[lg policy] Crawford article: Legislating Language, Mandating Inequality

Tue Jun 22 14:25:11 UTC 2010

Legislating Language, Mandating Inequality
By James Crawford
This article first appeared in The WorldPaper, July 1996

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English, the world's undisputed lingua franca, is anything but secure
in the United States – at least, in the minds of English-speaking
Americans. To many, it seems that today's immigrants, unlike those of
"melting pot" legend, no longer feel an obligation to learn our
language. Non-English speaking populations have expanded by 40 percent
in the last decade. Minority language groups – Hispanics in particular
– have become the majority in a number of communities. Government has
responded with an array of bilingual accommodations: education,
voting, court interpreters, drivers' tests, even tax forms.

Some English speakers worry that Babel is close at hand. They fear
that public services in minority languages, however transitional,
imply a recognition of minority language rights and threaten the
hegemony of English. Multilingualism, in turn, could sap Americans'
sense of national identity and foster balkanization along ethnic
lines.

Such concerns are driving a campaign to give English "legal
protection": official status as the sole language of government. The
idea is increasingly popular. Nearly 90 percent of respondents have
endorsed it in some opinion polls. So far, 21 states have adopted
"English-only" legislation, restricting to various degrees the use of
other languages for public business.

Similar proposals are now being debated in the U.S. Congress, where
they enjoy the support of Republican leaders. "English has to be our
common language," says House Speaker Newt Gingrich. "Otherwise we're
not going to have a civilization." Bob Dole, Senate Majority Leader
and putative Presidential nominee, argues that "with all the divisive
forces tearing at our country, we need the glue of language to help
hold us together." President Bill Clinton, who once signed an
English-only law in his home state of Arkansas, has yet to speak out
on the current legislation.

Never before in its 220-year history has the United States seen fit to
adopt an official language. Now, for the first time, chances are
excellent that it will do so. If so, immigrants as well as indigenous
language minorities may find their rights restricted. Their children
could be denied access to bilingual instruction in public schools.
Indian tribes could lose federal help in preventing the extinction of
their ancestral tongues. Citizens who rely on bilingual ballots could
be denied their right to cast an informed vote. Public employees and
even elected officials could be forbidden to use languages other than
English in performing their duties. While the legislation now pending
prohibits discrimination on the basis of language, it does so for
English speakers only.

Such sweeping changes, if enacted, would certainly face a
Constitutional challenge in the courts, highlighting their threat to
free speech and equal protection under the law. Nevertheless, Congress
has chosen to hear only limited testimony on the aims and implications
of "official English" – or its rationale. Linguists, language
educators, ethnic representatives, and civil rights advocates have
been largely excluded from legislative hearings on this issue.

One opponent who was allowed to testify, Edward Chen of the American
Civil Liberties Union, summed up English-only laws as "unnecessary,
patronizing, and divisive." He noted that the vast majority of U.S.
residents are fluent in English – 97 percent, according to the 1990
census – and most of the others are trying to learn. In cities like
New York and Los Angeles, adult English classes have long waiting
lists of immigrants seeking to enroll, owing to inadequate funding.

Meanwhile, English-only proponents are pressuring Congress to speed up
assimilation – not by providing newcomers more opportunities to learn
English, but by making their lives more difficult with a ban on even
minimal help in other languages. The U.S. English lobby recently
criticized the Government Printing Office for producing 265
foreign-language publications over the past five years. It neglected
to mention that English was the language of 99.94 percent of federal
publications during the same period.

Contrary to melting-pot mythology, the United States has a long
tradition of multilingualism. In 1890, the proportion of non-English
speakers was 4.5 times as great as in 1990. Historically, government
has served Americans in languages as diverse as French, Welsh, Czech,
and Cherokee. A century ago there 600,000 children enrolled in
German-English bilingual instruction, probably a greater percentage
than in Spanish-English classrooms today.

Yet English survived, to put it mildly. Now, as then, it's the
minority tongues that are threatened by a world language that gets
more powerful all the time.

So the question arises: What really troubles the English-only
proponents? Could it be that "bilingualism" has become a surrogate for
other unsettling changes – racial, ethnic, and cultural – that
politicians find dangerous to discuss? Could the attack on language
rights be a stalking horse for more draconian measures? Among
English-only sponsors, Congressman Toby Roth of Wisconsin is
refreshingly candid, explaining: "I want all Americans to be the same.
That is my mission."

No one questions the centrality of English in the U.S.A., only its
exclusive franchise. Linguistic diversity is not only a fact of life,
but also a potential benefit – something other countries have been
quicker to recognize. Hoping to enhance its competitiveness in the
global economy and to promote tolerance at home, Australia recently
adopted a National Policy on Languages. It aims to conserve and
develop the language resources of immigrant and aboriginal
communities, while encouraging English speakers to learn at least one
other language deemed vital to trade and diplomacy.

Australians are hardly immune to the xenophobia that bedevils
Americans. They simply understand that, in the case of language,
guaranteeing minority rights can serve the national self-interest.

http://www.languagepolicy.net/articles/worldpap.htm

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Copyright © 1996 by James Crawford.
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