly pluralistic
approach to language taken on the other side of the border.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Mexico
recognizes 69 official languages. Its policy gives legal standing to 68
indigenous languages in order to facilitate government communication
with indigenous communities. These legal obligations are not always
carried out in practice, but speakers of languages other than Spanish
are nonetheless legally entitled to documents translated into their
local language. </span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Enumerating
languages under the law may not be a pragmatic solution, but leaving
the official language
unspecified allows government actions to be
carried out in whichever language a situation warrants. Official
documents can be translated to other languages when most expedient, and
interpretation can be carried out without legal impediment.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">In
the 2011 hearings for an earlier version of the English Language Unity
Act, Rep. John Conyers, D-Michigan District 14, delivered his testimony
in broken Spanish to make a simple point. His Spanish-language statement
would be prohibited under this law, since Congressional testimony is an
official
government transaction. </span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">As
Conyers points out, the law would not merely prohibit use of
non-English languages in formal Congressional settings. It could also
impede everyday business, like obtaining a driver’s license or
registering children for school, which qualify as official government
transactions.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">U.S.
businesses have ditched most English-only workplace policies following
years of litigious battles over the interpretation of Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission policies. Implementing the English Language Unity
Act would only reimplant these discriminatory ideologies in U.S.
society. </span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Linguistic
minorities have no guaranteed protections under the Civil Rights Act of
1964, but the EEOC protects from discrimination based on national
origin, which can encompass differences in linguistic background.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:Body gmail-Copy"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]">Bilingualism
suggests a coexistence of two languages, not the imposition of one over
the other. Instead of unifying the nation under a common language, the
English Language Unity Act makes the English language antagonistic to
linguistic
diversity in the U.S.</span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:columnist email"><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]"><a href="mailto:kmilvert@umail.iu.edu">kmilvert@umail.iu.edu</a></span></p><p class="gmail-Stories:columnist email"><br></p><p class="gmail-Stories:columnist email"><a href="http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/03/linguistic-diversity">http://www.idsnews.com/article/2017/03/linguistic-diversity</a><br><span class="gmail-[No gmail-character gmail-style]"></span></p></div></div><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature">**************************************<br>N.b.: Listing on the lgpolicy-list is merely intended as a service to its members<br>and implies neither approval, confirmation nor agreement by the owner or sponsor of the list as to the veracity of a message's contents. Members who disagree with a message are encouraged to post a rebuttal, and to write directly to the original sender of any offensive message. A copy of this may be forwarded to this list as well. (H. Schiffman, Moderator)<br><br>For more information about the lgpolicy-list, go to <a href="https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/" target="_blank">https://groups.sas.upenn.edu/mailman/</a><br>listinfo/lgpolicy-list<br>*******************************************</div>
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