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<header class="gmail-article-header"><div class="gmail-article-header-content"><h1 class="gmail-title">Why California Needs to Take Bilingualism Seriously</h1><h2 class="gmail-subtitle">Language rights, immigration, and identity formation are intrinsically linked.</h2>
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<h2 class="gmail-author_name">By <a class="gmail-author" href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/michael-leger/">Michael Leger</a></h2>
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<a class="gmail-gallery gmail-imgHover" href="https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/california-children-bilingual-classroom-ap-img.jpg" title="Children read in a Spanish-immersion classroom at Escondido Elementary School in Palo Alto, California, March 2006. (AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez)" target="_blank"><img src="https://www.thenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/california-children-bilingual-classroom-ap-img.jpg?scale=896&compress=80" alt="Bilingual classroom California"></a>
<p class="gmail-caption">Children read in a Spanish-immersion classroom at Escondido Elementary School in Palo Alto, California, March 2006. <span class="gmail-credits">(AP Photo / Marcio Jose Sanchez)</span></p>
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<p><span class="gmail-dropcap">W</span>ith US Attorney General Jeff Sessions <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/06/us/politics/justice-department-california-sanctuary-cities.html">suing outgoing Governor Jerry Brown’s administration</a>
over its self-declared sanctuary status and the national media paying
rapt attention to its June 5 primary, California is, increasingly, a
bellwether of the national left. But does the state have the clear
political and cultural vision that the left so desperately needs?</p>
<p>California’s gubernatorial race has focused on education and on the
economy—all the typical talking points—but we haven’t heard a more
robust discussion of how Californians think about belonging and
identity. To fully realize this discussion, we need to consider language
rights, as they are central to how any state is supportive of
diversity. Improving access to bilingual education—as the state did in
2016 by passing <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/bilingual-education-is-back-on-the-ballot-in-california/">Proposition 58</a>—is
not enough. Embracing bilingualism fully by adopting Spanish as a
second official language should be on the table as we try to broaden our
imagination of, and legislation on, who belongs.
</p><p>The United States has a strange relationship to language
rights. Although the federal government has no official language, in
recent decades individual states—<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/1986/11/26/us/california-braces-for-change-with-english-as-official-language.html">California included</a>—have
adopted English as an official language, largely in response to a
puzzling English-only movement. But, of course, English is not the only
significant American language. <a href="http://www.dof.ca.gov/Reports/Demographic_Reports/documents/2011ACS_1year_Rpt_CA.pdf">One-third of California’s citizens speak Spanish at home.</a>
</p><div class="gmail-teads-inread gmail-sm-screen" style="margin:0px auto 25px;max-width:550px;height:331px"><div style="margin-left:0px;margin-right:0px"><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-adchoices" style="display:block"></div><div class="gmail-teads-ui-components-label" style="display:block">ADVERTISING</div><div id="gmail-moatPxDiv889686" style="width:0px;height:0px"></div><div id="gmail-moatPxDiv318960" style="width:0px;height:0px"></div><div id="gmail-moatPxDiv998022" style="width:0px;height:0px"></div><div id="gmail-moatPxDiv118806" style="width:0px;height:0px"></div><div class="gmail-teads-player" id="gmail-teads0"></div></div></div><p>Despite not having an official language, the United States has historically required immigrants to have English skills. It was <a href="https://www.loc.gov/law/help/statutes-at-large/59th-congress/session-1/c59s1ch3592.pdf">only in 1906</a>
that speaking English became necessary for naturalization. Suddenly,
after more than a century of a more open language policy, not knowing
English meant being a foreigner. <a href="http://www.lawandfreedom.com/site/special/English.pdf">In 1950</a>,
legislation was tightened, requiring immigrants to demonstrate English
reading and writing skills in order to naturalize. Requiring newcomers
to be familiar with English did not change the fact that English was
already the de facto language for most of the country, but it did serve
an exclusionary function of dissuading certain groups of immigrants and
alienating the Americans who were not Anglophones. </p><aside class="gmail-pull-quote-module">
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<p>The current model in California disenfranchises 10 million native Spanish speakers—a third of the state’s population. </p>
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<p>I was raised in New Brunswick, Canada’s only bilingual province. Just
like the States, Canadian provinces adopt their own official languages.
While the federal government recognizes English and French, New
Brunswick is the only province that does the same. What this means for
New Brunswick is that all provincial services, in addition to federal
services, are provided in both languages. Even getting your driver’s
license and applying for hunting tags can be done <a href="http://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/fr/services/services_renderer.200853.Moose_Hunting_Licence_.html">in French</a>.</p>
<p>Though education in French is common across the country, it is only
in New Brunswick that the government recognizes the right to distinct
educational institutions. While much of the population is bilingual,
it’s important that the law allows for the 30 percent of Francophones to
move through the public sector in their native tongue. Prominent public
intellectuals like <a href="https://kf.or.kr/file/pdf/Will%20Kymlicka.pdf">Will Kymlicka</a> and <a href="http://elplandehiram.org/documentos/JoustingNYC/Politics_of_Recognition.pdf">Charles Taylor</a>
have shaped Canadians’ understanding of these policies, emphasizing
that the state does not have a neutral role when it comes to identity
formation.
</p><p>The current model in California disenfranchises 10 million native
Spanish speakers—a third of the state’s population. The state’s
official stance tells them that there is no room for their language in
the political sphere and that Spanish is not a legitimate public
language, making Spanish speakers sound like foreigners. There is a
reason my grandfather did not teach French to my mother: He did not want
her to have a French accent. Only a couple of generations ago in New
Brunswick, the class divide was drawn along linguistic lines. The
dynamic is not the same today, and the legislation of bilingualism in
1969 certainly played a part in engendering that shift. If the
California legislature operated in both languages and if every law were
published in both languages—as was the case for the <a href="http://www.sos.ca.gov/archives/collections/constitutions/1849-constitution-facts/">first 30 years</a> of the state’s Constitution, after the Mexican-American war—<a href="http://www.dof.ca.gov/Reports/Demographic_Reports/documents/2011ACS_1year_Rpt_CA.pdf">Latinos, who represent 38 percent</a> of the state’s adult population <a href="http://www.ppic.org/publication/race-and-voting-in-california/">but only 18 percent</a>
of those most likely to vote, would likely feel a greater desire for
political participation as well as a greater sense of belonging. </p><aside class="gmail-left gmail-indent gmail-indents gmail-current-issue">
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<p>What if there was a greater expectation for politicians to speak
Spanish? What if there were a Spanish-speaking university in California?
Adopting Spanish as a co-equal language would legitimize Latinos’
historical and cultural importance in the state, and it would also bring
more attention to pressing issues—jobs, education, health care—<a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/06/02/top-issue-for-hispanics-hint-its-not-immigration/">that disproportionately affect Latinos</a>
today. While the state does provide some services in Spanish already,
it’s at times more for the image than for real equality. It’s telling
that the Spanish translation of <a href="https://johnchiang.com/es/">John Chiang’s campaign website</a> lacks, presumably out of neglect, a translation of what should be the most important part: his policy page.
</p><p>Bilingualism would not solely benefit Latinos. It is in
everyone’s interest to live in a state that does not politically and
culturally marginalize a third of its population. In 2016, Proposition
58, the California Multilingual Education Act, passed easily with <a href="http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/trailguide/la-na-election-day-2016-proposition-58-bilingual-1478220414-htmlstory.html">73 percent</a>
of the vote. This is a sea change from 20 years ago, when Californians
passed Prop 227, a bitterly debated anti-bilingual-education law, and
suggests broad support now for bilingualism. Especially in today’s
racially divided, anti-immigrant landscape, a bilingual California would
show that we can alter American identity—as represented by the
government—so that it is closer to reality.
</p><p>The English-only movement makes <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://www.usenglish.org/gather-talking-points-on-official-english/&ust=1528228320000000&usg=AFQjCNGYLTbgA38o6XzDlwV9aTg5oeD-IQ&hl=en&source=gmail">economic and political-unity arguments</a>,
but those arguments are thin cover for anti-immigration and racist
sentiment. One of the original founders of the English-only movement in
the 1980s, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/17/us/17immig.html">John Tanton</a>,
was a strong opponent of immigration and was accused several times of
making blatantly racist comments. The movement continues to have force
today. Most <a href="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://proenglish.org/2018/02/15/sen-inhofe-introduces-english-language-unity-act-amendment/&ust=1528228380000000&usg=AFQjCNG2IIprCHLPBpapZQWCSiEWSUIaZg&hl=en&source=gmail">recently</a>,
Senator Inhofe brought forth the English Language Unity Act in
February. It’s worth highlighting that this law is not just an
endorsement of the English language, but a rejection of the use of any
other language in government. I doubt Americans are somehow distinct
from the rest of the world in their ability to operate in more than one
language. This suggests that the English-only movement really masks
something deeper: a misconstrued sense of what builds a community and
makes a citizen truly a citizen.
</p><p>Stripping the right of 10 million Californians to use their first
language in political life is not equal treatment. The desire to
maintain an English-only government arises from a desire to keep certain
people out of political life, and from a flat-out wrong image of the
ideal Californian. <a href="https://www.capitol.hawaii.gov/hrscurrent/Vol01_Ch0001-0042F/05-Const/CONST_0015-0004.htm">Hawaii</a> and <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2014/04/21/305688602/alaska-oks-bill-making-native-languages-official">Alaska</a>
recognize languages other than English. New Mexico’s language history
is similar to California’s, and it increasingly conducts political
business, <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/new-mexico-spanish-debate-111654">including political debates</a>,
in Spanish. If California—the largest state in the nation, with the
biggest economy—adopted bilingualism now, it would force a national
reckoning of what it means to be American and whether a Spanish speaker
can say affirmatively, “Soy americano/a.”
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<p><span><a href="https://www.thenation.com/authors/michael-leger/"> Michael Leger</a></span>Michael Leger grew up in New Brunswick, Canada, and currently attends Deep Springs College in Eastern Californ</p></div></footer>
<br clear="all"><br>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div>
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