Perspectives on Official English: The Campaign for English as the Official Language of the USA 9783110857092, 9783110123258

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Perspectives on Official English

Contributions to the Sociology of Language

57

Editor

Joshua A. Fishman

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin • New York

Perspectives on Official English The Campaign for English as the Official Language of the USA

Edited by Karen L. Adams Daniel T. Brink

Mouton de Gruyter Berlin • New York

1990

Mouton de Gruyter (formely Mouton, The Hague) is a Division of Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin.

® Printed on acid free paper. (ageing resistant — pH: 7, neutral) Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Perspectives on official English : the campaign for English as the official language of the USA / edited by Karen L. Adams, Daniel T. Brink. p. cm. — (Contributions to the sociology of language : 57) Includes bibliographical references. ISBN 0-89925-653-8 (alk. paper) 1. Language policy—United States. 2. English language—Political aspects. I. Adams. Karen L., 1945II. Brink, Daniel T., 1940. III. Series. P119.32.U6P47 1990 306.4'4973 — dc20 90-5984 CIP

Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data Perspectives on official English : the campaign for English as the official language of the USA / ed. by Karen L. Adams ; Daniel T. Brink. — Berlin ; New York : Mouton de Gruyter, 1990 (Contributions to the sociology of language ; 57) ISBN 3-11-012325-8 NE: Adams, Karen L. [Hrsg.]; GT

© Copyright 1990 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., D-1000 Berlin 30. All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. Typesetting: Arthur Collignon GmbH, Berlin. — Printing: Ratzlow-Druck, Berlin. Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Printed in Germany.

Preface We would like to thank the Graduate College of Arizona State University and Anthony Zuniga, Esq., for providing the funds which made it possible to hold the conference on official English from which this volume has grown. Thanks is also due to Paul Bender, Dean of the College of Law at Arizona State University, who moderated two special sessions on language legislation and the Constitution. We would also like to thank the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Michael Heller, Nancy Hellner, Helga Kansy, Linda van der Wal, and Richard Vangelisti for technical support. In March, 1987, on the eve of the Tempe conference, official English legislation (e.g. SCR 1005; see appendix) — which had been pending before both state legislative bodies in Arizona — was withdrawn. A petition drive was then initiated by the Arizona chapter of U.S. English under the leadership of Robert Park, resulting in a voter-initiated referendum (Proposition 106) on the November, 1988, ballot. In the course of the Proposition 106 campaign, the debate became very heated. As had happened in California, large numbers of public officials and prominent citizens opposed the proposition. Their numbers included people from both political parties, from the business community, and from the media. Again as in California, in spite of these public disavowals, the proposition did extremely well in the polls. The petition drive — under the honorary chairmanship of former U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater — was extremely successful, and the initiative was put on the ballot as Proposition 106. An alternative proposal (see appendix), sponsored primarily by leading Hispanic political figures, did not fare as well. Then, in the last weeks of the campaign, a series of events occurred which significantly weakened public support for Proposition 106. First, Walter Cronkite resigned from U.S. English. Then, a position paper written much earlier for a private meeting of a group known as WITAN by John Tanton, one of the founders of U.S. English, was made public. This paper, perceived by many as anti-Hispanic and racist, caused so much controversy that Tanton resigned from U.S. English. Linda Chavez, the then Hispanic president of U.S. English, resigned as well in protest over Tanton's paper, stating that it was an insult to Hispanics. Finally,

vi

Preface

unconfirmed reports began to circulate that some of the people who were making large charitable donations to U.S. English also supported controversial organizations which believed in eugenics (see also, Zentella, this volume, and Nunberg 1989). The campaign became a series of charges and countercharges at that point, and the atmosphere in the last days was fairly hostile. In the midst of all this controversy, support for Proposition 106 dropped dramatically. The referendum was still successful at the polls, although it wound up passing by only 11,000 votes: 50.5% to 49.5%. Thus, the Arizona campaign was overshadowed by emotion at the end, with a rational review of the pro and con arguments completely lost in the process. We have put together this volume, in part, to give all sides an opportunity to express their views, in the hope of bringing some light to the heat that will doubtless be generated during the future battles that are bound to occur as U.S. English continues its campaign. Karen L. Adams Daniel T. Brink

Tempe, Arizona October, 1989

Contents Introduction Karen L. Adams and Daniel T. Brink

1

I. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY Introduction Official Languages and Language Planning Richard Ruiz

9

11

II. INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY Introduction

27

Una lingua, una patria?: Is Monolingualism Beneficial or Harmful to a Nation's Unity? David F. Marshall and Roseann D. Gonzalez

29

Canadian Perspectives on Official English Joseph E. Magnet

53

Language Policy and Linguistic Tolerance in Ireland Alan Hudson-Edwards

63

Language Policies in Western Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Leslie J. Limage

83

The Legislation of Bahasa Malaysia as the Official Language of Malaysia William G. Davey

95

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Contents

III. PERSPECTIVES ON THE SUCCESS OF THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH CAMPAIGN Introduction

107

English - The Official Language of California, 1983-1988 Stanley Diamond

111

Testimony Before the State Legislature on California Proposition 63 Geoffrey Nunberg 121 Voting Rights, Liberal Voters and the Official English Movement: An Analysis of Campaign Rhetoric in San Francisco's Proposition "O" Kathryn A. Woolard 125 The Popularity of California's Proposition 63: An Analysis Connie Dyste

139

The Official English Movement in Florida Max J. Castro, Margaret Haun, and Ana Roca

151

Who Supports Official English, and Why?: The Influence of Social Variables and Questionnaire Methodology Ana Celia Zentella 161

IV. LANGUAGE PATTERNS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE SOUTHWESTERN PERSPECTIVE Introduction

181

Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities in the Southwest: An Overview Karen L. Adams

183

Official English and the Learning of English Jon Amastae

199

Contents

ix

On the English Proficiency Act The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

209

The Official English Movement and the Role of First Languages Elizabeth A. Brandt

215

Official English and the Urge to Legislate Betty Lou Dubois

229

The Navajo Language Today AnCita Benally and T. L. McCarty

237

American Indian Language Policy Ofelia Zepeda V. LEGAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY

247

Introduction

259

Legal Background and History of the English Language Movement Barnaby W. Zall and Sharon McCloe Stein 261 Is Language Choice a Constitutional Right?: Outline of a Constitutional Analysis James Weinstein

273

Bilingualism and the Constitution John Trasvina

281

Language and the Law in the Classroom: Bilingual Education and the Official English Initiative Rachel F. Moran 285 Language Rights as Collective Rights Joseph E. Magnet

293

On Walling In and Walling Out The Honorable Noel Fidel

301

X

Contents

Appendices I. Amendments, Initiatives, Resolutions A. Federal Official English Proposal (1988) H.J. RES. 656 B. Federal Alternative Proposals 1. (1988) S.J. RES. 379 2. (1987) S. 629: English Proficiency Act C. Arizona Official English Amendment Proposal, Amendment 1. (1987) SCR. 1005 2. (1987) U.S. English Initiative: Proposition 106 D. Arizona Alternative Proposals 1. (1987) Arizona English Initiative 2. (1988) San Carlos Apache Tribe Resolution 88-177 E. California English Language Amendment (1986) U.S. English Initiative: Proposition 63 F. Florida English Language Legislation 1. (1988) Article II, Section 9 of the Florida Constitution 2. (1980) Dade County Language Ordinance II. Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Article VIII

307 307 307 308 312 312 313 314 315 315 316 317

III. Congressional Hearings on Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona (1910) 318 IV. Constitution of the State of New Mexico, Articles XII, XX

322

V. Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

323

References

331

List of Contributors

353

Index

355

Introduction Although language policy has historically not been a matter of great public concern in the United States, the last few years have witnessed a growing interest in this topic.1 In spite of brief periods of controversy and active policy-making, from the mid-19th century until recently a strong sense existed in the U.S. that non-English speaking people should and would — ultimately — speak English and that even those language enclaves which did establish themselves would die out in a few generations. As a result, little official concern for, or attention to, linguistic minorities seemed necessary. During that era, America was a "melting pot," and immigrant populations were typically anxious to become americanized in one or two generations. Government involvement in this process was seen to be unnecessary. In the last quarter-century, however, the notion of America as melting pot has been challenged, as many groups have become frustrated by the failure of their attempts to achieve assimilation and economic equity. Parallel to this growing frustration has been a positive trend of seeing ethnic and cultural diversity as valid and valuable goals for American society. But cultural diversity includes linguistic diversity: The preservation of minority cultures and the protection of their rights often cannot be achieved without the existence of policies and programs designed to protect the linguistic rights of those minority groups. Accordingly, recent federal policy affecting minority rights, such as the 1975 amendment to the federal Voting Rights Act of 1965, has tended to include provisions allowing the use of languages other than English in official domains. Thus, a body of language policies has evolved piecemeal, based on the goal of protecting cultural diversity, with little attention paid to the question of what the optimal overall language policy for this country ought to be. At the same time as cultural diversity became an accepted element in the framing of government language policies, a variety of factors began to challenge the confidence and sense of security of mainstream America. Included among these factors were the very implementation of these policies, continued discontent among ethnic minorities, and internal dissension over the justice of our foreign policy. These factors have brought an immediacy to the issue of melting pot vs. cultural diversity, as has another factor: The growing perception that

2

Introduction

the United States is somehow threatened by foreign elements. Americans observe foreign countries influencing American economic policy; foreigners in ever-increasing numbers buying American real estate and business enterprises; terrorist acts being directed at Americans and American property; and immigrants — especially from Central America — continuing to arrive at record levels. One of the responses to this loss of domination in world affairs and loss of domestic security is xenophobia: Foreign elements in our own society are viewed as partly at fault for what is going on. This xenophobia manifests itself in many ways: Stricter immigration policies, conflict between foreign and domestic ethnic groups — especially in competition over jobs —, and, most visibly, in language policy movements. A significant portion of the population has the perception that the linguistic hegemony of English in the U.S. is at an end; that significant numbers of nonEnglish-speaking people — encouraged by the policies of our own government — are holding on to their native tongues and refusing to learn English. Especially with the close-to-home Canadian example of bilingual conflict, there is a growing sense that the linguistic and political unity of America is seriously threatened — this in spite of the fact that over 400 million people world-wide strive to learn English as a second language because of the economic value of this knowledge (McBee 1985). In response to this perception of linguistic instability, a number of groups have sprung up advocating the establishment of legislation which will insure the status of English as the national language of the United States by declaring it the official language of the country.

1. The Official English Movement The groups that have appeared in the last few years to promote official English include national organizations such as U.S. English and English First, the in-state affiliates such as Arizonans for Official English (U.S. English in Arizona) and smaller, fringe groups, such as the American Ethnic Coalition. 2 Foremost among these groups is the national organization, U.S. English, which has successfully promoted official English in a number of state-oriented campaigns. U.S. English was founded in 1983 "to defend the public interest in the growing debate on bilingualism and biculturalism." Its members believe "that English is, and must ever remain, the only official language of the people of the United States." S.I. Hayakawa, former U.S. Senator from California, was one of the

Introduction

3

founders of the organization. He began the fight for official English at the federal level with the proposal of an English Language Amendment to the constitution (ELA) in 1981. This effort was repeated a number of times, but with little success (Dale 1985). After these initial efforts at the federal level were unsuccessful, U.S. English turned its attention to the state level (Nunberg 1989). As of this writing, 17 states have adopted official English policies. These include Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.3 All but four of these state policies have been established since 1984. Most of these policies were passed by state legislatures, but, beginning in 1986 with the nowfamous California Proposition 63, U.S. English began "going to the people" through referenda when politicians would not support their legislative initiatives.4 After a major success in California (73%-27%) against almost universal opposition from newspapers, academics, politicians and a variety of organizations and public figures, U.S. English coordinated three successful campaigns in 1988 in Arizona (51%-49%), Colorado (63%-37%), and Florida (84%-16%), although in each case very different propositions were used.5 According to the official U.S. English newsletter, U.S. English Update, the organization is now focusing on defending victories in these four states, where the laws are being challenged in court; developing tutorial programs for teaching English in response to criticism from opponents; 6 and lobbying again at the federal level for a federal English Language Amendment (ELA). Another, less well-known group is English First, whose motto is "Our symbol is the statue of liberty torch, capturing the spirit of immigrants who learned English and became full members of American society." Also supportive of the legislative efforts and state referenda described above, English First is focusing now on "putting teeth" into the existing official English laws, especially in California. Many laws after their passage have been declared by state attorneys general as "symbolic" — having no real effect on existing language policies. Proponents of official English have challenged these interpretations. The opponents of official English legislation have now become mobilized and from time to time have themselves proposed alternative policies designed to deal with populations that have had limited opportunities for learning English, as well as to discuss in general the role of English and of other languages in the United States. For example, a proposal called

4

Introduction

"English Plus," which encourages the acquisition of "strong English language proficiency plus mastery of a second or multiple languages" (EPIC Events 1988: 2), is supported by the English Plus Information Clearinghouse (EPIC), a coalition established by the National Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Forum and the Joint National Committee for Languages (JNCL). Many of these alternative legislative policies have been proposed and supported by legislators from the Southwest and from states like Hawaii and Alaska, where there are indigenous non-English speaking populations. Several Native American tribal organizations have also developed language policies designed to protect the status of their languages. (Examples of alternative legislation and policy statements can be found in Appendix I.) In a very real sense, the debate between the proponents and opponents has been extremely useful. It has brought to the attention of legislators, educators, business and community leaders, and the general public the many issues that are involved when there are bilingual and multilingual groups within a polity. Other countries have been wrestling with this issue for much longer, and it is time for the U.S. to consider fully the positive and negative implications of officializing English and/or drafting bilingual legislation.

2. Contents of the Volume The essays in this volume are divided into five sections: Introduction; International Perspectives on Language Policy; Perspectives on the Success of the Official English Campaign; Language Patterns in the U.S.: The Southwestern Perspective; and Legal Perspectives on Language Policy. The first section, consisting of a single article, provides a broad, theoretical framework for the general issue of language planning and policy. The papers in the second section discuss successful and unsuccessful language planning and language policy in other countries and the implications of such programs for a nation's well-being. In the third section, several articles look at the extraordinary success of official English campaigns, beginning with California's Proposition 63, asking why it won by such a substantial margin, 73% to 27%, even though all major political figures and newspapers had been against it. Other articles in this section discuss the dynamics of public opinion on official English in states with differing sociolinguistic parameters: Florida and New York. The

Introduction

5

fourth section deals with the particulars of language use and language legislation in a linguistically unique region of the country, the border states. The last section addresses the issue of language legislation from the perspective of constitutional law. Each section has an introduction that provides a context for the issues that the papers in that section address. Finally, there are appendices containing legal documents relating to the general issues of language policy and language rights, as well as information on non-English speaking populations in the United States. This volume addresses the issue of official English throughout the United States. However, we have chosen to emphasize the recent official English movement in the border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas. This is partly because of the visibility and the importance of the victory of Proposition 63 in California. That victory was the first clear demonstration of national significance of the popularity of the official English movement among the general population of the United States, even in a highly ethnically diverse and liberal area like California. Also, these four states together have sizeable indigenous and immigrant non-English speaking populations: The issues are more pointed in the border states because of the large Native American population; because of the border with a non-English speaking country; and because portions of each state were once Spanish speaking. Other case studies in the volume include New York and Florida, also states with large non-English speaking populations. In 1988, Florida was one of the states where an extremely successful popular campaign was run. The victory represents a turnabout from 1973, when Dade county, in which Miami is located, was officially declared a bilingual county. New York, long a state recognizing minority language rights, is currently being targeted for a possible future official English campaign. In both 1987 and 1988, legislation was proposed in New York as well as in other eastern states to make English official. None of these bills has succeeded so far. However, Suffolk County in New York state is currently considering a very restrictive official English measure (see Zentella, this volume). The ultimate effect of these recently passed state propositions will not be understood for some while. The new laws are being challenged in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida in the courts; in California, bilingual education programs have become increasingly unpopular (New York Times August 27, 1987, A: 14). In general, state attorneys general are taking a moderate position on the issue. U.S. English continues to monitor the situation and consider its next move. It would appear that the struggle

6

Introduction

will continue at both the state and national level for the foreseeable future. The stimulus for this collection is the desire to help inform such a debate. Because there has been, by and large, no clear public debate — or even concern — over the years as to what the language policy of the United States should be, the editors have tried to present a diverse set of opinions, describe a diverse set of situations, and, in general, provide a forum for the discussion of all sides of the issue. We hope that these papers will help shed some light on the proper course the country should take in dealing with the issues of language policy and language rights. Notes 1. This collection does not attempt to discuss the history of language policy decisions in the U.S. This has been done well in other sources. At the time the Constitution was framed, it was decided not to declare an official language. The reasons for this were many. Such tolerance for linguistic diversity may have come out of the security that English was dominant, or out of the belief that the United States should allow for the free expression of religion which was often associated with specific languages. Among the excellent sources for this information are Edwards (1985), Fishman (1981), Heath (1977), Heath and Mandabach (1983), Leibowitz (1976), Marshall (1986), and Weinstein (1985). 2. Crawford (1987: 15) has noted that there is conflict between the two national organizations. 3. The official language policy of Hawaii is actually bilingual. Section 4 of the Hawaii constitution reads: "English and Hawaiian shall be the official languages of Hawaii, except that Hawaiian shall be required for public acts and transactions only as provided by law." The Nebraska law remained in the state constitution even after being declared unconstitutional. 4. The contrast between the support for official English legislation among legislators as opposed to that among the general population is also attested in Texas. In 1987, a proposed amendment failed to pass the legislature. However, the El Paso Times reported at the same time that three out of four Texans supported it (Dyer and Casteel 1987). This pattern has been found time and time again. 5. The statutes and the amendments vary considerably from state to state, but all are designed to declare English the official language of the state and, typically, the language of all government activity. Examples of official English policies from several states, both proposals and enacted legislation, can be found in Appendix I. 6. Because opponents argued persuasively that official English legislation would not improve the opportunities for people to learn English, U.S. English responded with programs of their own. Most of these are seen by opponents as too narrow in scope and too limited in access to be of any significance in dealing with the real educational problem.

I. THEORETICAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY

Introduction A vast body of literature exists on the issues made immediate by the official English movement. Countries around the world — especially third world countries — have been struggling with the issue of national language, language planning, and the like for decades. Much of this literature is highly relevant to the issues now facing the proponents and opponents of official English. An excellent overview of the concept of language planning is provided by Ruiz, in the first article in this volume. Ruiz explains the basic purpose of language planning. He gives examples of the variety of concerns that language planners have, including policy formulation and implementation. And, he identifies three orientations towards language planning: To view language as 1) a problem, 2) a right, or 3) a resource. These different orientations are recognizable in the arguments of the proponents and opponents of official English and explain much of the difference between the two groups, both in goals and in how those goals are implemented. Ruiz also defines the concept of 'official' language and 'national' language and the conditions under which officialization usually takes place. As Ruiz points out, the implementation of an official language involves major governmental decisions. If one compares the issues of implementation raised in this article to those raised in the current debate on official English, it is obvious that many serious problems have gone unconsidered in the official English debate. For example: — — — —

Who decides what is acceptable? What is to be done about dialect differences? Is ultimate authority to reside with a political or academic body? Is the issue one of literacy or of oral proficiency?

If language planning policies are in fact to be implemented in the United States, these and many other practical matters should be seriously debated by politicians, academics, and sociologists. Otherwise, naive or even harmful policies could be implemented.

Official Languages and Language Planning Richard

Ruiz

1. Introduction In November, 1986, voters in California approved a Constitutional amendment declaring English to be the official language of the state. This has significance for several reasons. In recent years, proponents of an English Language Amendment (ELA) to the Constitution of the United States have failed on a number of occasions to persuade the Congress of the need for such a measure; partly as a result of those failures, lobbying groups such as U.S. English turned their attention to the states. The states held out the promise that constitutional amendments could be considered directly by the electorate, rather than by legislators who may be reluctant to vote on such a controversial and potentially divisive issue. Furthermore, passage of an ELA at the state level would encourage the argument that, perhaps, the country as a whole is ready to entertain such an amendment to the federal constitution. The California amendment is also important for another reason: It is intended as a means by which substantive changes can be made in public policy and service delivery; specifically, it was aimed at the provision of bilingual education and bilingual ballots, although other aspects of the state's official business were also of concern (Diamond n.d.; Tomás Rivera Center 1986). While California was not the first state to adopt an ELA, most of the previous amendments (such as in Indiana) were largely regarded as symbolic — on the order of adopting a state flower or bird. Finally, the 1986 passage in California was significant because of both the magnitude of the victory and the demographics of the election. The measure received more than 70% of the votes; perhaps more significant, it attracted a large percentage of the Hispanic vote: Even if one doubts the claims of U.S. English that a majority of voters within all ethnic groups voted in favor (Diamond n.d.), it is clear that the California campaign was enormously successful. What arguments for making English the state's official language could be so compelling? We can represent them here in broad outline:

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Richard Ruiz

— Ethnic groups today are less willing to assimilate, with respect to language behavior or anything else (cf. Lambert and Taylor 1987). The social fragmentation that results from this poses a threat to national unity; — Non-English language groups are being encouraged to maintain their insulated enclaves through public policies such as bilingual ballots and bilingual education; — These services are inordinately expensive to the (predominantly nonethnic) taxpayers of the state; — The primacy of English as the language in which the state does its official business is at risk; a measure ensuring the status of English is a way to discourage the development of competing "official" languages. This last point draws attention to what may be the most pervasive effect that the ELA movement has had on U.S. society. Its very existence informs the citizenry that what the great majority of us had taken for granted was a myth: English is not now, nor has it ever been, the official language of the United States. Acknowledgement of this fact leads to a series of questions: Why has English never been so designated? What would officialization entail? What, after all, is meant by "official"? The first question is a matter of historical interpretation; various writers have provided us with their views (Heath 1981; Edwards 1985), and we have time to do little more than mention them here. The remaining questions are treated best by referring to a literature that is not generally wellknown in the United States — a body of work collectively referred to as "language planning." The next few pages will be a general introduction to language planning; included in the discussion of its basic processes will be an attempt to answer the question of what is entailed in the officialization of languages. Next, I will discuss the development of policy about the status of languages. Finally, I will present five propositions about language officialization. The available examples of this process are international; an elaboration of the five propositions will pay special attention to language planning activities — particularly ELA movements — in the United States.

2. Language Planning and Language Policy This section presents definitions of language planning, discusses its major dimensions, and outlines its basic processes. (For a more complete review, see Eastman 1983).

Official Languages and Language Planning

13

2.1. Definitions of language planning Language planning as a professional field and as a scholarly literature is relatively young; its major contribution has been in our understanding of the role of language in nation-building. Many of the early language planning texts (e.g. Fishman, Ferguson, and Das Gupta 1968; Rubin and Jernudd 1971) served as much to report on the activities of "developing" nations as to introduce a new area of academic research. This emphasis on "development contexts" is no doubt a reason many in the U.S. have not heard of language planning, much less thought of it as having relevance to western societies (Fishman 1975: 84, passim). This emphasis also helps to explain why the greater part of the language planning literature, even now, consists of case studies; the work of language planners is more practice than theory, since they are concerned with solving real, everyday language problems, sometimes in very trying circumstances, rather than developing a conceptual literature. Still, valuable theoretical contributions have been made by writers such as Jyotyrindra Das Gupta, Charles Ferguson, Joshua Fishman, Einar Haugen, Bjorn Jernudd, Joan Rubin, and others. Linguists and sociolinguists are attracted somewhat naturally to this field; scholars from other areas such as economics, political science, history, anthropology, education, and law have made language planning a multidisciplinary field. The multidisciplinary nature of the field makes a unitary definition difficult. Rubin and Jernudd define language planning as "decision making about language," especially about "deliberate language change" (1971: xiii,xvi). Jernudd and Das Gupta describe it as "a political and administrative activity for solving language problems in society" (1971: 211). Similarly, Fishman thinks of it as the "organized pursuit of solutions to societal language problems" (1975: 210). Karam, in an attempt to synthesize early language planning work, also focuses on the activities of problem identification and resolution (1974: 105). Another perspective on language planning, one that draws attention to its relationship with a more general social planning, is offered by Eastman: "Language planning is the activity of manipulating language as a social resource in order to reach objectives set out by planning agencies which, in general, are an area's governmental, educational, economic, and linguistic authorities" (1983: 29). Definitions of language planning vary because of differences in the disciplinary traditions from which the expositors come, as well as the exigencies of the particular work contexts in which they might find

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Richard Ruiz

themselves. For the moment, it is enough for us to note that these definitions all suggest that while language planning is at least about language, it is rarely only about language.

2.2. Dimensions of language planning The idea that language planning is a form of social or national planning is illustrated in the following list of some of the concerns of language planners: language officialization foreign language education alphabet development ("graphization") usage problems ("language purification") language and technology ("language modernization") dictionary/grammar development ("language standardization") orthography problems education of language minority groups language and business plain language legislation interpretation services language and the law ("forensic linguistics") document design readability formulas literacy language testing voting rights gender-neutrality in language language revival immigration/citizenship requirements censorship media access language maintenance and shift computer languages The language planner is directly concerned with the resolution of technical and technological problems, to be sure; these include developing alphabets, adapting lexicons to new domains of social experience (e.g. technology), and dictionary- making. It should be noted, however, that even these activities that deal explicitly with the language itself have been preceded by decisions about matters much broader than that: Economics, aesthetics, ideology, politics, culture, law, and education.

Official Languages and Language Planning

15

2.3. Language planning processes I will distinguish between those activities of language planners that have primarily to do with change in the language itself (lexicon, orthography, and so on) and those that have primarily to do with the place or role of the language or language variety within the society (its designation as an "official" language, for example). This distinction has come to be known most commonly as one between "corpus planning" and "status planning" (Eastman 1983: 7 0 - 7 6 , passim; Cobarrubias 1983; Keller 1983). Within these basic categories of language planning activity, Fishman (1974), drawing on the work of other sociolinguists, identifies five major processes: (i) Policy formulation results in a decision about language in the society — whether to officialize one or several languages, whether to promote one over others, whether to permit the limited use of one or some, and so on. Policy formulation is the product of deliberations that ideally include the following dimensions: sociolinguistic assessment (in which a survey is made of the varieties spoken, their distribution, attitudes held toward them and toward any kind of change, and so on); needs assessment (in which an appraisal is made of why a language change is necessary); impact assessment (in which planners anticipate as best they can how a language policy change will address the identified needs); articulation plan (in which the new policy is fitted into others that already exist or are anticipated); and finally the formulation itself (which is an explicit statement of goals, plans, purposes, and so on). (ii) Codification is often necessary in the case of a language selected to function in a domain in which it had previously not served. The choice of a local vernacular as a medium of instruction in school may do little good if it has not been reduced to writing or standardized to some degree. Codification includes graphization (the development of a writing system) and grammatication (the development of a system of structural rules for the production of language). (iii) Elaboration is a process whereby a language is extended and adapted for use in new domains. This could include lexical elaboration (the development of new words, forms, and conventions) sociolinguistic extension (stretching the meaning of terms into new domains of experience) and what is sometimes called "modernization" (the calibration of a language system with that of one with more technical or technological usefulness). (iv) Implementation includes plans and strategies for carrying out the new policy. It is, therefore, a process that spans the division between corpus

16

Richard

Ruiz

and status planning. It includes a system of enforcement, promotion, capacitation, and sanctions designed to allow the policy to be sustained and developed. (v) Evaluation, finally, allows language planners and policy-makers to monitor, adjust, or change the policy if it is not successful. Evaluation requires the development of a set of criteria by which to measure the effects of the policy. It is a process that continues throughout the life of the policy. The distinction between corpus planning and status planning, along with the processes we have just discussed, can be represented as in figure 1. Language Planning

Processes

Status Planning 1. Policy formulation

Corpus

Planning 2. Codification 3. Elaboration

4. Implementation 5. Evaluation Figure 1. Language Planning Processes

Three points should be made about these processes. First, it is important that corpus planning and status planning be considered more or less simultaneously. To declare and promote an official language, with little regard to whether or not there is anything for speakers of the language to read (cf. Hornberger 1985), is a symbolic gesture, at best; at worst, it is a cruel hoax played out by government agents for crassly utilitarian reasons. Second, the line between corpus and status planning is fuzzy precisely because it is difficult in practice to make strict delineations in this area (Fishman 1974: 23). The nature of the writing system (characters as opposed to letters, etc.), for example, could have much to do with the development of the status of a particular language. Third, the process outlined above represents an ideal pattern of activity; rarely does language policy develop in this way — but it would be better if it did.

2.4. Language planning orientations In an earlier paper (Ruiz 1984), I suggest that language planning and policy development proceed within one or more "orientations," which

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are defined as a "complex of dispositions toward language and its role, and toward languages and their role in society" (1984: 16). My contention is that the process of language policy development is embedded in one or more of three basic orientations, language-as-problem, language-asright, and language-as-resource: (i) Language-as-problem construes the targets of language policy to be a kind of social problem to be identified, eradicated, alleviated, or in some other way resolved. Local vernaculars and their communities are the most common "beneficiaries" of language policies aimed at moving them into the dominant mainstream. In the officially received view, in the view of the outside community, and frequently in the view of the local community itself, the local vernacular is an important determinant of poverty and disadvantage; doing away with the problem involves doing away with the local language and replacing it with the dominant standard. This policy of subtractive bilingualism is often regarded as benign by the dominant society — a way of providing for equality of opportunity. (ii) Language-as-right often is a reaction to these sorts of policies from within the local communities themselves. It confronts the assimilationist tendencies of dominant communities with arguments about the legal, moral, and natural right to local identity and language; it refutes the notion that minority communities are somehow made "better" through the loss of their language and culture. The language-as-right orientation is most visible, however, when the dominant language-as-problem orientation is taken to extremes: When language diversity is seen as a problem in itself, calling for language eradication as a condition of individual and social betterment, legal and quasi-legal remedies are regarded by minority communities as the last step before war or surrender (Kelman 1971: 36). (iii) Language-as-resource is an orientation that has received very little emphasis, either in the literature or in actual language policy development (see, however, Jernudd and Das Gupta 1971 and Ozolins 1985 as valuable contributions to this orientation). It presents the view of language as a social resource; policy statements formulated in this orientation should serve as guides by which language is preserved, managed and developed. The tendency to view resources in purely utilitarian terms, however, should be resisted: Language is, after all, a human quality that cannot be treated as just another commodity. To the extent that the languageas-resource orientation draws attention to the social importance of all communities and their languages, and to the extent that it promotes tolerance and even acceptance of minority languages, it holds promise for reducing social conflict in a way that the other two cannot match.

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3. Language Status We need now to address questions of language status: What is an "official" language? How does it gain that status? What is the difference between an "official" language and a "national" language, if any?

3.1. Official language This term is difficult to define because of its many uses in the literature. For example, Asmah (1985) discusses the Malayan National Language Policy of 1957 that established Bhasa Malaysia the official language of the country, although English was to remain official as well for a period of ten years. In 1967, with the Revised National Language Act, Malay was declared the sole official language in peninsular Malaysia, except in the courts where English is still the "operational language" (Asmah 1985: 41; see, also, Davey, this volume, eds.). In this case, English seems to have attained a kind of permanent "limited-official" status. Similarly, Conrad and Fishman (1977) have trouble listing countries by official language because of the many different designations and procedures. They make a useful distinction between policy and practice: A language is official because it has been declared so in authoritative policy statements, or because it is used for official purposes (1977: 8 — 10). Keller (1983) illustrates this second usage of "official" when he suggests that Spanish has attained a "sort of official status" because of its use in certain domains, especially education, media, civil rights, and voting (1983: 255). We can summarize by formalizing these two conceptions of "official language" as follows: (i) Official language- (d) refers to a language declared official for public governmental functions by an administrative authority. (ii) Official language- (p) refers to a language used for official governmental purposes. The criticism that Cobarrubias (1983) brings against Keller's use of official language-(p) is justified, it seems to me; judged by the criterion of use, any language, theoretically, can be considered "official" in the United States, since the provision of public bilingual education, interpretation services, voting materials, and the like is at least possible in many languages. One might say that the purpose of U.S. English and other ELA proponents is to take us away from the commonsense notion of "official-(p)" toward the more formal "official-(d)."

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Yet another category of "official language" is worth noting. Cobarrubias discusses "endoglossic," "exoglossic," and "mixed" states (1983: 43). An "endoglossic" state is one where the official language-(d) is, or is considered to be, indigenous: Quechua in Peru, Bahasa Malaysia in Malaysia, Pilipino in the Philippines, and so on. An "exoglossic" state is one where the official language-(d) has been imported — the situation that exists in colonial situations, frequently even after independence (Conrad and Fishman 1977). A "mixed" state combines an indigenous with an outside official language-(d). While the endo/exoglossic distinction is difficult to hold very strictly (Ness 1987, for example, demonstrates the problem of classifying the Vietnamese "national language" within this dichotomy, since both indigenous and outside agents have contributed to its construction over centuries), it helps to explain the differences between a language-as-problem and language-as-resource orientation discussed earlier: Exoglossic and mixed states predominate in the third world, while endoglossic states are the norm in the west. 3.2. National language "National language" appears to be used in two different ways in the language planning literature, as well. For example, Asmah (1985) argues that it is natural that Malay be the official language of Malaysia since, as the "national language," it is symbolic of nationhood: To the Malays and the bumiputra people, that the choice fell on Malay was the most natural thing. It is the language of the soil.... Superficially, it would have been fair to choose a language which is not identifiable with any community — fair and square. However, traditions die hard. The Malays, as a race, would rather die than lose their language to a foreign one. The motto Bahasa Jiwa Bangsa (Language is the soul of the nation) is deeply ingrained in them.... Besides, the national language not only has a utility role; it also has a symbolic function. It exudes emotion — one that gives the feeling of pride and attachment to one's country. (1985: 45 — 46) Similarly, Edwards (1985: 17) and Kelman (1971: 194) discuss the role of language as a symbol of nationalism. Ness (1987: 91) uses "national language" to mean a language the use of which is geographically or functionally extensive; it is in this sense, I think, that people in the United States speak of English as the "national language." It is in contrast to "regional" or "limited" languages.

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We can set out the difference in these two senses of "national language" in the following way: (i) National language- (s) is a language symbolic of national identity. (ii) National language-(g) is a language geographically or functionally widespread. It should be noted that "national language" and "official language" are frequently used interchangeably. This is evident in discussions about "choosing a national language" (Eastman 1983: 36). The adoption of "national language" in either of the senses presented above renders such locutions unfelicitous. One can choose, designate, or declare an "official language" (and certainly there is nothing to preclude one from choosing a "national language" as an "official language"), but it is better to say that one can do little more than promote a "national language."

4. Types of Language Policies in Relation to Language Status Given our analysis above of "official" and "national" languages, we can proceed to a modest typology of language policies in relation to the status of the languages. This will lead, in time, to a discussion of the language policy change proposed for the United States and an assessment of its impact.

4.1. A national language-(s) is an official language-(d) This arrangement — a declared, but symbolic official language — is the situation for Burmese in Burma (Allott 1985: 147 — 148), Quechua in Peru (Hornberger 1985), Swahili in Kenya and Tanzania (Larmouth 1987; Conrad and Fishman 1977), Bahasa Malaysia in Malaysia (Asmah 1985), among others. In the relatively few cases in which this situation obtains, these tend to be "mixed" rather than purely "endoglossic" states in which the indigenous language shares official status with a language of wider communication. In such an arrangement, the national language community has likely conceded some of its ethnic identity in the interest of a more general national integration.

4.2. A national language-(s) is not an official language-(d) This pattern — an undeclared, symbolic official language — is the classic exoglossic state, which is the most common legacy of colonialism.

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Examples are Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, and Sierra Leone (Conrad and Fishman 1977). There are, of course, pragmatic arguments to justify such situations; but it is also difficult to deny the effects of a history of language oppression.

4.3. A national language-(g) is an official language-(d) This situation — a declared national language of wide geographic and functional distribution — is common in powerful centralized states such as the USSR and China (PRC), although it is also true of other nations that emphasize strong language-nation linkage (such as Spain, France, and Mexico) (Edwards 1985). These can be arrangements full of language conflict since minority groups sometimes perceive their language to be a barrier to social advance (see Fought 1985; Woolard 1985).

4.4. A national language-(g) is not the official language-(d) The United States and the United Kingdom are perhaps the most obvious examples of this language policy type — an undeclared official language of wide geographical and functional distribution. The reluctance to legislate in matters of language is partly an idiosyncracy of Anglo-American jurisprudence (Heath 1981), partly a result of the recognition, at least up to now, that the technological and commercial power of English was enough to sustain its status. The effect of promoting no language in particular in these states has been a perception on the part of non-English communities of linguistic tolerance, at least on the part of governmental authorities; the relative lack of linguistic conflict which has been the result is its own recommendation for such a language policy.

4.5. An official language-(d) is not a national language-(g) Such cases — a declared official language with only limited distribution — are rare. Examples include Romansch in Switzerland and Quechua in Peru, two regional, limited languages. They result (at least in the case of Peru) from a perception on the part of governmental functionaries that the time was right for movement toward a language-as-resource orientation (Hornberger 1985). It remains to be seen whether merely extending official status to a long-oppressed language, without much consideration for problems of implementation, will be more than symbolism.

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5. Language Policy Change in the United States U.S. English and other advocates of an ELA in the United States are proposing a significant language policy change. At the moment, U.S. policy approximates the fourth of the five possibilities listed above: A geographically widespread national language-(g) which is not the declared, official language-(d). It is my contention that this policy, in comparison with the other types listed, has had the most success in avoiding serious language conflict. The burden falls on the ELA movement to explain what benefits would result from the proposed policy change, and how those benefits would outweigh the problems created by disengaging the present very successful policy.

6. Five Propositions About Language Officialization By way of summary and conclusion, I offer the following propositions as the beginning of a conceptual framework by which we might understand language officialization and its problems.

6.1. Language officialization is generally associated with nation-building This suggests that officialization movements are evidence of the perception of instability. This is understandable within emerging nations struggling to establish a national identity. Ayto (1983) demonstrates that such language planning concerns were also a feature of the early United States. The emergence of language officialization movements in the 1980s, however, a period of unparalleled English hegemony domestically and internationally, is a puzzle. It suggests, perhaps, that the actual "risk" perceived by ELA movers is something beyond language.

6.2. Language officialization is usually attended by some corpus planning This is merely a restatement of the language planning axiom that status planning and corpus planning should proceed more or less simultaneously; there are numerous examples of such simultaneous development (Allott 1985; Whiteley 1969). It is, therefore, important to ask what corpus planning activities are proposed by ELA advocates in the United

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States. I have found none. I explain this by suggesting that this language officialization movement is not really about language at all, but about society. Language serves as a symbol for diversity and the diffusion of power; the perceived threat is not language, but language communities and their potential to disturb existing power relations in the society. This sort of movement has correlates in other societies (cf. Tollefson 1986).

6.3. Language officialization is usually poorly planned as to articulation and implementation In the best language planning circumstances, articulation and implementation are problematic. Here, the literature gives us little help, since it usually presents policy statements and their results, but we seldom see how they got there (Fishman 1974: 20). One of the best descriptions of policy implementation is that for Burmese (Allott 1985); in that case, much thought was given to how the policy was to be carried out, as well as its anticipated effects. An important failure of ELA movements in the United States is the lack of thought as to how language officialization can be made consistent with our jurisprudential traditions (especially those dealing with free speech) and on what the anticipated effects of the policy change might be.

6.4. Language officialization proceeds generally from three language planning orientations: Language-as-problem, languageas-right, and language as resource Several writers demonstrate that it is common for a language policy over time to endorse all three of these positions (Bowcock 1985; Hornberger 1985; Ozolins 1985). Sometimes language policies aimed at different languages and their communities vary in their underlying orientations. In the United States, for example, ELA movements advocate a policy discouraging public promotion of ethnic languages through bilingual education, but they endorse public support of foreign language study. Ethnic languages are treated as problems, on the one hand, foreign languages as resources, on the other.

6.5. Language officialization imposes status, not legitimacy Movements for language officialization need not result in language conflict. Even critics of linguistic hegemony see that a language of wider

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communication can have a proper role in local communities (Afolayan 1984; Phillipson, Skutnabb-Kangas, and Africa 1986), and that its promotion can be legitimate. But such promotion cannot be harsh; it cannot be perceived as a threat to the survival of local languages, or conflict is almost a certain result (Adler 1977; Haugen 1985; Weinstein 1983). Proponents of an ELA in the United States profess a concern for national unity; to that end, they seek to constrain the language behavior of nonEnglish speakers. They could benefit from the advice of H. C. Kelman, a thoughtful student of language conflict: Although my bias against deliberate attempts to create national identity derives from my value position, I also believe that this is not a very effective way of promoting national unity. I would propose... that a sense of national identity is more likely to develop when it is not forced but allowed to emerge out of functional relationships within the national society. (Kelman 1971: 38) There is still no adequate explanation forthcoming as to why the United States should ignore this advice and disrupt a 200 year history of relatively successful linguistic tolerance.

II. INTERNATIONAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY

Introduction This section is designed to give the reader a flavor for the general nature of language legislation: When it happens, why it happens, how effective it is, and what problems it solves (or creates). The essays in this section do not address the issue of official English directly; rather, they provide a perspective to use in judging issues closer to home. For example, few Americans have a vital stake in the outcome of the struggle between Malay and non-Malay in Malaysia; therefore, the issues at work in that context can be evaluated by most Americans in a relatively impartial manner. Such examples can provide recognizable parallels between the conflicts and tensions at work in unfamiliar contexts and those which are presently before us in the United States as we attempt to come to terms with the issues forced upon us both by current trends in ethnic/linguistic demographics and by the political response to those trends. Proponents of official English often use examples of language conflict in other countries, especially the cases of Canada and Belgium, to support the position that multiple languages in a government and country lead to conflict and sometimes even to separatist movements. While such conflict does not now exist in the United States, proponents of official English feel that the potential for conflict is there. Present demographic trends predict that by the year 2000, the minority populations in the U.S. will, collectively, be larger than the White population — and many of these minorities, especially the Hispanic one, are to some degree nonEnglish speaking. For example, since 1980, the Hispanic population has increased by 30%, an increase five times greater than that of the rest of the population (Pear 1987: 1). Official English proponents reason that a large multilingual population will result in demands for multilingual government which in turn will eventually lead to conflict. They point to the existence of bilingual ballots and bilingual education as evidence of this growing movement towards a multilingual nation. These proponents feel that future conflicts can be avoided by declaring English the sole language of government now. In assessing the validity of this position, it is useful to consider what language officialization has meant in other parts of the world. The article by Marshall and Gonzalez challenges two of the fundamental assumptions of proponents of official English: That multilingualism

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leads to conflict and that monolingualism is an essential and beneficial national characteristic. The articles in this section by Magnet, Hudson-Edwards, Limage, and Davey describe specific language policies and cases of language conflict in a variety of regions: Canada, Ireland, Eastern and Western Europe, and Malaysia. These essays suggest that: — language policies are a means of implementing a government's general goals for minority populations; — language policies are significantly affected by a wide variety of intangibles: History, language loyalty, language prestige, neighboring countries, attitudes towards minorities and their languages, the political clout of minorities, and so forth. All of the articles in this section suggest that the reasons for conflict in multiethnic/multilingual contexts are not the reasons given by proponents of official English, i.e. that any sizeable group that speaks a second language will be separatist and will cause conflict. On the contrary, these articles argue, most conflict comes from social, legal and economic injustices, often exacerbated by language policies. If the injustices are corrected, the language-tinged conflicts tend to disappear. The articles also point out the problems associated with forcing a language on a population that does not want it. Such a policy leads to resistance and often to a greater attempt to hold on to the "outlawed" language as recent events in the Baltic countries have shown. Language is often considered an inherent part of ethnic and religious identification and the denial of the right to use the language of choice is seen as a direct attack on the ethnicity and the religion of the speakers. Marshall and Gonzalez, Magnet, and Limage all argue that proponents of the official English movement fail to regard multilingual populations as resources. In a world in which business, ecological issues, and armament issues are, of necessity, becoming multilingual in nature, the proponents of official English neglect the benefits and usefulness of multilingual communities. They note that those countries which view such communities as resources are quite successful in balancing the rights and benefits of all groups. While there is great variation in the types of countries and policies described in this section, it should be clear after reading these papers that linguistic legislation is not a casual matter of little practical impact. It is a powerful instrument of control and manipulation. And language officialization, if considered necessary, should be implemented thoughtfully and with a full awareness of everything that such a policy implies.

Una Lingua, Una Patria?: Is Monolingualism Beneficial or Harmful to a Nation's Unity? David F. Marshall and Roseann D. Gonzalez

1. Introduction In attacking Marshall (1986b), Gary Imhoff states: Most international and intranational wars have been caused primarily by differences in religions, political philosophies, races, and cultures — and language. Language diversity has been a major cause of conflict.... Any honest student of the sociology of language should admit that multilingual societies have been less united and internally peaceful than single-language societies. (Imhoff 1987: 40) There are, however, surprisingly few in-depth studies on the issue of whether differences between languages lead to intra- and international conflicts (for a bibliography, see Fishman and Solano 1989). Few nonexperts know if this often-touted idea has any validity. The reason the problem is so difficult to study is twofold: First, there are very few, if any, monolingual countries in the world; and second, the research for finding possible answers is spread across a plethora of disciplines, including sociolinguistics, sociology, political science, language planning, social psychology and economics, among others. Are there any monolingual nations? A glance at the facts helps to demonstrate the difficulties inherent in studying the relationship between number of languages spoken and conflict. There are slightly under 200 sovereign nations in the world, but there are over 5,000 languages (Crystal 1987: 360; Grimes 1988). In Africa, the only nation with anything close to a monolingual situation is Somalia, a nation resulting from the unification of British and Italian colonies. But even Somalia has several minorities in its northern deserts that speak separate languages. In Asia, Japan, although seemingly monolingual, has Ainu in addition to Japanese; the Soviet Union has 114 or more languages (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983b: 12; Rockett 1981); and Chinese has its "dialects," most of which are mutually unintelligible (Norman 1987: 3; Li 1988; Comrie 1987). It is difficult to find any nation in Asia that is even

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remotely close to monolingual (Comrie 1987; Grimes 1988). Europe has the same situation: In addition to the majority languages, Sweden and Norway have Sami speakers, for example; Finland has Swedish; France has Basque, Breton, Occitan, Alsatian, and others (Beer 1980); Britain has Welsh, Gaelic and others (Price 1984); Germany has German, Frisian, and Plattdeutsch; the DDR has Wendish (Sorbian); the Netherlands has Frisian (as do Denmark and Germany); Italy has German in its Alpine regions; Greece shares Macedonian with Albania; Turkey has Armenian and other languages including Kurdish; and Romania has Moldavian (Bessarabian) and shares German with most eastern European countries (Comrie 1987; Grimes 1988). Even Luxembourg has three official languages, Letzebuergisch, German and French, in one small country (Clyne 1984: 19). In addition to their primary languages, both Americas are filled with Native American languages; and Brazil and Argentina, among others, also have German as a strong secondary language (Grimes 1988). One example of how multilingual most nations really are is found in Hill (1986). This study reports a survey of secondary students in Tanzania in 1970, where a randomly selected representative sample of 20% of the entire first year secondary population knew an average of five languages, not a single person claimed to be monolingual and only 3% claimed knowledge of only two languages: 97% of the students could speak three or more languages! And yet, in a survey of conflicts in multilingual areas, one is hard pressed to find more than a handful of instances that have linguistic overtones, such as Belgium, South India, Sri Lanka, and Canada. Each of these examples is discussed below. Overall, the conflicts in our world are rarely linguistic. Usually, the issue is recognition for the claims of an ethnic minority (Fishman and Solano 1989), such as the case in Tibet, or the conflict is over "nationist" concerns (Fishman 1968; 1972), such as borders, fishing rights, or other non-linguistic issues. In fact, it seems impossible to find any conflicts that are based solely on language differences per se (Fishman and Solano 1989). These facts argue that language as a sole cause for conflict is a myth, a concept not scientifically supportable. If the specific situations in Belgium, South India, Sri Lanka and Canada can be shown not to be solely language-related (as argued in Fishman and Solano 1989), any reasonable possibility that that concept might be valid is removed. Before examining these four countries, however, we must first examine the two major ways in which multilingualism is viewed in the world, and then investigate how the dynamics of intranational ethnic conflict are understood and evaluated.

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2. Two Differing Views of Multilingualism Pattanayak (1986a; 1986b; 1988) argues that multilingualism is viewed differently in the West than in the East. According to her, to the Western world, a country should ideally be monolingual: Bilingualism is something that one can live with, but it is not good and should not encourage; multilingual countries are regarded in the West as being poor, not highly developed, perhaps even backward: In the Western view, monolingualism makes a country more civilized. (See, also, Fishman 1985a). Pattanayak describes the Eastern perception as follows: Many languages are like petals of a lotus. Many languages form a national mosaic. If some petals wither and fall off or some chips are displaced from the mosaic, then the lotus and the mosaic look ugly. With the death of languages the country will be poorer. (Pattanayak 1988: 379) Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson argue that the Western view of monolingualism is a form of 'linguicism': "Ideologies and structures which are used to legitimate, effectuate and reproduce an unequal division of power and resources (both material and non-material) between groups which are defined on the basis of language" (1989: 5; see, also, SkutnabbKangas 1988: 45). Analogous to racism, linguicism forms part of a "hegemonic structure which permits the dominance of certain groups or classes and their languages over others" (Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1989: 5). One of the myths supporting linguicism, they argue, is that "many languages divide a nation" (1989: 6). This marked difference in views of multilingualism is readily comparable to understanding a difference in views regarding colonialism and anti-colonialism (Skutnabb-Kangas and Phillipson 1989).

3. The Dynamics of Ethnic Mobilization In confronting the question of whether language differences are potentially divisive,1 William Beer writes: Language differences do not in themselves lead to disruptions of national unity. Nor does the unequal distribution of social status, economic prosperity, or political power between linguistic groups in itself make for solidarity or conflict. A stable maldistribution of status, wealth, and power does not lead to language conflict. But when certain

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subordinate groups break out of a traditionally subservient position and improve their situation relative to others, the likelihood is that there will be conflict. (Beer 1985: 217) For an understanding of ethnic conflict and of those instances where language might be a rallying cry in such conflicts, we first have to grasp the concept of ethnic mobilization, for it is such mobilization, not language, that is responsible for the conflict. Fishman (1966), in examining political situations around the world, finds that there seems to be a connection between levels of linguistic homogeneity and levels of industrialization, urbanization and social modernization. From this connection he raises a most interesting question about causality — does multilingualism hinder industrialization, or does industrialization lead to language switching? Besides industrialization, the causality question could be asked about the political sphere — does having multilingualism hinder full political participation or does full political participation lead to language switching and therefore more linguistic homogeneity? Sectionalism raises the same questions. What is unclear, as Fishman (1966) notes, is the direction of causality (for more recent findings, see Fishman and Solano 1988; 1989). Fishman's findings are confirmed in Inglehardt and Woodward (1967) who go on to research those things which mediate between multilingualism and the possible causes of social disintegration. They find levels of economic and political participation to be important, but an equally important factor is the degree to which a minority (bilingual or not) is blocked from being one of those who are prospering. Their research shows a "curvilinear relationship" between levels of economic and political benefits and the potential disruption that might result from multilingualism. When a society is not in the process of modernization, multilingualism does not seem to be a cause of social disruption: Multilingualism is not, in and of itself, disruptive. Also, once the process of modernization has become pervasive throughout a society, language differences do not lead to sectionalism. However, in the intervening stages between the start of modernization and its suffusion throughout the society, there do appear to be stages when language can become a label for a group that might threaten possible disruption. Such groups arise because they see themselves as being deprived of the processes of modernization. Since social mobility seems to increase as a particular society becomes modernized, the correlation would appear to reside between the group and its denied social mobility. Language

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only serves as a legitimizing label for the group's identity. It is not multilingualism itself that is disruptive, but denying a group that speaks a different language from participating in greater social mobility.2 Weinstein (1979) focuses on diglossia, a situation where one language or dialect is spoken in some social spheres and another in others. 3 He also finds that modernization produces social unrest — particularly in the processes of industrialization and urbanization. An elite of some group, finding its mobility blocked or threatened, resorts to the group's language for a rallying symbol around which to mobilize. This elite is not made up of members of the minority's rank and file; on the contrary, it typically consists of individuals who are seeking to escape from the lack of social mobility that is characteristic of their group. Language serves as a symbol for this elite: "The reinforcement or the creation of a cultural network around language transformed an unconscious language group into a self-conscious identity group" (for Weinstein's explanation of the process, see 360 — 364). As a result of relative deprivation, the elite of a group utilizes their group membership (and its concomitant identifying language) in an attempt to overcome their lack of upward mobility. Why the deprived group turns to language as a symbol is readily apparent; as Deutsch (1975: 7) reminds us, "Language is an automatic signaling system, second only to race in identifying targets for possible privilege or discrimination." Surpassed only by the color of your skin, the sounds of your language are a means of identifying and authenticating you as a member of a specific group. 4 (Of course, when language is not available, some other symbol is used.) As we have seen, national unity is strained when one group loses out in its chances for modernization or when it perceives that it does not gain the benefits from that modernization. When a group feels disassociated and perceives itself as unequal in political, economic or social power, that group is very likely to become self-conscious of its ethnicity, and through that newly-gained consciousness become a possible — though not foreordained — source of sectionalism and political strain. Allardt (1979) explains how language policy plays a part in this process. His research involves correlating the variables of "officialness of language" and "autonomy" on the one hand, with "radical socialist vote," "ethnic party," and "political violence," on the other. Socialist voting seems to be negatively correlated with an official language and the degree of autonomy of the ethnic group; in other words, the more official a language is and the more power wielded by a linguistic minority, the

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greater the chances that the minority in power will not vote for social change: When a government accommodates a minority's needs, that minority has less reason to be disruptive. However, there does not seem to be any connection between official language/autonomy and an ethnic political party or even political violence: Violence can happen whether a minority is recognized or not; and a political party may develop whether a group is officially recognized or not. Recognition or autonomy are not the sole agents in determining the formation of ethnic political parties or in the creation of violence. Thus, we can see from Allardt (1979) that threats to national unity are not necessarily directly related to either official language recognition or to ethnic autonomy. Tibet, for example, is an autonomous region of China, and the Tibetans are officially recognized as one of China's 55 nationalities and thus entitled to equality in their own language. However, there is currently increasing violence in Tibet — in the name of independence and religion. Tibet thus substantiates Allardt's research (see, also, Marshall and Chen 1990; Marshall 1989). Allardt (1979) also shows that it is seldom the most deprived minorities that become politically disruptive; it is more often the least deprived groups that become active, in the formation of political parties within the system or in an attempt to subvert the system through political violence. However, Allardt acknowledges that "mobilized minorities also exist among minorities with weak resources" (1979: 64). Beer (1980), citing Davies (1962) — who finds a relationship between, on the one hand, a group's aspirations and their gains, and, on the other, the intensity of frustration felt following a drop in the group's advantages — presents a very insightful theory of ethnic mobilization, based on data from France. Beer (1985) expands the insights of Beer (1980), so that they can be applied to mobilization by all ethnic groups. He begins with a description of mobilization in advanced industrial societies: The beginning of ethnic mobilization in advanced industrial societies begins with the decline of the power of the nation state. Overshadowed by supra-national military alliances such as NATO, the international economic entanglements of a world-market system, economic entities such as the EEC that transcend national borders, the nation state has declined since World War II as a focus for allegiance and as the prime arena in which policy decisions are made.... With the eclipse of the nation state by larger units, subnational entities have emerged, with

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renewed demands for equity for their cultures, autonomous status, and at times a separate state. Most frequently, of course, it is only a small minority within the minority that raises these demands, a frustrated rising elite.... (Beer 1985: 223) Taking the United States as an example, we can see that the migration of industry and opportunity to those areas of the "sunbelt" which have also traditionally supported the long-established Hispanic cultural minority, has resulted in the reaction by non-Hispanics to the rise of Hispanic economic and cultural opportunities. One of those reactions is the official English movement. Those advocating this political measure see the Hispanic minority as endangering the United States' national unity through the possibility of Hispanics sponsoring official bilingualism. This is despite the fact that non-English speakers are less than 4% of the United States' population and they are shifting to English as rapidly as they always have (Veltman 1983; Amastae, this volume, eds.). This forced language legislation appears to official English advocates as a means to halt a possible national erosion (Bikales 1986; see, also, Fishman 1988). Hispanics, on the other hand, realizing that English in the United States is the means to upward social mobility, are switching to English. Those Hispanics identifying the language issue as potentially divisive are mostly the group's elite, who, through their sense of being deprived of opportunity, are demanding more group recognition (Milan 1986; Veltman 1986; McArthur 1986). Marshall (1986a) warns that one of the possibilities of this sense of frustration is that a few will drop out of the political process and, following Allardt's (1979) predictions, turn to violence. Again, the problem is not language per se, but a sense of relative deprivation, both by Hispanics, encountering what they regard as racism (Milan 1986), and by the non-Hispanic majority, who sense a potential loss of political power (Crawford 1989: 54 — 61). Fishman, in commenting upon how the official English lobby has equated multilingualism with national disunity, notes that: The Hispanic middle class is obviously faced with a 'no-win' situation. Either they must reject the charge of anti-Americanism or they must confirm it, and the only way they can reject the charge in today's climate of opinion is to vote for 'English Only' far more frequently than do other Hispanics (29%). (Fishman 1988: 135) According to Beer (1985), in the less-industrialized areas of the world, the creation of a worldwide economy and the rise of transnational

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economic entities (OPEC or the supernational corporations, for example) has resulted in similar processes. Processes seen on the national scale are thus reflected on an international level. Partially answering the question raised by Fishman (1966), Beer notes that rapid modernization of these ethnic regions meant, in the first place, a serious threat to the culture of the regions primarily because "rapid modernization of ethnic backwaters threatens the everyday use of the tongue and the entire culture it represents, because of the influx of people who do not speak it, because of the exodus of those who do, and because print and electronic media rarely use the minority language" (Beer 1985: 224). In Beer's theory of mobilization, "certain groups are more affected by this transformation than others. Those most likely to feel a loss are those with a certain intellectual, emotional, or other investment in the native language and culture" (1985: 224). These "intelligentsia" will then use the language as a symbol for the purpose of mobilization, so that their expectations for modernization can be articulated and thus acted upon. If the ethnic group is absorbed into the nation's life, and their expectations are either met or it is clear that they may be met, over time the group will seek accommodation. However, when such absorption is blocked and the aspirations of the group are frustrated to the extent that efforts within the system seem futile, other options are taken. Some will embrace radical social change and choose identification with alternative political systems; others will adapt by rejecting all change and work for conservatism. Others will become spokespersons for the group; "ethnic activists in general... are those who present themselves as spokesmen for the whole group as opposed to individual classes within it" (Beer 1985: 225). It is not a foregone conclusion that ethnicity will be chosen as the rallying point for the deprived minority. As Beer points out: The extent to which militancy is ethnic depends on the strength of ethnicity as a principle of solidarity.... If religion, caste, or class crosscut ethnicity, the latter will not emerge as salient. When ethnicity is more important than other social categories, it will likely be the focus of extrapolitical demands of uncoopted upwardly mobile members of ethnic minorities. (Beer 1985: 230) Provided the group has a separate language, language can serve as a legitimizing symbol of the ethnicity of a group. Beer also sees his theory at work in the United States: As long as Spanish speakers were clearly an economically and politically subordinate group, there was little or no ethnic militancy on their

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part. When, however, an educated and prosperous class appeared and began to grow, it became clear that political benefits could be obtain by ethnic agitation, particularly in light of the successful and more or less contemporaneous example of Black Americans. Because of the obvious benefits to be gained from ethnic mobilization, an ethnic group has been created out of several very disparate groups — descendants of Spanish colonizers in New Mexico, legal Mexican immigrants, Spanish speakers whose territory was annexed to the United States, and illegal immigrants. (Beer 1985: 230) (Beer leaves out several rather important groups: Legal immigrants from Hispanic countries other than Mexico, descendants of Spanish colonizers in states other than New Mexico, and others.) However, if the aspiring Hispanic elite find that their Hispanic identity (whether or not they speak Spanish) is an obstacle to any social mobility in the United States (Veltman 1986), then, according to Beer (1985), there does arise the potential for national strain. A nation's unity is threatened most when it denies what are regarded as rights by its minorities, and language rights have been more and more viewed as a part of human rights in this century. 5 It is not the presence of more than one language that threatens national unity; on the contrary, it is the denial of equal opportunity, one example of which is language legislation which attempts to cause minorities to shift languages through coercion and not persuasion, — through force of law instead of selfwilled, natural assimilation.

4. Specific Cases of Language Symbolizing Ethnic Conflict When the theory of mobilization is understood, it is also possible to see the conflicts in Belgium, South India, Sri Lanka and Canada in clearer perspective. Belgium has been very thoroughly researched by Baetens Beardsmore (1980), and Belgium and Canada by Willemyns (1981; 1984). In Baetens Beardsmore and Willemyns (1986), they ask why Luxembourg, Finland and Switzerland, as countries with more than one official language, have escaped the disharmony that comes with linguistic labels, while Belgium and Canada have apparently not enjoyed such peace. The answer, they believe, lies "quite clearly within the legislative sphere, where the supremacy of a given language goes counter to the needs and aspirations of

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large sections of the population" (1986: 119). With reference to Canada, they write: It is, in our view, erroneous to quote the Canadian situation as an example of official bilingualism being at the origin of tension. Most American observers, tend to concentrate their antibilingual illustrations on the minority status of French within the Canadian federation. Yet in the province of Quebec, French is without any doubt the language of the majority, and until the threat of Quebec separatism (Corbeil 1980), this majority status was not given the adequate legal, socioeconomic, and sociological recognition that would allow its citizen to achieve equality of opportunity with their Anglophone compatriots. In other words, Quebec legislation giving supremacy to French (known as 7a loi 10V) and Canadian federal legislation giving equality to English and French do nothing more than rectify injustices faced by the indigenous majority population of one of the provinces. (Baetens Beardsmore and Willemyns 1986: 119-20) Their findings are supported by those of Canadian legal experts, such as Eric Maldoff (1986: 121) and Joseph Magnet (this volume). Using Maldoff s, and Baetens Beardsmore and Willemyns', and Magnet's research, it is possible to see that Canada is just one nation supporting the validity of Beer's thesis: When minority aspirations are met, national disunity decreases. The French minority solidified its cooptation into the nation's life through the enactment of Law 101 "promoting and protecting" French language and culture in Quebec (Laporte 1988). That recognition, and the further coopting and stabilization of French speakers in Quebec through Law 101, seems to have strengthened Canadian national unity. By legitimizing its French minority's aspirations and by seeking to meet them, the Canadian federation defused the radicals demanding national dissolution (Esman 1985). Belgium is also a case where Beer's theory of mobilization holds true, only there the time span seems to be greater. As Baetens Beardsmore and Willemyns note: In spite of the constitutional equality of French and Dutch since the founding of the Belgian state in 1830, the de facto supremacy of French for over a century led to the statistical majority of Dutchspeakers in the country being downgraded to second-rate status within the national entity (Willemyns 1981; Baetens Beardsmore 1980). The tensions engendered by this anomalous situation are revealed by the long and at times violent struggle lasting almost 150 years, of the

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Dutch-speaking part of the population to achieve equal linguistic status with their French-speaking compatriots, who were, moreover, the statistical minority. In other words, it is not bilingualism per se that has been the origin of such tensions, but lack of equality for a statistical majority of the indigenous population. (Baetens Beardsmore and Willemyns 1986: 121) Both Canada and Belgium fit Beer's theory of ethnic mobilization: language is not the cause for disunity but only serves as a symbol around which the disadvantaged rally; in Canada, it was a denied minority, in Belgium, a denied majority. South India is a more complex situation, as noted in Annamalai (1979; 1986), Dwivedi (1981), and Gandhi (1984). The imposition of Hindi to replace English as the national language was perceived by some in South India as not allowing the Dravidian languages equal status. Crystal gives the following scenario: Soon after Indian independence, Dravidian language militants began a fight for political structure in which their separate languages would be represented. In 1948, the report of the Linguistic Provinces Commission opposed any change, largely on the grounds that 'sub-nations' would be a major obstacle to the spread of national consciousness in the new India. Further pressure led to a second committee of enquiry,... and from 1949 the campaign intensified, especially among the Telugu speakers in Madras. The climax came in December, 1952, with the death of Potti Sriramulu, who had chosen a hunger strike, the time-honored method of Gandhi, to make his point. Prime Minister Nehru backed down, and the first of the language-based states, Andhra Pradesh (for Telugu) was inaugurated in October, 1953. Three years later, the whole of south India was reorganized on the basis of linguistic regions. (Crystal 1987: 308) Annamalai (1986:148 —149) reports on the language situation throughout India, where there have been other tensions regarding ethnic groups, noting that: The policy of official language in India is one of replacing English [perceived by many as colonialist] with the dominant language in the states and with Hindi, relatively the largest language with 38 percent of the population.... The non-Hindi languages succeeded in stalling the replacement of English by Hindi by the constitutionally stipulated time of 1965 and also succeeded in continuing English along with Hindi....

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The situations in South India (and also elsewhere in that nation, for example, Nagaland) are clear examples of minorities utilizing the issue of official languages as a means for demanding cooptation into the state's process of governing; they fit Beer's theory of mobilization. India has always been a multilingual state; what ignited the violence was the selection of one indigenous language over others as the official language of the national government. It was not India's multilingualism that prompted strife, but several minorities seeing themselves being excluded from the process of selecting an official language for the union (see also, Fishman and Solano 1989). Sri Lanka is another case where a minority turned to violence to draw attention to its frustrations. Kandiah notes that in Sri Lanka: The conflict is between the Sinhalese, who comprise 74 percent of the island's population of 14.85 million, and mainly, though not exclusively, the Lankan Tamil segment (12.6 percent of the population) of the Tamil-speaking minority, who make up some 25 percent of the population. [Note that many Tamil speakers are not ethnic Tamils.] The original Lankan Tamil claim for rights for all minorities within the Sinhala-dominated multiethnic polity converted itself shortly after Independence was achieved in 1948 to a claim, ideologized through the assertion of separate nationhood, for federal status for Tamil areas. As Tamil rights and privileges continued to be eroded... and the security personnel in Tamil areas began to harass the civilian population as agitation against such moves increased, the claim developed, in 1973, into a cry for a separate state, a goal which emerging groups of militant youth soon began to pursue through armed struggle in their areas. (Kandiah 1986: 186) Note that the call for independence did not come until 1973, only after a growing sense on the part of the Lankan Tamil population that they were not participating equally in the modernization of the nation. In Sri Lanka, as elsewhere, it was not language differences per se that led to armed conflict, but the apparent denial of a minority's aspirations by a majority (Fishman and Solano (1988; 1989). One of the acts seen by that minority as a denial of equality was the passing of an official language act in 1956, making the majority language, Sinhalese, the sole language of power. Note also that it was not all Tamil speakers who initially mobilized, but the minority of Lankan Tamils. According to Kandiah (1986), while approximately 25% of the nation speaks Tamil, only 12.6% of the

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population is Lankan Tamil (1,871,100). Only later did some of the nonLankan Tamils who were Tamil speakers join in the conflict. In Sri Lanka, we have a clear distinction between a minority and a much larger number that speak the same language. This demonstrates once again that Beer's theory of ethnic mobilization is correct: Language is not the central issue leading to national disunity; rather, it is the denial of the ethnic minority's aspirations and opportunities. Thus, even conflicts that have had language-related issues in Belgium, Canada, India, and Sri Lanka did not have language as their prime motivation. Imhoff seems to be quite mistaken when he argues that language is a cause of intra- or international conflict. When he argues that, "multilingual societies have been less united and internally peaceful than single-language societies" (1987: 40), one wonders just how he proposes to prove his thesis, geographically, demographically, or historically. Most civil wars — England's, France's, our own, the current troubles in Northern Ireland — were or are all between persons speaking the same language; in fact, most intranational conflict goes counter to Imhoffs argument. Are any international conflicts based on language? Such a possibility seems extremely dubious, at best.

5. Language Policy and National Unity Herbert C. Kelman attempts to answer the question of what brings national unity — and to identify the role language plays in the process — in his now classic "Language as an aid and barrier to involvement in the national system" (Kelman 1971). He argues that "language is a uniquely powerful instrument in unifying a diverse population and in involving individuals and subgroups in the national system"; however, Kelman warns that "some of the very features of language that give it its power under some circumstances may, under other circumstances, become major sources of disintegration and internal conflict within a national system" (1971: 21). He finds that "the deliberate use of language for purposes of national identity may — at least in a multiethnic state — have more disruptive than unifying consequences" (1971: 21). Kelman finds that it "is essential to the effective functioning of the nation-state... that the basic tenets of the national ideology or at least its behavioral implications be widely accepted within the population" (1971: 23). The nation-state depends in the largest sense on "its perceived legitimacy in the eyes of the population" (1971: 23).

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Kelman finds two "ultimate sources of legitimacy" for the nationstate: 1) reflection of the ethnic-cultural population and 2) meeting their needs and interests. On this point, Kelman (1971) dovetails nicely with Beer (1985) and the theory of ethnic mobilization. Kelman finds two "sources of loyalty or attachment to the nationstate": "Sentimental attachment" and "instrumental attachment," each of which can be "channeled" in three ways (Kelman 1971: 24 — 25). Sentimental attachment comes about when the individual feels that "the system is legitimate and deserving of his loyalty because it is the embodiment of a people in which his personal identity is anchored" (Kelman 1971: 25). Instrumental attachment comes about when the individual sees the nation-state "as an effective vehicle for achieving his own ends and the ends of members of other systems.... The system is legitimate and deserving of his loyalty because it provides the organization for a smoothly running society, in which individuals can participate to their mutual benefit and have some assurance that their needs and interests will be met" (Kelman 1971: 25). Kelman finds that "individuals high in socioeconomic status, education, and political power are more likely to be ideologically integrated, while those low in these areas are more likely to be normatively integrated." This underlies Beer's (1985) insight of the importance of a group's elite in feeling or not feeling relative deprivation of social mobility. It is possible for the system to maintain a facade of legitimacy when sentimental attachment is strong, even though that system "does not adequately meet the needs and interests of the population or does so only for a small proportion of the population." On the other hand, if instrumental attachment is strong, "the system can maintain its legitimacy even though it does not adequately reflect the ethnic-cultural identity of the population or does so only for a small proportion of the population" (1985: 26). As Beer (1985) notes, however, a weakening or already weakened nation-state would be very susceptible to losing both sentimental and institutional attachments because of the citizens' perception of the state as not fulfilling its functions. But Kelman (1971: 27) notes that: ... a well-functioning society, which provides meaningful roles for its citizens, will develop a set of common values and traditions and a sense of unity that are tantamount to a national identity, even if the population was originally diverse in its ethnic and cultural identifications. This national identity need not displace the original ethniccultural identities of the component groups but can exist alongside of them.

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This insight explains how multiethnic states build their citizens' commitment. Note that language itself is not the crucial element; rather, it is the development of "a set of common values and traditions and a sense of unity." And furthermore, that instrumental or sentimental attachment does not preclude ethnic-cultural identity. In DeLamater, Katz, and Kelman (1969), three different types of commitment to the national system in the United States are studied: Symbolic, normative, and functional. They find that the functionally committed are more open to other cultures, more tolerant of other political stances, less militaristic with a higher commitment to international organizations, more likely in occupations that center on bureaucratic and/or national organizations, and are more cosmopolitan. It is not surprising that Kelman (1971) finds the sentimentally attached more exclusive in their definition of nationality, having a sharper differentiation between their own and other nations, and more suspicious and less open in attitude with "a tendency to conceive international conflicts in zero-sum terms" (1971: 30). Language can be seen as "a sacred tongue" rather than a "mother tongue" in sentimental attachment, and, for those people, when the two do not coincide, a preference for a mother tongue or even diglossia can seem to the sentimentally attached as unpatriotic. This explains the views of those who insist that a single language is crucial for national identity. However, for the instrumentally attached, language does provide an easier means to "develop political, economic, and social institutions that serve the entire population" (1971: 32). This, in turn, explains why immigrants find it advantageous to learn languages as a means of assimilation. "From the point of view of individuals, familiarity with the dominant language is a key to genuine participation in the system, to social mobility, and to enactment of a variety of social and economic roles" (1971: 32). Thus, Kelman concludes that "a common language helps to maintain a continuous cyclical process of reinforcement between sentimental and instrumental attachments" (1971: 33-34). While successfully involving disparate speakers into the national system builds national unity and provides reinforcement for language shift and assimilation, noncooptation leads to the potential for national disunity, whether or not there are different languages. According to Kelman (1971), language itself does not serve as a divisive force; "a common language is not a necessary condition for a united state and... one or more major language groups can coexist in a system with minimal conflict between them" (1971: 34). Kelman anticipates Beer's (1985) thesis when

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he states: "Differences in language are almost always correlated with other ethnic differences, sometimes with religious differences and often with socioeconomic differences between the groups, which may affect the nature and intensity of the grievance" of that group if it does not fully participate in the nation-state's benefits (1971: 34 — 35), but "sentimentally based grievances in and of themselves are unlikely to lead to major upheavals" (1971: 36). Kelman (1971) concludes that although a common language offers some efficiency and ease to central authorities in their attempt to develop and consolidate the ideas of unity and cohesion in a nation, "it does not follow... that central authorities in multilingual systems ought to direct their language policies towards the development or establishment of a common language" for "such policies may well create inequities and meet with resistances and may hamper, rather than enhance, the unity and integration of the system" (1971: 37). "It is necessary to take into account the cost of establishing a common language in terms of the probable loss in the regime's perceived legitimacy and the probable increase in social unrest" (1971: 37). "A sense of national identity ideally ought to — and, in fact, is most likely to — emerge out of a well-functioning national system that meets the needs and interests of the entire population, rather than out of deliberate attempts to create it directly" (1971: 37). "Direct efforts at creating national identity may actually strengthen the divisions within the society" (1971: 39). "An obvious example can be found in the reactions of weaker (though still major) ethnic groups, within a population, to a policy of establishing the dominant group's language as the national language" (1971: 39). Kelman argues that: ... central authorities, in a situation in which certain ethnic groups are or feel suppressed, must assure that ethnic status does not limit any group's access to the power and the resources of the system. If polarization along ethnic lines is to be avoided, they must see to it that ethnic variations are not correlated with variations in socioeconomic status and in political power — in other words, divisions based on sentimentality and on instrumental loyalties cut across each other. (Kelman 1971: 3 9 - 4 0 ) From Kelman (1971), we can deduce that national systems are not language dependent, that policies that advocate forced language shift are not conducive to national unity, and that it is not language itself but the correlation of language with ethnic relative disadvantage and perceived deprivation that creates national disunity. Language homogeneity, al-

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though an ideal goal for ease of government, is unnecessary for national unity. Attempts to force language homogeneity for reasons of national unity are doomed to be counterproductive, and will inevitably cause only increased disunity. We can also see that sentimental and instrumental attachments reinforce each other and are thus cyclical; a sentimental attachment to the idea of more opportunity for the disadvantaged leads to greater instrumental attachment, and an instrumental attachment that is adequately fulfilled for all will lead to more sentimental attachment. It is ideas and identity, options and opportunities that cause an individual to feel attachment to a nation, no matter in what language those concepts are verbalized; the individual's pledging allegiance to the idea of the nation-state is fundamental, not the mother tongue used to make the pledge (see Anderson 1983).

6. Multilingualism as a National Resource Multilingualism can play a very positive role in a nation's unity (see Ruiz, this volume, eds.); it provides several assets that would not be present without it, assets in the pursuit of national defense, in culture, in politics, in guarding the democratic process, in education, in fostering increased cognition, and in building national unity. 6.1. National defense In time of war, multilingualism often becomes a major asset in the pursuit of victory. It is not surprising that the military is one of the few institutions in the United States that truly values multilingual abilities. The Department of Defense has established and continues to maintain schools in which languages are taught for defense purposes. The Department of State and other governmental agencies also value languages as they confront our "global village" in diplomacy and trade for example. In the realm of national defense a policy advocating increased monolingualism and decreased multilingualism is tantamount to weakening the body politic and endangering its future. 6.2. Culture It seems a given that multilingualism flowing from a multiethnic society creates a more varied and more interesting national culture. Multilingual-

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ism is an asset, a benefit of incorporating many cultures, for languages like nations help to create different customs, costume, cuisine, arts, and folkways. Human diversity is a major driving force for our curiosity and our learning, and multiethnicism reinforces this diversity without endangering the ideals and beliefs that truly bind a nation together.

6.3. Politics A nation, particularly if it is a democracy, needs to realize what assets it has in multilingualism. First, multilingual citizens have different viewpoints on issues through and as a result of their different languages. The opposite situation is one which Skutnabb-Knagas and Phillipson (1989) refer to as "monoculism": "Being able to see things with one pair of glasses only and having a poorly developed capacity to see things in another person's or groups's point of view. It mostly means not knowing more than one culture from the inside, and therefore lacking relativity" (1989: 56). As our two eyes give us depth of perception, so do two or more languages give us a "depth of field" in the political process and its continual arguments. With one language and one culture, we will unknowingly suffer. 6 It is arguable that bilinguals who examine and analyze issues from the varying perspectives of their distinct languages have an relative advantage in reaching conclusions. As have many, Ekkehart Malotki, in a study of the Hopis in Arizona, concludes that language is not simply a reflection of "the reality that is out there. For language to mirror exactly what's confronting us, we would need millions of words more than the human brain could possibly store" (in Restak 1988: 224). According to Malotki's work, language must categorize our perceptions. William S.-Y. Wang observes that "knowing more languages makes available to you more ways of looking at things, more ways of relating to things, to others" (in Restak 1988: 231). Multilingualism is a means for citizens to become better informed, and it has long been axiomatic that the better informed the citizenry, the stronger the democracy. Multilingualism does not endanger democracy; it reinforces it far more than monolingualism. Given these advantages of multilingualism, should not language policy side with it against monolingualism, if the state wants to protect and preserve democracy?

6.4. Education One of the most interesting recent findings has been the tested cognitive advantage enjoyed by bi- and multilinguals. Kenji Hakuta (1985) notes

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that in a double blind study in New Haven, Connecticut, "balanced bilinguals," those who spoke two languages at roughly the same levels, evidenced a marked cognitive advantage in relation to those who were only monolingual. Genessee (1987) summarizes over a decade of research on bilingual education programs and notes that, "in general, students in bilingual programs outperform students in non-bilingual programs on measures of language and academic development administered in English or in the native language" (195 — 96; see also Willig 1985). Hakuta (1985) observes that bilingualism has unquestionable social and economic advantages, advantages that are often ignored in the United States.7 6.5. Building National Unity In Kelman (1971), we have already seen that institutional attachment is necessarily cyclical with sentimental attachment to a nation-state. Multilingualism provides a ready barometer for building national unity with a minimum of conflict. Kelman argues that "one direction that certainly merits attention by whose who are concerned with the integration of multilingual societies is the search for political arrangements in which power is decentralized (thus reducing the magnitude of potential conflict) but not distributed along strictly linguistic lines (thus reducing the drift toward polarization)" (1971: 47). By guaranteeing equal access, regardless of mother-tongue, a nation-state could actually utilize multilingualism as a measure of its success in unifying its varied contingents. In the United States, for example, where legislation has attacked racial and religious discrimination, further legislation attacking linguistic discrimination would serve to guarantee that language could not be used as a tool for the deprivation of opportunity. 8 Multilingualism is a great asset in gaining and maintaining foreign markets for a nation's goods. Increased multilingualism could lead to favorable balances of trade, thereby enhancing a nation's economic health and reinforcing the potential for instrumental attachment. A nation that squanders its multilingual potential in policies that encourage language switching and monolingualism also endangers its future abilities to compete in international markets. Fishman 1985d reiterates Fishman's concept of a "Whorfianism of the third kind" (see Fishman 1960; 1985c; 1980). Commenting on Benjamin Lee Whorfs theories of linguistic relativity, Fishman finds a third concept in Whorf besides Whorf-sub-one and sub-two. The idea comes out of a

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tradition that is built on the thinking of Johann Gottfried Herder, Wilhelm von Humboldt and others. Fishman notes that: For Herder, and for genuine pluralists since Herder, the great creative forces that inspire all humanity do not emerge out of universal civilization, but out of the individuality of separate ethnic collectivities — most particularly, out of their very own authentic languages. Only if each collectivity contributes its own thread to the tapestry of world history, and only if each is accepted and respected for making its own contribution, can nationalities finally also be ruled by a sense of reciprocity, learning and benefiting from each other's contributions as well. (Fishman 1985d: 479) In reading Whorf, Fishman finds that he "believes that the world's little languages and peoples are a treasure trove of wisdom and refinement. Only if this human treasure is valued and shared can biases be set aside and a genuine (rather than self-serving imperialistic) universal perspective be attained" (Fishman 1985d: 482). A nation's strength, over time, ultimately resides upon generating great ideas and on a culture that inspires imitation by others, much more than it resides in its transient economic or cultural power. That creative push comes from "Whorfianism of the third kind," from a deep and abiding appreciation of the contribution of each one of a nation's peoples and languages. It follows that not appreciating any one group's culture or language and its concomitant ideational contributions is tantamount to depriving the nation-state of the fulfillment of its potential. The deprivation or the silencing of a minority and its language is not only damaging to the minority; as John Stuart Mill so eloquently argued over a century ago, it is ultimately damaging to the majority. Fishman observes that: Much of the recent and ongoing work on global consciousness and international understanding has consistently demonstrated that active and advanced multilingualism is a significant independent variable in their prediction (Burrows, Clark, & Klein 1980). In addition, much of Wallace Lambert's work on the greater cognitive flexibility of bilinguals (1962, 1973) is in direct agreement with the [Whorfianism of the third kind] school of thought. (Fishman 1985d: 482) Fishman goes on to conclude that "our frequent advocacy of the weak and as yet unappreciated peoples and languages upon which [Whorfianism of the third kind] focuses, dignifies not only them but us, [and] safeguards not only them but us...." (Fishman 1985d: 483). In this way, we can

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realize that a genuine appreciation of multilingualism becomes the means for a nation-state to make its ultimate contributions to our "global village" and to history, and it is this contribution that resides at the foundation of sentimental and instrumental attachment to a nation. Therefore, such genuine appreciation of multilingualism becomes an effective means for building a nation's unity. An interesting counterpoint to the American devaluation of multilingualism is Australia. That country, realizing the nation-building potential in multilingualism, has embarked upon a national policy which will attempt to make each school child bilingual. One of the languages will be English, the other the mother tongue of the child or a language selected by the school system and the community (Australia: Commonwealth Department of Education 1982). Facing the increased immigration now termed "Asianization," and realizing its geographical placement, Australia is now planning to utilize multilingualism as a positive tool in the task of nation building. The creation of multilingualism is being used to unify its diverse population and to open its prospects for the future. Far from seeing multilingualism as disruptive to national unity, Australia has chosen a policy to make multilingualism a cornerstone in greater national compatibility.

7. A Closing Note on the Language Conflict in the United States Once again the United States is in the throes of debating the nature of its identity, veiled under the thin guise of deciding the necessity for an official language. It seems somewhat alarming that there is little appreciation, outside of the area of sociolinguistics, for the benefits of multilingualism. Against the "quick fix" of tabloid journalism and the thirty-second "sound bite" of television, those ideas undergirding the benefits of multilingualism do not often cross from the "academic" to "popular" culture, primarily because of their complexity and sometimes because of the difficulty of stating them in "a few choice words," easily grasped by the relatively disinterested person in the street. Sometimes the myth that one language is necessary for a united nation finds its voice even in academic settings, although seldom if ever among those who have actually studied the question. As this myth spreads and continues to be "merchandized" by official English advocates, it gains a marked potential

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for eventually damaging our nation and its fundamental processes. Our nation's citizens, reacting to their sometimes unconscious sense of losing national power, are being sold a "quick fix." Legislation that would make English our official language will not provide for maintaining our national heritage of multilingualism and would endanger our national unity. 9 We need to find some means whereby the citizens of these United States can be convinced of how important that multilingual heritage is for our future. For as Fishman states: ... in the American tradition unum and pluribus go hand in hand. The unum grows out of pluribus but does not replace it! The unum ideal and the unum reality pertain to our love for and loyalty to America and its fundamental political institutions and commitments. The pluribus ideal pertains to our substantive values, to our religious commitments, to our problem-solving approaches, to the living ethnic heritages, to costreams of American life and American vision that remain alive for millions upon millions of our citizens. In a system of checks and balances, it is the pluribus ideal that counterbalances the unum ideal. Each saves the other from its excesses, and it is the pluribus ideal that requires bolstering in America today. The protectors of pluribus must rally their forces of conviction and persuasion, because pluralism is the very genius of America: Pluralism of political jurisdictions, pluralism of educational jurisdictions, pluralism of religious faiths (most of which, by the way, are ethnically focused as well), and pluralism of intellectual and philosophical outlooks. It is this broadminded and good-hearted pluralism that has made America great and no mean-spirited, ghost-battling, witch-hunting, frightened bullyboys can long deflect it from the patrimony of pluribus that has made it great in the past and that will keep it so in the future. (Fishman 1988: 138) Notes 1. For an example reaction by the privileged in the United States, see Fishman (1988). 2. The question of the direction of causality raised in Fishman (1966) and studied in Inglehardt and Woodward (1967) is also investigated by Lieberson and Hansen (1974), who study the interrelationships between levels of industrialization, political sectionalism, and multilingualism. Using data from Europe for the period 1930 — 1960, they find extremely weak correlations, noting that "there are only mild negative associations in the expected direction between diversity [in language] and urbanization" (1974: 525). They go on to say that when the nation's age is taken into account, "much of the association between developmental variables and mother-tongue diversity disappears"

Una Lingua, Una Patria?: Is Monolingualism Beneficial or Harmful to a Nation's Unity?

3. 4.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

51

(1974: 537). Because of this, they conclude that the questions remain moot: Multilingualism per se is not shown to be a root cause of social schisms. See Ferguson (1959) and Fishman (1967) for a fuller discussion of the concept of diglossia. Hechter (1975), in his examination of ethnic group identification in Britain, discusses the processes of "internal colonialism," whereby ethnic groups come together because of the unequal opportunities available to different cultural groups. Hechter explores the problems of the Celts — Irish, Scots, Welsh, Cornish, Manx — and their relationships with the English-speakers of the islands. Hechter claims that the Celts formed their identities as groups when they recognized their deprivation and became selfconscious of their ethnicity. Although some of his findings have been criticized (Webb and Hall 1978), Hechter's analysis does explain how national unity is easily preserved vis-a-vis multilingualism, and why in some instances it is endangered, not by multilingualism per se, but by the denial of social mobility and of other opportunities. See Marshall (1986a) for an overview of how the concept of language rights has grown in the United States. For more on the concepts of being monolingually "blinkered," see Grosjean (1982) and Pattanayak (1988). For an excellent summary of research on the entire bilingual education question, see Crawford (1989). For a discussion of such legislation, see Landry (1986). For a portrait of that varied and very valuable heritage, see Conklin and Lourie (1983); Kloss (1977); Grosjean (1982).

Canadian Perspectives on Official English Joseph E.

Magnet

1. The Origins of Canada's Linguistic Diversity Canada has had over two hundred years of experience with the challenges created by trying to build a strong nation out of diverse linguistic communities. In this paper I will develop, from the Canadian perspective, my thoughts about the impact of any constitutional amendment that prescribes English as the official language of Arizona or for the U.S. in general. Canada is a binational state. The Canadian Constitution resulted from a political compromise between Catholic francophones and Protestant anglophones in 1867.1 Located principally in Quebec, francophones wanted to protect their language, culture and autonomy from any aggression by the surrounding anglophone majority. The Fathers of Confederation settled upon a highly decentralized federal system as the means to accomplish this purpose. Canada's Constitution gave the French-speaking population of British North America control of the Quebec provincial government. Francophones thus acquired legislative jurisdiction more extensive even than that enjoyed by the American states. Under the Canadian constitution, Quebec, like other provinces, has control over local matters in the province — including language.2 Creation of the Province of Quebec included a new provincial minority of anglophones within Quebec, comprising some 18% of the Province's population. The three remaining provinces were largely English-speaking, but had significant French-speaking minorities. Canada's constitution protects the linguistic minorities by requiring use of both English and French in crucial aspects of federal government operation. 3 Where the provincial minorities are significant in size, constitutional protection extends equally to provincial government operations, 4 and also to religious schools.5 As other provinces joined the federation, the tradition of protecting the language and denominational rights of linguistic and religious minorities by special constitutional collective rights was continued where, prior to confederation, these groups had enjoyed such autonomy.

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Canada's linguistic diversity thus is doubly protected. Anglophones and francophones control the provincial governments where each is predominant. Anglophone and francophone minorities, where significant, enjoy additional constitutional protection with respect to language and religious autonomy. Today, Canada is made up of an overwhelmingly French province of Quebec, with English predominating elsewhere. Quebec has a significant anglophone minority. 6 Small, but important Frenchspeaking communities exist in several other provinces, protected by a constitutional obligation for bilingualism at the Federal level, and in significant cases, at the provincial level as well. In this condition Canada's language minorities flourished. Provincial legislation encouraged them. Provision was made for bilingual municipal notices, bilingual proclamations, electoral forms and voters' notices. Mixed juries in criminal trials were an affirmed right; in some districts mixed juries were allowed by legislation in civil cases.7 The minorities remained secure, without public criticism from the majority and without public complaint among themselves.

2. Beginnings of Linguistic Conflict This easy state of affairs came to an abrupt end in 1885. A predominantly French-speaking group of Western Métis revolted over government refusal to respect their land claims.8 Canada sent troops. Racial and religious feelings became supercharged when Canada hanged the charismatic Métis leader, Louis Riel, over the earnest pleas for clemency from the Frenchspeaking leadership. Intensity of feeling reached a peak three years later when the Legislature of Quebec provided that the Pope should allocate the compensation monies payable to the Jesuit order for the loss of their Quebec estates. Language jealousies, augmented by no-Popery hysteria, opened the seams of the great Canadian compromise. Dalton McCarthy, a conservative member of Parliament, shrilly announced in 1889: "the race and language issue gave the politician something... to live for; we have the power to save this country from fratricidal strife, the power to make this a British country in fact as it is in name" (1968: 36). McCarthy stirred up sufficient animosity to make the provinces respond. In 1890 Manitoba stripped all public support from Catholic schools, and, in its Official Language Act, unilaterally purported to abolish constitutional guarantees for French. 9 In 1912, Ontario abolished the use of French in education, and shortly thereafter attacked Catholic

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denominational schools. Race and language hostility boiled over. Jealousies and suspicion poisoned minority-majority relations for the next fifty years, repeatedly testing the strength of the Canadian union as new and different crises erupted constantly in intolerant provinces. The situation improved only recently, when more tolerant attitudes prevailed, and the Provinces began again to expand linguistic and religious rights. Every attack on Canadian linguistic minorities produced a spectacular national crisis, driving major Canadian communities apart, reverberating in inter-provincial and federal:provincial conflict, and threatening to incinerate the fundamental national compromises upon which Canada's federal system is built. The Canadian experience is clear: Restricting language rights results in widespread, uncontrollable social and political conflict. The danger to national unity is real and palpable. The impact upon linguistic minorities is profound. They lose self-confidence, become introverted and unable to participate successfully in Canadian life. Canada loses their energy, talents and special experience. Ultimately, the resulting social pathology impacts on social welfare systems.

3. Quebecois Separatism I have so far spoken about sub-provincial linguistic minorities. What is true at the sub-provincial level holds equally well between English Canada and Quebec. Separatist tendencies grow in Quebec in direct proportion to the perception that French-speaking Quebeckers are getting a raw deal from anglophone Ottawa. That perception grew stronger in the 1960s and 1970s as Quebec francophones declined under the pressure of higher mortality and lower fertility rates, and the tendency of immigrants to assimilate to the English linguistic community through the school system and the work place. Anglophone business dominated Quebec's economy, and excluded francophones from senior management. Anglophones also predominated in Ottawa's federal bureaucracy. Fearful of becoming a minority — of being marginalized — Quebeckers elected the separatist Parti-Quebecois to power in Quebec City in 1976. Language policy was a major election issue. Since that time, Ottawa has made major efforts to protect and promote the French language. The federal Official Languages Act assures equitable participation to francophones in the federal civil service.10 Francophones are guaranteed the right to work in their own language. A 1982 constitutional reform significantly expanded constitutional language rights. This

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process continues today with a major expansion of the Official Languages Act recently unveiled. These initiatives helped to return linguistic peace to Quebec. They contributed to the defeat of the Parti-Quebecois at the polls, and to the collapse of virtually all political support for separatism.

4. Multilingual Nations and National Unity The Canadian experience thus teaches that the existence of two languages does not create the problem of separatism, or at least lead to social tensions. Separatism and political pathology grow in proportion as Canadian governments fail to deal with linguistic minorities generously and intelligently. It is the refusal to respect linguistic differences which leads to political difficulties in Canada, not the other way around. Is Canadian experience unique among the world's multilingual countries? Sociolinguists have documented that Canada's experience typifies that of multilingual countries around the world. In the most authoritative study of bilingualism and separatism, the distinguished sociolinguist, Joshua Fishman, concluded that there is little evidence of separatism resulting from providing minority groups with governmental services in their own languages (1986). Fishman found that the roots of separatism lie in minority:majority relations broadly conceived, not in language. Factors contributing to separatism are a history of repression, economic domination and non-democratic central control. The problems popularly attributed to bilingualism are really problems of social and economic development and control, superimposed upon linguistic, racial and religious differences. Following a study of 62 linguistically heterogenous countries, Fishman concluded that tolerance and generosity towards linguistic minorities promotes good majority-minority relations and leads to a stable polity; attacking a minority's ability to use its own language results in social pathology, uncontrollable political conflict, and widespread difficulties. The international human rights community pays high regard to protecting the rights of linguistic minorities. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights provides: in those states in which... linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group,... to use their own language. Article 27 was an outgrowth of the minorities protection system which developed after World War I (Dinstein 1976). The Permanent Court of

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International Justice stated in its opinion in Minority Schools in Albania that the purpose of that system is to secure for linguistic minorities incorporated in a state the possibility of living peacefully alongside the majority and cooperating amicably with it (Permanent Court of International Justice 1934). Two things were regarded as particularly necessary: That linguistic minorities be placed on a footing of perfect equality with other nationals of the state, and to secure for linguistic minorities suitable means for preservation of their distinctive characteristics. The Court stated: "There would not be true equality between a majority and a minority if the latter were... compelled to renounce that which constitutes the very essence of its being as a minority." It is evident that undue restriction on the rights of linguistic minorities to use their own language violates international human rights norms to which both Canada and the United States are deeply committed.

5. The Arizona Official English Amendment A proposed constitutional amendment was introduced into the Arizona Senate on January 14, 1987 (SCR 1005, not Prop 106, eds.). In addition to declaring English the official language of Arizona, the amendment would have prevented any Arizona authority from requiring the use of any language other than English. This amendment is virtually identical to the federal House Joint Resolution 169 introduced by Congressman Shumway in 1983, reintroduced in 1985 (as H.J.R. 96) and again in 1988 (as H.J.R. 656; see appendix, eds.). Since the Joint Resolution was studied exhaustively by the Congressional Research Service, one can speculate intelligently about the effects which the proposed constitutional amendment SCR 1005 would have had on Arizona legislation (Dale'1983). The amendment would have nullified the requirement of Arizona Code 12 —2406C which requires notices in civil proceedings to include a warning in English and Spanish that a law suit has been filed. It would have nullified the provisions of Arizona Code 16 — 580 which require election officials to provide assistance during voting, to the extent the assistance must be provided in Spanish. It would have nullified the provision of Arizona Code 15 — 754 insofar as these provisions require bilingual education programs directed at language maintenance. The amendment would have prohibited further legislative action by Arizona to assist linguistic minorities in their own languages. Arizona would have been unable to stipulate for bilingual drivers licenses, bilingual voting, to

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provide interpreters in civil and criminal proceedings, or to provide foreign language personnel in community health centers or in alcohol abuse and treatment programs. The Legislature could not provide governmental services in languages other than English if non-English uses were mandatory, and not simply permissive. In short, the proposed amendment would cancel the language rights gained in the last five decades in Arizona, and prohibited further ones from coming into being. The proponents of House Joint Resolution 169 advanced essentially three arguments in its support: 1) linguistic minority groups must learn English if they are to become fully integrated into American society; 2) bilingual policy may actually impede the learning of English; 3) bilingual policy sends conflicting signals to the non-English-speaking people in America. In general these three points find expression in Senator Huddleston's remark made in introducing S.J.R. 167 in 1983: "A common language is necessary to preserve the basic internal unity that is required for a stable and growing nation." In addition, official English proponents have suggested that Hispanic leaders have a vested interest in promoting Spanish because it allows them easily to manipulate a large and growing voting block.

6. Lessons for Arizona and the U.S. from the Canadian Example It is rather ironic that all the proponents of H.J.R. 169, the federal amendment, as well as the sponsors of Arizona's proposed amendment SCR 1005, rely upon the Canadian example to make their point. As I have attempted to show, Canadian history proves the exact opposite of the point these people are trying to establish. As the oldest multilingual Federation in the world, Canada demonstrates that a common language is not necessary to preserve basic internal unity. More importantly, Canadian constitutional history teaches that it is attempts to restrict minority language use that threaten national unity and engender dangerous conflict; that augmenting minority language use promotes national unity, fosters good working relations between the linguistic communities, and lays the linguistic issue to rest. I know of no example in the international community where political stability has been increased by trying to stamp out minority languages, or by restricting their use by public authorities. As mentioned previously, Canada's experience appears to be typical.

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Quite apart from misusing sociolinguistic data about Canada, proponents of an Arizona official language amendment do not appear to pay sufficient regard to the problems which such an amendment may cause. By restricting the use of Spanish and other languages in the voting booth, the proposed amendment could disenfranchise many people. Criminals accused may be convicted and penalized by a process they do not understand. Litigants may be disadvantaged in civil proceedings for linguistic reasons alone. Almost certainly this would alienate and frustrate many in the minority communities. So it may become more difficult for many Americans to share that sense of national spirit, of accomplishing great things together, which is so important to the success of great nations. Further, the amendment could seriously restrict the educational opportunities of Limited English Proficient students. The negative impact on bilingual education would probably be the most profound and disquieting outcome of the proposed constitutional amendment. Some perspective may be gained on this by considering the experience of Mexican Americans in Texas. The results of Texas' failure to respond to the special educational needs of Mexican American children was fully documented by the District Court in United States v. Texas.11 The court found Mexican American children outrageously deprived educationally. The children failed to acquire English or to assimilate to the mainstream. The court found that Texas' conduct "created a learning disability which will continue to impede Mexican American children." The court stated that this amounted to: an ongoing ethnic tragedy, catastrophic in degree and disturbing in its latency for civil unrest and economic dislocation.... Unless the State succeeds in overcoming the vestiges of past discrimination and educates these children effectively, some one million members of this group will soon grow to maturity, unable to participate fully in or contribute meaningfully to this nation's society.12 As a parent, I must underline how unacceptable it is to saddle young children with these disadvantages, and how resentful it would make me if I saw this happening to my daughter. Attacking bilingual education programs through an official English constitutional amendment may create a permanent Hispanic underclass. Arizona may thus be deprived of much of the talents and energies of the Hispanic community. If lack of educational opportunity results in underdevelopment of the Hispanic community, this will strain the state's

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social welfare system. It is, therefore, difficult for a Canadian observer to understand why better solutions to the supposed problems of multilingualism cannot be found. While one may confidently rebut arguments in support of an official English amendment, that is not the end of the language debate. There is a further question. What is the goal of American bilingualism efforts: Is it language maintenance, or is it to ease the pain caused by linguistic assimilation? Should American language policy strive to maintain Spanish language enclaves, or should the mission of American law be to palliate the Hispanic community while it abandons its language and assimilates to English? This issue is of urgent importance in view of the fact that several Spanish communities in the United States are large enough to maintain themselves as monolingual enclaves within the larger English population. While the question is urgent, it cannot seriously be mooted until various Hispanic communities set the terms of debate by offering a vision of their place in the American mosaic. One reads in vain through the literature circulated by SALAD (Spanish American League Against Discrimination) and LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens) attempting to find this self-portrait. Undoubtedly, the Hispanic leadership has been preoccupied with a defensive posture necessitated by the official English movement. Nevertheless, it is to be hoped that the Hispanic communities will give this issue serious thought, and articulate a clear, forceful self-image. If Spanish is to be maintained, the leadership needs to think seriously about the type of institutional infrastructure necessary to achieve this goal. Since the research on languages in contact clearly shows that total integration of linguistic communities means assimilation of the weaker languages, the political program of the Hispanic community will have to re-evaluate concepts of integration and separate-but-equal. The separate-but-equal concept has, of course, been rejected by American constitutional doctrine. 13 But that was in the context of race; can a modified form of separate-but-equal at the institutional level be accepted by American linguistic minorities, in the context of language, as it has been by linguistically plural nations around the world? Americans have earned the admiration of many in the world for their imaginative solutions to the pressing social problems of difference resulting from ethnicity and religion. Now Americans are being asked to respond to a new kind of difference — language. It is perhaps understandable that the initial reaction of some is to deny difference — to attempt to assimilate or marginalize those who are different. This attitude has

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not been the secret of America's great success, nor the reason why America's free and open society is so widely admired in the world. Canadian observers will continue to watch with great interest as the United States grapples with problems of linguistic and cultural diversity, seeking to learn from American experience how best to realize the great ideals of justice current in our time. Notes 1. The nature and implications of the "Confederation Compact" were recently explored by the Supreme Court of Canada in Reference Re Bill 30, An Act to Amend the Education Act to Provide Full Funding for Roman Catholic Separate High Schools, 5.C.C., June 25, 1987. 2. Constitution Act, 1867, sees. 92: 13, 92: 16. See Devine v. A.G. Quebec (1986), 36 D.L.R. (4th) 321 (Que.C.A.), leave to appeal to the Supreme Court of Canada granted April 6, 1987, sub. nom., Alan Singer Ltd. v. A.G. Quebec. 3. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 133. 4. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 133; Manitoba Act, 1870, s. 23; Constitution Act, 1982, sees. 16(2) to 20(2). 5. Constitution Act, 1867, s. 93. 6. The 1981 Census places the anglophone minority of Quebec at 12.7% of total provincial population. 7. See generally, Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (1967: 50). 8. The name Métis refers to people in Canada and the United States who are racially mixed with Aboriginal and English or French bloodlines, and who are descendants of the historic Red River Métis community. A large number use the language Michif, based on a pidginized French with some aboriginal forms mixed in. 9. S.M. 1890, c.14. 10. S.C. 1 9 6 8 - 6 9 , c.54. 11. 506 F. Supp. 405 (1981). 12. Id. at 416.1 am grateful to Professor Rachel Moran for pointing out that U.S. v. Texas is an unusual case. Through the inadvertence of counsel, the School District stipulated that it had discriminated against Hispanics {Id. at 411). Subsequently, the defendants sought to withdraw these evidentiary stipulations in part because the Assistant Attorney-General had not been authorized to enter them. The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, reversing the Trial Court, allowed the motion to be withdrawn, and remanded the case for further findings of fact, 680 F. (2d) 356 (1982) (Fifth Cir.). 13. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

Language Policy and Linguistic Tolerance in Ireland Alan

Hudson-Edwards

1. The Language Situation in Ireland up to 1850 It is not known with any certainty when the Irish language was first brought to Ireland. It is certain, however, that by the beginning of the Christian era in Ireland, early in the fifth century, Irish had displaced all serious rivals as the principal language of Ireland and remained the language of the majority of the population down through the middle of the nineteenth century. Although the arrival of Christianity brought Irish into intimate contact with Latin, neither Latin itself nor any Hibernic derivative thereof ever posed a threat to Irish as the majority language. Likewise, from the ninth century on, the language of the Vikings was never to enjoy any serious prospect of displacing Irish, or of coalescing with it in the formation of any widely-used Hiberno-Norse hybrid. The arrival of Henry II's Norman forces in the late twelfth century introduced Norman French to Ireland; however, it was only a matter of time before these Norman invaders and their descendants would become Hibernis ipsis Hiberniores, "more Irish than the Irish themselves"; so much so, in fact, that the Statutes of Kilkenny of 1366 were designed to prevent the further gaelicization — in language, dress, and other cultural behaviors — of Anglo-Norman society in Ireland. Despite the remarkable resilience which Irish had shown in earlier centuries, the tide began to turn inexorably at the beginning of the seventeenth century with the defeat of the native Irish aristocracy by the forces of Elizabeth I in 1601, which led to the exile of the most prominent of the Irish princes in 1607, and to the subsequent expropriation and colonization of vast areas of the northeastern portion of Ireland in 1609. The situation worsened at mid-century with the arrival of Oliver Cromwell and his army. Just as Elizabeth's plantation of Ulster sowed the seeds of the modern partition of Ireland into north and south, so Cromwell's later plantations, and his accompanying expulsion of local populations to the

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impoverished lands of Connaught west of the Shannon River, sowed the seeds of the contemporary division of Ireland into English-speaking and Irish-speaking districts (Gaeltachtai). Finally, the defeat of the Catholic James II at the Battle of the Boyne in 1690 left little hope for the early return of a native Irish social order. Whereas in the sixteenth century "Irish was spoken throughout Ireland by all classes of society" and "was dominant in all sociolinguistic domains which might have been distinguished in the society of the time" (O'Murchu 1970: 24), the plantations of the seventeenth century had the effect, within a comparatively brief period of time, of introducing a sizeable new English-speaking landlord class into Ireland and of ousting the Irish language from a number of important high prestige spheres of social interaction. "English acquired dominance in the domains of public affairs and administration and was, of course, the only language of the new ruling class" (O'Murchu 1970: 25). The relaxation of the Penal Laws in the latter half of the eighteenth century, far from enhancing the prospects for the survival of Irish, instead contributed to its further weakening. Many of the Irish-speaking Catholics who were in a position to do so sought to take advantage of the new opportunities for social mobility, in the process becoming Englishspeaking themselves (O'Murchu 1970: 27). Such a situation, as Fishman (1985a) reminds us, is a prescription for language shift in the direction of the socially more privileged language, and Irish was not to prove an exception in this regard. The founding of the Royal College of St. Patrick in 1795 for the training of Catholic priests and the adoption of English as its institutional language, the establishment of the National School system in 1831, in part for the expressed purpose of anglicizing the lower classes, and the devastation wrought by the Great Famine of 1846 —1848 on the Irish-speaking population of Ireland all but foreclosed on the prospect for a stable recovery of Irish.

2. The Irish Language Since the Great Famine According to O'Murchu (1985: 26), in 1820 the number of Irish speakers was about 3.5 million and, by 1832, four million. The first official census of population, taken in 1841, places the total population of Ireland at just over eight million, but does not record the proportion who spoke Irish. Ten years later, when the first census to include a question on language was taken, the figure for the total population had dropped as

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a result of the Great Famine to just over 6.5 million, of whom slightly more than 1.5 million, or just under 25%, spoke Irish. By O'Murchu's estimates, the Great Famine of 1846 — 1848 had the effect of reducing a probable total population of 10 million people in 1846 by a factor of 35% within the span of about five years. Although there are no comparable figures available for the Irish-speaking segment of the population, it is safe to assume that the effects of the Famine were disproportionately felt in those areas of the country where Irish was still the primary language of social intercourse and that an estimate of 35% for the decrease in this segment of the population is probably very conservative. The story of Irish in the 140 years since the Great Famine may be read in the numbers of Irish speakers reported in the census of population taken (with two exceptions) every ten years since 1851. In 1851 and 1861, the percentage of the population claiming to be speakers of Irish was just under 25%. Apart from one short-lived resurgence in 1881, this percentage declined steadily over the following half-century, reaching an all-time low of 17.6%, or 553,717 souls, in 1911. The lowest absolute number of Irish speakers ever recorded, 540,802, was in 1926, barely five years after the Anglo-Irish Treaty gave birth to the independent Irish Free State. On the surface of things, at least, the language has fared measurably better under native government. From the 1926 low, the number of claimants climbed back up to just over one million by 1981. This improvement is not merely an artifact of the increase in the general population over the same period. In 1911, as noted, Irish speakers constituted only 17.6% of the general population over three years of age; by 1981, they had come to constitute a staggering 31.6% (Central Statistics Office 1976, 1984).

3. The Language Situation in Ireland Today Census statistics on language, of course, are notorious for their unreliability, and the statistics cited above should be taken, at best, as indications of general trends in the patterns of Irish language maintenance rather than as absolute levels of maintenance. However, in suggesting that the future of the Irish language looks more promising at present than at any time since the Great Famine, these statistics are misleading. Since they fail to distinguish between levels of competence in Irish, or even between native and non-native control of the language, the census data conceal a fundamental shift in the composition of the Irish-claiming population

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since the census of 1851. Whereas an unknown, but undoubtedly substantial, proportion of the Irish-claiming population of 1851 would have been fully fluent native speakers of Irish, recent surveys indicate that no more than 2%-to-3% of the total population would claim that status today (O'Riagáin & O'Gliasáin 1984: 16). Moreover, it is worth noting that, whereas the representation of Irish claimants in the general population rose from 28.3% to 31.6% in the decade preceding the 1981 enumeration, the corresponding proportion in the official Irish-speaking districts (see below), despite an increase in absolute numbers, dropped from 83% to 77% in the same period (Central Statistics Office 1976: 28; 1984: 12, 14). An examination of market research and social science literature since the late 1960s offers some clues as to the actual distribution of proficiency in Irish throughout the population and provides a realistic context in which to interpret the census data. A market research survey conducted in 1968 with a view toward assessing public reaction to the television program Buntús Cainte — a popular program of instruction in elementary Irish — found that of 924 individuals interviewed nationwide, 15% claimed reasonable or better fluency in Irish, 53% claimed some knowledge of the language, and 31% professed no knowledge whatever (Irish Marketing Surveys 1969, Volume 2, Table 60A). A sociological survey conducted in 1973 among registered voters in the Greater Dublin area found that of 2,282 individuals surveyed, some 17% reported their speaking competence in Irish as fair, fluent, or very fluent, while a further 58% reported themselves as having some minimal fluency in the language, and 25% reported no proficiency at all (Mac Gréil 1977: 403). A massive national survey conducted by the Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research among a sample of 2,443 individuals, also in 1973, found that 12% of the respondents claimed at least competent control of spoken Irish, 66% claimed familiarity with the language ranging from a few words to an ability to track parts of conversations in Irish, and 21 % claimed no facility in Irish at all (Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research 1975: 117). When this same study was replicated on a sample of 791 individuals 10 years later, the respective percentages were 13%, 71%, and 16% (O'Riagáin & O'Gliasáin 1984: 16). There is an impressive degree of consistency among the findings of these various independent surveys. This consistency points to the likelihood that the 32% of the population claiming to be speakers of Irish on the decennial census is composed of 2%-3% who are native or native-like speakers, a further 10%-15% who have sufficient command of the language to be able to converse reasonably comfortably in it, and 14%-20% whose command

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of the language is sufficient to permit them to participate intermittently in Irish conversation; further, the proportion of the population having no knowledge whatsoever of Irish would appear to be on the order of 25% to 30%. If census data offer only a crude guide to the size of the Irish-speaking component in the general population, they are of no value whatever in assessing the extent to which Irish is used in daily life at the present time. Predictably, not all of those who can speak Irish fluently have, or exercise, the opportunity to use it with any frequency. In the 1968 survey, for example, only 2% of the respondents reported using Irish much or all of the time at home (Irish Marketing Surveys 1969, Volume 2, Tables 61A, 64A). Similarly, the Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research reported that only 3% of those interviewed in the 1973 survey claimed that Irish was spoken with any appreciable frequency in their homes (Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research 1975: 185). The situation appears to have improved slightly by the time the survey was repeated 10 years later, since 5% of the respondents claimed more than occasional use of Irish in the home environment (O'Riagáin & O'Gliasáin 1984: 19). Finally, in a survey conducted in 1985 by the Market Research Bureau of Ireland, 3% of the sample reported themselves as speaking Irish "a lot," while an additional 11% reported speaking Irish "now and again" (O'Riagáin n.d.: 7). These statistics suggest that, at most, no more than one person in every twenty of the adult Irish population can be considered a frequent user of the national language. The figures for households in the official Irish-speaking districts are also discouraging. In the 1973 study, 58% of the respondents living in Gaeltacht areas reported frequent or constant use of Irish in the home, while fully one in eight respondents reported no use of Irish whatsoever (Committee on Irish Language Attitudes Research 1975: 185). The comparable figures for the 1983 study have not yet been published, but there is reason to believe that, they will show a significant decline in use. In short, whereas the population count in the official Gaeltacht areas was exactly 75,000 in 1981, O'Murchú estimates that no more than one-third of this number "now use Irish consistently in day-to-day communication" (1985: 29). However, in the arena of public attitudes toward Irish, at least, there is reason for limited optimism. Most Irish people today, apparently, subscribe to the view that the Irish language is an indispensable ingredient of national cultural identity. For the most part, they feel it important to maintain some significant role for the language in contemporary Irish

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life — if not to the total exclusion of English, then at least in some form of partnership with it — and they deem it essential that a knowledge of, and affection for, Irish be transmitted to future generations, chiefly by way of the formal educational process. Thus, for instance, two-thirds of those interviewed in two national surveys find themselves in agreement with the proposition that "Ireland would not really be Ireland without its Irish-speaking people," and one-half to two-thirds agree that "without Irish, Ireland would certainly lose its identity as a separate culture" (O'Riagain & O'Gliasain 1984: 5). In three separate surveys, one-half to two-thirds of the respondents are on record as favoring some form of national bilingualism as a solution to the language question, no more than 25% support a monolingual English solution, and a surprisingly robust 8% to 12% advocate an essentially monolingual Irish solution (Mac Greil 1977: 126, O'Riagain & O'Gliasain 1984: 9). While most Irish people clearly support some form of restoration of Irish, as well as public policy initiatives directed toward that end, they are less than sanguine about the prospects for success. Approximately 60% of the individuals surveyed seem to think that Irish cannot be revived as a common means of communication; approximately 40% believe that "Irish is a dead language"; and just under one-half are convinced that any and all efforts on the part of the national government to revive Irish are doomed to failure (O'Riagain & O'Gliasain 1984: 5).

4. Language Policy in Education Under Native Rule Ever since the formation of the independent Irish state in 1922, the bulk of the responsibility for the restoration of the Irish language as the customary medium of communication in Ireland has been assigned to the national public education system. As early as 1 February, 1922, the Provisional Government of Ireland enacted legislation requiring that Irish be taught as a subject, or that it be used as a medium of instruction, beginning 17 March, 1922, for at least one hour per day in every primary school in which a member of the teaching staff was qualified to offer such instruction (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 27 — 28). These policies were reaffirmed by the Irish Department of Education in 1934, at which time it was also proposed that all teaching in infant classes be conducted through the medium of Irish whenever a qualified teacher was available to provide instruction, and that, in more advanced grades, the language be taught as a subject and used as a medium of instruction

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to the greatest extent possible (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 29). Incredibly, it was not until 1948 that permission was granted to teach English, for one half hour per day, to children in the infant classes (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 29). Such a policy, quite obviously, was predicated upon the assumption that the younger the student, the more successful instruction in and through Irish was likely to be, especially when it took the form of total immersion. It is safe to suppose that this policy also anticipated the gradual extension of Irish throughout the entire primary school system as the newly-immersed infants, now fluent in Irish, advanced through later grades. Indeed, it is probably no exaggeration to say that the policy anticipated the day when an entire generation of fluent Irish speakers would be graduated from the primary and secondary school systems to swell the ranks of active Irish speakers in the general population, saving the language from further decline (Edwards 1984: 483 — 484; Macnamara 1971: 88, n.18). And so, in retrospect, it comes as no great surprise that the Department of Education, in its annual report for the 1930 — 1931 school year, was forced to concede, with a hint of disappointment and no little understatement, that "it does not seem as if, under present circumstances, the bulk of the work in the National Schools will be done through Irish until the late forties of the present century" (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 31-32). As naive as was the understanding of the processes of language maintenance and language shift which guided policy on the teaching of Irish in the primary schools in the period immediately following independence, the initial steps taken to develop a force of primary school teachers equal to the task of teaching in Irish were practical, clearheaded, and in very large measure successful. As a stop-gap measure, intensive courses in Irish for primary school teachers were organized each year from 1922 to 1926. In the case of the first four of these, all teachers under 45 years of age were required to attend and were granted special leave of absence in order to do so (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 30). The more long-term policy was directed toward the gaelicization of the professional training of primary school teachers. It involved two strategies: 1) the recruitment of student teachers from special preparatory high schools reserved for native speakers of Irish and for others who had demonstrated a special talent for the language, and 2) the gradual shift, culminating in the early 1930s, to Irish as a medium of instruction for all subjects in the post-secondary teacher training colleges of the day.

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The first of six residential preparatory high schools was established in 1926, admitting only those who were native speakers of Irish or who had a near-native command of the language. In due course, the graduates of these schools came to constitute about one-third of the yearly admissions to the post-secondary teacher training colleges, thus ensuring, within a relatively short period of time, a generous proportion of fluent Irish speakers within the national primary school teaching force (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 3 0 - 3 1 ; Macnamara 1971: 7 0 - 7 1 ; O'Domhnallain 1977: 85). These colleges continued in operation until the early 1960s, at which time they were dissolved by the Department of Education. Their disappearance, as Macnamara notes, "marks the end of any concerted effort to draw teachers from the Irish-speaking districts" (1971: 71). Primary school teacher training colleges became Irish-medium institutions in the early 1930s and continued as such for more than a quarter of a century (O'Domhnallain 1977: 92). At first Irish was established as a required subject on the entrance examination for the colleges and on the course of studies of the teacher trainees. The use of Irish as a medium of instruction was thereafter gradually extended, with the result that, by the year 1931, all candidates for graduation from these colleges were required to earn a certificate attesting to their ability to teach all subjects through the medium of Irish before they could be awarded their general diploma in education (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 31). By the middle of the 1960s, at approximately the point in time when the all-Irish preparatory high schools were being discontinued, the teacher training colleges began to revert to the use of English as a medium of instruction. The use of Irish in these colleges is now limited and "there is a general feeling that the graduates from those colleges... are on the whole less competent in Irish than were their peers of some decades ago" (O'Domhnallain 1977: 88). Language reform in secondary education was somewhat slower in coming than in primary education, in part because there may have seemed to be less urgency about the status of Irish in post-primary education, in part because of the difficulties of retraining teachers and providing textbooks in Irish across a much wider range of academic subjects, and in part, no doubt, because of the pedagogical assumption that younger children have an easier time acquiring and functioning in a second language than do older children (Macnamara 1971: 76). Language reform in secondary schools also took a decidedly different form from that in primary education. Whereas the predominant thrust of policy in the area

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of primary education was in the direction of producing a thoroughly competent corps of bilingual teachers, the focus of policy at the secondary level was on providing the incentive, both monetary and academic, for offering Irish as a course of study, for teaching other subjects through the medium of Irish, for taking Irish as a school subject, and for taking and passing Irish as an examination subject. Irish had, in fact, been recognized as an examination subject in secondary schools during the last years of British rule in Ireland and was required as a matriculation subject by the National University of Ireland from 1913 on (O'Domhnallain 1977: 89). Thus, in 1924-1925, Irish was being taught in 96% of the recognized secondary schools in Ireland (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 33). In 1927-28 the Department of Education established Irish as a compulsory subject for all secondary school students presenting themselves for the state examination normally taken after about three or four years of secondary schooling (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 33). In 1932 — 1933, Irish was established as a mandatory school subject for every new secondary student entering the system and in the following year was also designated a mandatory subject on the Leaving Certificate Examination, the state examination required of all secondary pupils as a prerequisite to graduation (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 33). From 1934 — 1935 on, Irish became an obligatory subject, not only on the Intermediate and Leaving Certificate Examinations, but also on the examinations for entry into secondary school. Students who failed the Irish portion of their entrance examination were denied admission to secondary school; those who failed the Irish portion on their Intermediate or Leaving Certificate Examination were denied a passing grade in the examination as a whole (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 33 — 34; O'Domhnallain 1977: 89). This situation remained essentially stable until 1973, when a pass in Irish was finally declared to be no longer made a prerequisite for a pass on the state examinations, although Irish was still to remain a compulsory subject for all secondary school pupils.

5. Language Policy in the Gaeltacht The second major area of government policy with regard to the Irish language concerned the stabilization and development of those areas of Ireland, known collectively as the Gaeltacht, where Irish was still spoken natively as the preeminent medium of everyday communication by a

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sizeable majority of the population. For the most part, these Gaeltacht areas are confined to small pockets along the Atlantic seaboard in Donegal in the northwest, in Galway in the west, and in Kerry in the southwest. According to the 1981 census, the total population three years of age and older of those regions officially designated as Gaeltacht areas was 75,000 (Central Statistics Office 1984: 14). More critical and realistic — if unofficial — estimates suggest that the greater part of the official Gaeltacht and its population is, in fact, English-speaking and that a truer estimate of the number of persons living in parts of Ireland where Irish is still a native and dominant language is closer to 29,000 (Fennell 1981: 36). In January, 1925, the government of the Irish Free State established the Gaeltacht Commission, with a mandate to determine the extent and location of such areas of the country as should officially be considered Irish-speaking or partly Irish-speaking, and "to inquire and make recommendations as to the use of Irish in the administration of such districts, the educational facilities therein, and any steps that should be taken to improve the economic condition of the inhabitants" (Coimisiûn um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 47 — 48). In July of the following year, the Commission submitted its report to the government, recommending that any area where 80% or more of the population spoke Irish be recognized as a true Gaeltacht, and that any area in which from 25% to 79% of the population spoke Irish be recognized as a partial Gaeltacht (Coimisiûn um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 48). The Commission also made extensive recommendations regarding the accelerated gaelicization of the primary school system in Gaeltacht areas, the improvement of educational opportunity for Gaeltacht inhabitants, the total gaelicization of the system of central and local administration in Gaeltacht areas, the relocation of groups of Irish speakers from depressed Gaeltacht areas to economically more viable locations elsewhere, and the economic development of the Gaeltacht itself, primarily by way of initiatives designed to enhance the revenue potential of the existing rural economy (Coimisiûn um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 48 — 49). The Irish Government was selective in its adoption of the Commission's recommendations: In its White Paper of 1928 it most readily accepted, for what now seem like obvious reasons, those recommendations dealing with the gaelicization of the educational and public administration systems, while referring other recommendations for further consideration and rejecting still others outright (Coimisiûn um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 49 — 50).

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In the educational arena, the government willingly moved toward extending the use of Irish as a medium of instruction in Gaeltacht primary schools. In the area of public administration, the government accepted in principle, in 1928, that all public officials competent to do so should be required to fulfill their duties through the medium of Irish and should be permitted to use English only with persons who were not familiar with Irish. In addition, the government agreed that public officials in Gaeltacht areas who were not competent in Irish should be replaced by others who were, and in 1928 ordered that any appointee of a local government authority be removed from his or her position after a period of three years, if he or she failed to acquire a sufficient command of Irish to carry out the requirements of the appointment, as they pertained to the Gaeltacht, in that language. However, as decisive a stance as this may appear to have been on the matter of gaelicizing public service in the Gaeltacht, constant revision of the applicable deadlines for becoming competent in Irish completely vitiated its effect. Thus, an amended government order in 1963 gave the relevant public officials until 31 January, 1964 — fully 36 years after the original ministerial order — to meet the language requirement (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 52-53). Numerous schemes for improving the social and economic circumstances of the Gaeltacht populations were undertaken by various government departments following the report of the Gaeltacht Commission. As the Commission on the Restoration of the Irish Language properly observed in its final report to the Irish Government in 1964, these projects were in large measure organized and implemented as so many unrelated minor enterprises which would have been called for under any general social policy of support for economically depressed rural regions of the country, and not as components of an aggressive national undertaking to support the remaining viable Irish-speaking communities precisely on account of their importance to the national goal of maintaining and revitalizing Irish (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 58). The thinking behind this policy, clearly, was that by enhancing economic opportunity in the Gaeltacht, and thereby stemming emigration to English-speaking parts of Ireland and abroad, the decline in the numbers of native Irish speakers and the constant erosion of the territory occupied by them would be permanently checked. During the past two decades, as a result of deepening disillusionment with government handling of Gaeltacht policy and growing skepticism about the depth of government commitment to the protection and devel-

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opment of the Gaeltacht, local communities began forming local civil rights organizations, particularly in the Conamara Gaeltacht west of Galway city. But the central government, as might have been expected, was not prepared to countenance any form of autonomous local government structure as a solution for the problems of the Gaeltacht, even though some concessions were made to the civil rights organizations involved. Akutagawa (1987: 139) interprets these events as a successful strategy on the part of the central government of waiting out the pressure of the politically most costly demands of the civil rights movement and of capitulating only on the less costly ones.

6. Assessment of Language Policy After almost 70 years of native government, how is official policy with regard to the restoration of Irish to be evaluated? While the reviews, for the most part, are bitter and condemnatory, one point must be made at the very outset: There almost certainly would not be over one million claimants of Irish, of whatever degree of proficiency, in the Republic of Ireland today in the absence of any central policy on revitalizing the language. The general demise of the Irish language has at least been postponed, though not perhaps indefinitely, as a result of government policies in the educational arena. Few in Ireland today would subscribe to the proposition that the Irish Government should simply have left the language to fend for itself or that the conservation of Irish in some form should not be a prominent item on the national agenda. Government policy seems to have been at its most productive in building the infrastructure for an all-Irish elementary education system. Out of approximately 12,000 lay teachers working in the primary schools of the Irish Free State in 1922, only 1,107 were reported as being competent to teach through the medium of Irish and English both, and a further 2,845 were reported as qualified to teach Irish as a subject. By 1930 — 1931, some 73% of the primary school teaching force had been certified to teach Irish and/or to teach through the medium of Irish. While the percentage of teachers certified in Irish increased more slowly thereafter, by 1960 — 1961 only 4% of the teaching force was without any qualification in the language (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 30 — 31). Progress in gaelicizing the elementary school curriculum, however, while impressive at first, peaked in the 1940s and declined rapidly in the years following World War II. For example, the number

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of primary schools throughout Ireland in which all subjects were taught through the medium of Irish was 704 in 1939 but only 309 in 1966 (Macnamara 1971: 7 1 - 7 2 ) ; by 1973-1974, only 5%, or 191, of the primary schools in the country were all-Irish medium schools, and the number of pupils in attendance in these schools represented only 3% of the national primary school student population. Even these percentages tended to exaggerate the national picture since there was a much denser distribution of all-Irish primary schools in the Gaeltacht areas than elsewhere. Once these Gaeltacht schools were removed from the reckoning, only 23 primary schools, with a total enrollment of 2,880 pupils, offered instruction in all subjects through the medium of Irish (O'Domhnalláin 1977: 88 — 89). Obscured by these statistics is the fact that from the late 1960s on, there has been a thriving movement to establish all-Irish primary schools, at community instigation, in and around the Dublin metropolitan area. Whereas only four such schools had been established in the Dublin area between 1917 and 1952, no fewer than six additional schools were opened in the period from 1969 to 1975 (O'Riagáin & O'Gliasáin 1979: 17). As with the primary schools, the number of Irish medium secondary schools also reached its zenith during the decade of the Second World War. There was a total of 102 Irish medium secondary schools throughout the country in 1947 — 1948, up from only 24 such schools in 1930-1931, but by 1976 — 1977 the number had dropped back to 20 schools, enrolling only 4,457 pupils (O'Domhnalláin 1979: 25). Other statistics confirm this pattern: while only 18% of the secondary school population was receiving instruction partially or entirely through the medium of Irish in 1926, the comparable proportion in 1940 — 1941 was 64%, but in 1960—1961 was down again to 49% (Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 35). Nor is there any clear evidence that the policy of compulsory Irish in the secondary schools, in itself, contributed significantly to the maintenance of the language over the longer term. It can be taken for granted that some unknown number of students did indeed become Irish-speaking who might not otherwise have done so, as a direct consequence of the policy of compulsory Irish, but it may also be taken for granted that a policy so insensitive to individual linguistic propensity, to the varying quality of opportunity for second language acquisition in different school settings, and to the obvious discrepancy between the demands of the school and the demands of the outside world with regard to a mastery of Irish, must have earned for the language more than its fair share of detractors.

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It is almost certainly no accident, therefore, that between 1973, the year in which the policy of compulsory Irish was abandoned, and 1983 there was a significant improvement in public attitude toward Irish in general, toward its maintenance as a national language, and toward most aspects of public policy on the language, including, most interestingly, the retention of a prominent role for Irish in the school curriculum (O'Riagain & O'Gliasain 1984). In its final report to the Irish Government in 1964, the Commission on the Restoration of the Irish Language concluded that the fundamental reason why the educational system was not more successful in producing fluent, life-long speakers of Irish was that "the effort to save the language had been left, virtually in its entirety, to that system" (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 233). Faced with a situation where the majority of schoolchildren never came into contact with Irish from the moment they left school in the afternoon until they returned the following morning, it was hardly any wonder that they quickly came to realize that the Irish language was nothing more than just another school subject (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 233). The Commission emphatically declared that "the schools cannot, of themselves, save the language," but that "the State and the community will have to come to their assistance and implement a definite, continuing plan for spreading the use of Irish in the life of the nation" (Coimisiun um Athbheochan na Gaeilge 1964: 233). O'Domhnallain also, in his synopsis of the place of Irish in the educational system, takes the position that the reduction in the amount of time devoted to teaching through the medium of Irish was most likely the result of "a general feeling that the whole burden of the restoration of Irish as a daily language was being left to the schools and that there was little evidence of effort towards that end in other sectors of society" (1977: 87). The most egregious failure of all, however, has been the failure to halt the continuing erosion of the Gaeltacht. In a decade when the percentage of Irish claimants in the population at large rose from 28.3% to 31.6%, the percentage of Irish claimants in the official Gaeltacht areas dropped from 82.9% to 77.4% (Central Statistics Office 1971, 1981). In reporting on their study of Irish and English attainment among primary school students in Gaeltacht areas, Harris and Murtagh (1987: 115) record that of 369 sixth-grade students tested, less than one-third came from homes where Irish alone was spoken, while fully 34% came from homes where English alone was used. That the situation is rapidly deteriorating, even within the same generation, is indicated by the fact that of 260 second-

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grade students tested, only 20% came from exclusively Irish-speaking homes while as many as 46% came from homes that were strictly Englishspeaking (Harris & Murtagh 1987: 115). The thread of natural intergenerational transmission of Irish has worn perilously thin — so thin, indeed, that most Gaeltacht parents now raise their children in English and "a family raising its children in Irish is now, in most places, a matter for comment" (Fennell 1981: 36). To all appearances, the last generation of native Irish speakers might well be at hand. Why should public policy with regard to the Gaeltacht appear to have failed so dismally? In part, no doubt, it was because the development of the Gaeltacht was defined as a problem of economic recovery only, rather than as a problem of linguistic and cultural recovery as well: Once the economic problems were resolved, the linguistic and cultural problems would take care of themselves. In part, too, it was due to the fact that certain kinds of economic development initiatives themselves contributed directly to the anglicization of the Gaeltacht. The development of the tourist industry ensured that ever greater numbers of non-Irish speakers would descend on the Gaeltacht each year. The development of Irish colleges guaranteed that the hordes of anglophone schoolchildren attending them each summer would in some cases virtually overrun the local Irish-speaking population. The manufacturing industry also contributed in its own way to the anglicization of the Gaeltacht in that the more specialized the operation, the more likely that managerial and technical staff not proficient in Irish would have to be imported from outside. In the absence of any pressure on these immigrants to make use of Irish, this had the direct effect of introducing English as the normal language of the work domain in some instances, and had the indirect effect of elevating the status of English relative to Irish as the language of managerial and other highly paid workers. Finally, the return to the Gaeltacht, in the relatively more prosperous period of the late 1960s and early 1970s, of many former emigrants whose spouses and children knew no Irish added significantly to the number of English-speaking households in these communities (O'Cinneide, Keane, & Cawley 1985: 5). The more fundamental reason for the failure of Gaeltacht policy, in Desmond Fennell's analysis, was the assumption on the part of the state that, through its own various agencies, it could accomplish the task of preservation without necessarily having to awaken the collective will of the Gaeltacht population for survival as a distinct linguistic entity (Fennell 1981: 3 6 - 3 7 ) . Akutagawa's (1987) analysis is similar to Fennell's, if couched in somewhat different terms. He maintains that the official

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designation of the Gaeltacht in Ireland was for purely administrative purposes only and denied a separate linguistic identity for the minority; as a result, this designation "has never really become a self-defining category for the Gaeltacht people themselves" and their language has never become "a vehicle to carry a separate identity for a minority group in any newly defined sense" (Akutagawa 1987: 142 — 143). The civil rights movement in the Gaeltacht was successful to the extent that it was precisely because the initiative came from the Gaeltacht communities themselves. However, in the end, even the civil rights movement could not sustain itself indefinitely because there was "no historical basis to help to form a sense of separate group origin" and because the Irish language had become "part of the established value system associated with Irish national identity" (Akutagawa 1987: 142).

7. Conclusion It is in keeping with the main thrust of this volume to ask, in conclusion, whether the history of linguistic colonization and governmental policy and planning with regard to language in Ireland has any value for the United States. Although the difference between the two national experiences are great, comparison of the current constitutional status of Irish as an official language in Ireland with that of English as an official language in the United States is revealing and instructive. At the national level, neither the Declaration of Independence, nor the Constitution of the United States, nor any federal statute recognizes English as the official language, or even as the primary official language, of the United States. In striking contrast, Article 8 of the Constitution of Ireland recognizes the Irish language, spoken with any appreciable frequency by only a tiny minority of the nation's citizens, as the country's first official language, and English, the mother tongue and daily vernacular of the overwhelming majority, as a second official language (Edwards 1984: 480). The question that arises from these comparisons is this: under what circumstances, in a culturally plural democratic society, might it be considered a reasonable and civil act to confer upon one particular language, or upon a select group of languages, the special sanctity of constitutional recognition? The general answer that suggests itself is that such acts are reasonable and civil when they preserve or enhance individual rights or when, with due regard for the rights of the individual, they

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render practicable the conduct of government in a situation where it would otherwise be impracticable. When the purpose of such acts is to diminish the rights of those who do not conform linguistically, however, or to serve the ends of majority chauvinism, they have no place in a state or national constitution. The present special recognition of the Irish language under the Constitution of Ireland and the increasingly successful efforts to recognize English as the sole official language at the state level in the United States may be evaluated against these principles. Unlike the English language in the United States, the Irish language in Ireland is an indigenous language of some two thousand years' standing and, while it is now the native language of a very small percentage of the national population, it is the ancestral language of the overwhelming majority of Irish men and women and is recognized and cared for as such by them. Unlike English in the United States, the prospects for the long-term survival of Irish as a viable vernacular in Ireland are bleak indeed: The historical chain of intergenerational linguistic transmission is all but irreparably severed and effective support for the transmission of the language via the formal educational system has been drastically weakened in recent decades. However ineffective the recognition of Irish as the national and first official language of Ireland may be as an engine of linguistic change, this status does provide at least some minimal constitutional basis for those Irish men and women who are of a mind to do so, to claim the protection of the Irish government for the national language, to claim the right to an education for themselves and for their children that ensures adequate opportunity for the competent acquisition of Irish, to claim reasonable representation for the Irish language in the state-run radio and television media, to claim government support for those rapidly shrinking areas of the country which are still natively Irishspeaking, and to claim the right to conduct business with the national government through the medium of Irish. In this respect, the constitutional recognition of Irish protects and enhances the rights of those for whom the maintenance of the Irish language is an indispensable element of national self-identity. While specific government requirements regarding the ability to speak Irish, particularly in the areas of education and public service employment, have at times been discriminatory toward those whose knowledge of Irish has been limited or non-existent, the status of the Irish language is protected under the Constitution of Ireland without prejudice to the status of English or to the rights of those who by choice or circumstance make English their only language. This is a far cry indeed from the letter

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and the spirit of, for example, Arizona's Proposition 106, which declares that the government shall act "shall act in English and in no other language (my emphasis)." In the Irish case, we can clearly see that the purpose of giving the language official status is to protect and hopefully preserve a dying language. On the other hand, it is clearly not the case in the United States that official language constitutional amendments are needed to protect either the political or the demographic prominence of the English language: in the 200 years of the Republic, that preeminence has never been in doubt and never more robust than at present. The entire research literature on language maintenance and shift in the United States indicates that, without any incentive whatsoever from official language amendments, even Spanish, the most vital of the non-English languages of the United States, has been unable to resist the assimilatory pressure of English beyond the second, or at most the third generation. Those who are threatened by the specter of linguistic/cultural, or even political, separatism have woefully misunderstood the nature of language consciousness and its role in ethnicity in the United States. Ethnic consciousness and ethnic political activism in the United States are not characterized by an unremitting belief in language maintenance as the sine qua non of cultural maintenance, nor is cultural maintenance itself nearly as high on the ethnic political agenda as is the securing of a greater share in the material bounty of America. Furthermore, it is equally absurd to propose, as some have done, that official English constitutional amendments provide incentive for the more rapid linguistic assimilation of non-English-speaking segments of the population into the Anglo-dominant mainstream, or that the incentive provided by such amendments will help to mitigate the social, economic, and political disadvantage associated with non-English-speaking minority status, or that the disincentive to maintain one's own ancestral language in America will help to prevent the incipient flames of cultural separatism from becoming a raging conflagration (Buckley 1988). Nor is the massive intergenerational shift to English invariably accompanied by a greater share of the social, economic, and political benefits enjoyed by the English-speaking majority, for the problems of minority status are not fundamentally linguistic in nature: They are independent of the language question, they predate any preoccupation with constitutional English, and they would remain problems even if every state in the Union were to adopt English as its official language tomorrow.

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In sum, none of these purported rationales for constitutionally recognizing English as the sole official language of the United States or of any of the individual states makes any sense. Why then, does the movement for the constitutional enshrinement of English enjoy the level of support that it does? It is difficult, in the final analysis, not to see this phenomenon as a resurgence of nativist sentiment, a backlash against legislative and judicial tolerance toward linguistic minorities in the areas of civil rights, voting rights, and educational opportunity (Marshall 1986: 22). The cyclic rise and fall of nativism, in turn, tends to follow the rise and fall of national self-esteem, and if, for a whole variety of reasons, national selfesteem is now at its lowest ebb in forty years, then this may well account for the enthusiasm with which the concept of official English has been embraced in four of the most heavily Spanish-speaking states in the whole United States (Fishman 1988: 133-134). While various citizens' groups have taken issue from time to time, and properly so, with Irish government requirements regarding compulsory Irish in the public schools or with Irish language requirements for appointment to, or promotion in the public service, there has never been a murmur of resentment about the status of Irish as the first official language in the state constitution. In part, no doubt, this is because all sensible Irish men and women recognize that this special status poses no real threat to the current balance between Irish and English in Ireland. In part, no doubt, it is also due to the fact that the vast majority of Irish people still harbor sufficient affection for their ancestral language that they are prepared to accord it special symbolic status, even if they are not particularly inclined to learn it to the point of being able to use it for most purposes of everyday interaction. And in part, no doubt, the special status of Irish has been accepted to the extent that it has because it gives offense to no language minority segment of the Irish population. Herein, then, lies the fundamental difference between the constitutional status of Irish in Ireland and the new-found constitutional status of English in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Florida: These latter acts do give offense while serving no useful social purpose whatever; they are, in fact, acts of aggression against linguistic minorities which, ironically, may in the long run do much to heighten language consciousness among those minorities, thereby igniting the very flames of cultural separatism which they were purportedly designed to extinguish.

Language Policies in Western Europe and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics* Leslie J. Limage

1. Introduction If one were to take an international and historical perspective on the formulation and implementation of language policy, it would appear that the developing, as opposed to the industrialized, nations that have paid greater attention to the status of official languages. This trend is especially true for the period since World War II when the decolonization process began in earnest. Few industrialized nations (with either a market or planned economy orientation) have found it necessary to re-assert existing language policies or to formulate new ones. It is thus a commonplace that the choosing of official languages has historically been associated with nation-building or with attempts to develop a sense of national unity. This is the case in both officially monolingual states as well as multilingual ones. The present discussion examines language policy in Western Europe and the U.S.S.R., in order to provide a perspective on the range of national responses to cultural and linguistic diversity. Since it is impossible to provide an in-depth analysis of all forms of language policies within the limits of this paper, the focus will be on two groups of countries. The first group consists of countries that are considered to have a monolingual language policy, or at least to give a central position to a dominant language. This group ranges from the most restrictive one for policy purposes, the Federal Republic of Germany, through France, the United Kingdom, Spain (where major change has recently occurred) to Sweden (with its historic commitment to preserving cultural identity). The second group consists of countries with institutional recognition of multilingualism, including Belgium, Switzerland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Yugoslavia. The discussion concludes with a set of questions which a post-industrial society, like the United States, should ask when considering both the

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legitimacy and the political desirability of declaring its dominant language to be the official one. These questions are set out in the beginning of this paper, as they are also relevant to other, less developed countries: 1) Is the cohesiveness of the country actually in jeopardy (bearing in mind that, since World War II, it has been primarily the newlyemergent, developing nations which have found it necessary to formulate official monolingual language policies)? 2) Since immigration has played an important role both in the United States and in European nations, what exactly is its role during this period of economic recession and widespread political conservatism? 3) If there is also widespread exacerbation of xenophobia and isolationism which is in some way related to the economic and political climate of a society, can that society afford to legitimize these trends through legislation?

2. Monolingual Hegemony in Western Europe One of the foremost scholars of language policy and planning in an international context, E. Glyn Lewis, once wrote, Where we are faced with the choice between equally sacred claims and values, what, as teachers and citizens, can we do? Tension does not entail conflict unless we will it so. We accept tension and so promote pluralism. The latter is not only governed by a number of principles but it also engenders at least one principle which, while valuable in itself, ensures that tension and the intrinsic conflict of values is creative rather than destructive. This principle is tolerance.... (Lewis 1978: 680) It is precisely that level of tolerance that we are examining when we look at nations in Western Europe where there is at least monolingual hegemony if not actual official monolingual policy. One might locate language policy in the Federal Republic of Germany at one end of the spectrum. Although, for practical purposes, there is regional dialect diversity in terms of German speakers, overall there has been little reason in modern times to question the validity of maintaining German as the only official language of that country. In the early 1960s, however, the FRG began to compensate for severe labor shortages by importing migrant workers from several Mediterranean Basin countries — Morocco, Turkey and Yugoslavia, in particular. At that time and up until today, these workers

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have been perceived as resolutely temporary Gastarbeiter 'guest workers'. The term 'guest worker' is banned from use in intergovernmental agencies — such as the ILO, OECD and UNESCO — because of its pejorative and degrading connotations. In reality, migrant workers from Mediterranean Basin countries have been filling manpower shortages in many Northern European countries such as France, Belgium, Switzerland and Sweden, as well as the FRG, for even longer periods of time. Across countries, these migrant workers have entered a segmented labor market in which they are structurally located in sectors and jobs which have, in fact, been vacated by nationals. In that sense, and until severe economic recession, they have not been in competition with nationals for jobs and have been essential to the economies of all these countries. This is certainly the case for the FRG. Nonetheless, and in spite of continuing need for these workers, they are still perceived of as "temporary" or "guest" workers in Germany; educational as well as language policy has barely addressed the special needs of their children when family reunification has taken place (Limage 1984, 1985a; OECD 1983). In fact, over the years, Turkish, Yugoslav and Moroccan children of migrant workers have been born in Germany and raised attending German schools. Although migrant parents may well have viewed their stay in Germany as temporary, economic reality has meant that return migration has primarily taken place as a result of unemployment and forced departure. Studies have shown that migrant children have higher professional aspirations than German nationals of similar socioeconomic backgrounds but regardless of performance in school, cannot expect to attain better jobs than their less-educated parents (Limage 1984, 1987). There is enormous respect for formal schooling among Turkish families, for example, but employer prejudice and the segmented labor market severely restrict the upward mobility of the children of migrants. In terms of language policy, the only possibility for these children to learn their mother tongues is provided as a result of bilateral agreements between countries of origin and the country of employment, the FRG. This is also true for this type of instruction in other European nations (with the exception of Sweden, which we will discuss below). Instruction in the mother tongue is paid for by the countries of origin and provided by teachers brought over from these countries. It involves an enormous financial sacrifice for such middle and low-income countries which are already struggling to provide universal primary schooling and some expansion of secondary schooling. It is, however, a political statement by both groups of countries. The country of origin is indicating to its

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migrants that they are not abandoned although there is little economic possibility for their return migration. The country of employment is indicating its "tolerance" of cultural and linguistic diversity by allowing these classes to take place in their public schools. Clearly, this extremely limited acceptance of diversity is not the only policy response in Western Europe. A somewhat attenuated form is found in France. France is also a resolutely monolingual country at the official level for historic reasons. In reality, it is a linguistically and culturally diverse country which has had French imposed upon its diversity since its Revolution of 1789 (de Certeau et al. 1975). The partisans of the Revolution sought to unify a linguistically and culturally diverse country as well as to impart republican ideas through the use of French in all official communications. Conflict for power between Church, monarchy and republican ideals were played out in a struggle in which the French language represented the values of liberty, equality and fraternity. Later on, with the spread of literacy and the introduction of compulsory primary schooling, language policy still favored French over the regional languages both to develop national unity and to lay siege to the so-called "obscurantism" of the Church (Furet and Ozouf 1977). The effort to stifle the use of regional languages meant that speakers of Occitan, Corsican, Languedoc or Catalan would be punished if they used those tongues in school or on the playground until quite recently. In fact, at present, these other languages are only taught by permission and under special conditions. The law governing language policy is that of 11 January 1951 which "favors the study and use of local languages and dialects within their own regions" (Falch 1973). In other words, French policy tolerates instruction in regional languages only when there is a formally-expressed demand and in a specific context. On the other hand, these national language minorities are not negligible in numerical terms. There are an estimated ten million speakers of Languedoc; 1.5 million Breton speakers who have at least some knowledge of their regional language; 260,000 Catalan speakers; 220,000 Corsican speakers and 90,000 Basques. All of these groups have lived within historically recognized territories for hundreds of years (Lewis 1980). The numbers of national minorities are augmented if we consider the number of migrant workers and their families in France. There are approximately four million migrants of the first and second generation in France from a wider range of countries than those found in the FRG. Since the turn of the century, France has had a declining population and has turned to migration primarily from its colonies in the first

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instance to make up that labor shortage. It also has a long tradition of welcoming political and economic refugees which distinguishes it from Germany. Hence, France encouraged both temporary and permanent migration until the economic recession of the mid-1970s. It was with extreme reluctance that France adopted more restrictionist migration legislation and policies. Although in terms of sheer numbers, there is a larger migrant population in Germany, France has a longer tradition and hence a larger second and third generation of non-native speakers of French. (Lebon 1986, Limage 1984, 1985a). It was generally assumed that these migrants would assimilate into French society and that little special attention need be given their children, much as was the case for the national language minorities. Beginning in the mid-1970s, however, much like Germany, France entered into bilateral agreements with the governments of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Yugoslavia in order to provide for instruction of the mother tongue in French public elementary schools either during the school day or afterwards on school premises (Limage 1984). Greater tolerance prevails at the level of secondary schooling. There has been a serious attempt to diversify foreign language options at that level when students numbers are sufficient in order to offer Arabic, Portuguese, Italian or Spanish. Nonetheless, French language policy remains centralized and resolutely monolingual. Moving further along the spectrum, we come to another monolingual country, Sweden, which has developed another response to diversity in its midst. Like the FRG and France, Sweden has a single official language and has been an important country of employment for migrant workers from Mediterranean Basin countries. Sweden has, however, an overarching historic tradition of institutional arrangements to protect and preserve its cultural heritage and cultural identity. This over-arching principle has been extended to the cultural and linguistic identities of migrant workers. Sweden maintains its monolingual policy but also provides at government expense for the instruction in the mother tongue of children and adults of migrant origin. It is the only Western European country to do so (OECD 1980, Limage 1984). The social cost and benefits of respecting diversity are considered consistent with both tradition and a healthy development for Swedish society. The situation in the United Kingdom places it partially outside the artificial spectrum adopted in this discussion. While bilingual education is institutionally recognized in Wales for both Welsh and English speakers, the rest of England gives much more limited official attention to the

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enormous linguistic diversity present as a result of Commonwealth migration and regional dialect usage. A recent report on Improving Secondary Schools by the Inner London Education Authority (Hargreaves 1984) noted that these schools served speakers of 147 different languages. The languages range from Greek, Turkish, Bengali, Gujerati, Urdu, Punjabi, Chinese, and Arabic, to Portuguese, Italian, French, and Spanish. Nonetheless, the report, which is considered a critical and progressive one in British educational circles, emphasizes increasing English as a second language provision in public schools and gives no serious attention to mother tongue instruction. Given cutbacks in educational expenditure, this policy is not surprising. What it does favor, however, is increased attention in the general curriculum to the cultural diversity of the school population for all children, including native speakers of English. Probably the only European country to radically alter its language policy in recent years is Spain. The post-Franco opening up of Spanish institutions has introduced considerable regional autonomy. In terms of an official language for international purposes, Spanish still dominates the scene. Internally, however, recognition of linguistic diversity by central government has been delegated to the regions. The outstanding example of the revitalization of a previously clandestine language usage is Catalan. In the restructuring of the role of central government, the Generalitat de Catalunya took over responsibility for major educational reforms including the introduction of bilingual Spanish/Catalan instruction throughout the region. Catalan, like Basque, had been forbidden during the Franco regime. The language, however, has been the vehicle of a rich cultural and literary heritage for centuries. It was maintained privately by the intellectual and industrial elite of the region in spite of severe restrictions. Prior to the Spanish Civil War, Catalunya was the site of enormous innovation in pedagogy, art, architecture, urban planning and industrialization. The region remained an important industrial center to which migrants from poorer regions of Spain came throughout the Franco period. At present, in parts of the region, migrants from Andalusia and even parts of the Basque country are in the majority. Hence, there are a range of Spanish dialects beyond Castilian as well as an elite Catalanspeaking population in the region. (Badia i Margarit 1969). As part of an OECD project on education for linguistic minorities, the author was able to examine at first hand the implementation of the post-Franco language policy in Catalunya. First of all, during the clandestine period of language repression, the intelligentsia — who made up the majority of Catalan speakers — developed the innovative pedagogies and structural reforms begun prior to the Civil War. A bilingual education policy was

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to be part of an effort to create a truly public education system separate from the system of state-financed but privately (primarily Church) owned schools which had existed previously. Hence, bilingualism was consistently associated with democratization in the post 1975 reforms. Since Catalan was and remains the language of upward mobility in the region, the introduction of schooling in Catalan encountered less resistance from native Spanish dialect speakers than would have been the case in other circumstances. Also, the enormous effort of re-training teachers on a voluntary basis and, in most cases, without financial assistance was made possible by the enormous popular support for educational as well as political reform. It would be inaccurate to assert that the introduction of Catalan did not provoke any conflict. In the early stages, extreme demands, primarily at the university level, that all instructors use Catalan in their teaching met with serious resistance. The cleavages already apparent between the Autonomous University of Barcelona and the University of Barcelona were actually reinforced rather than attenuated, at least at first. At the primary school level, however, careful language planning occurred and surveys were made on a class-by-class basis to decide which of several models of bilingual education would be most appropriate. The success of language policy reform in Catalunya might be largely ascribed to the previous prestige of the second language; the association of the new policy with a whole host of democratization reforms and, finally, to the central government's acknowledgement of the importance of recognizing Spanish regional diversity, even at the risk of increased political conflict. While the Catalan reform has been successful, the same cannot be said of the other major language minority, the Basques. A wealth of literature has looked at the reasons why Basque language instruction has been less extensive. Summarizing, the hypotheses advanced include: The lack of an economic and internationally-recognized elite prepared to finance and implement reform; the ongoing struggle to seek separation from Spain by Basque extremists; and the relative poverty of most Basque speakers. Nevertheless, from the Catalan case alone, it could be said that Spain has come the furthest of the European nations discussed in terms of recognizing linguistic diversity in an officially-monolingual country.

3. Institutionalized Multilingualism While linguistic diversity appears to characterize all the countries of Europe to a greater or lesser extent, official recognition of such diversity

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has only been directly addressed in Belgium, Switzerland, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics and Yugoslavia. We will look briefly at each context. In comparison to the European countries discussed above, Belgium is a relatively recent and arbitrary creation as a nation state (Lagasse 1982; Limage 1985b). Its current institutional arrangements as well as their precariousness date back to problems which were not satisfactorily resolved in 1831 when its Constitution was created. In fact, what one finds in Belgium today is a policy of territorial unilingualism. Flemish (closely related to Dutch) is the official language of the north; French is the official language in the south; and a small eastern region is officially German-speaking. Only the capital, Brussels, is truly bilingual. Native speakers of one language are not required to learn the other. Within the French-speaking region, Walloon, an indigenous language related to French, is spoken by fewer and fewer young people and is only used, in university contexts, where preservation of the cultural heritage is strongly promoted, such as the University of Louvain. A long-standing hostility based on economic disparity, religious difference and cultural affinities has meant that the Flemish and Frenchspeaking communities appear to constantly question the foundations of Belgium as a centralized state. Within these tensions, a large migrant community, similar to that found in the Federal Republic of Germany and France, finds little increased sympathy for its special needs. Mother tongue and second language provisions are similarly limited. Successive governments of Belgium have been brought down because the linguistic autonomy of regions has not been coupled with the political autonomy considered necessary to hold the nation together (Lagasse 1982). Basically, the demand is for a truly federal system of government such as is found in Switzerland or even more so, in Yugoslavia, if there is to be a national consensus in the country. Let us look successively at these federations. Switzerland consists of approximately 3.9 million German speakers, (73%); 1.2 million French speakers, (22%); 210,000 Italian speakers, (3.9%) and 40,000 Romansch speakers or 0.7% of the population (Lewis 1980). In each canton of Switzerland, the dominant language is used and taught and the other national languages are not obligatory, with the exception of three bilingual and trilingual cantons. The tensions found in Belgium appear singularly absent in Switzerland. On the other hand, if attention to migrant workers and their children's languages remains a touchstone in each of the European countries under discussion, Switzerland is no more

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tolerant than any of the others in this respect. Italian migrant workers outside the canton in which Italian is spoken cannot expect better professional or academic outcomes for their children than in France or Belgium. In fact, in terms of Italian migrants, it is generally thought children will fare better by returning to Italy (Limage 1984). Yugoslavia presents another way of recognizing a multilingual society. For historic reasons as well, recognition of regional linguistic and political autonomy has held the country together. Like Switzerland, Yugoslavia is a federation in which all nationalities are considered equal and all their languages official. It goes a step further, however. According to its 1971 census, all inhabitants are classified in two categories: Those who state a nationality and those who do not. The stated nationalities include the nations of Yugoslavia, Croatians, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Muslims, Serbs and Slovenes. Nationalities of Yugoslavia, however, also include (as incorporated national minorities): Albanians, Bulgarians, Czechs, Hungarians, Italians, Rumanians, Slovaks and Turks. Further, immigrant groups include Austrians, Germans, Greeks, Jews, Poles, Gypsies, Russians, Ukrainians and Wallachians. By and large, a large percentage of each of the nationalities which has a nation is found in its own territory, but all nationalities are found throughout the country as a whole, especially in industrial centers. Yugoslavia resolves this heterogeneity within a federated multilingual society by recourse to individual rather than group claims to linguistic recognition. In practice, then, education and other basic services are provided in the mother tongue whenever sufficient numbers warrant such treatment. Given such a high level of tolerance for diversity within country boundaries, it is interesting to comment briefly on the fate of Yugoslavs as migrant workers in the countries discussed earlier. Studies by this author and others (Limage 1984; Morokvasic 1986) indicate that Yugoslav migrant workers in France, FRG, and Belgium, for example, are much more likely to participate in mother tongue instruction provided at the expense of their government than other migrant groups. They are also more likely to seek their political and economic rights as workers in the country of employment and to consider it important that their children return at some point to complete their education in Yugoslavia. Selfesteem among Yugoslav migrant children is frequently higher than among other migrant children and is considered to be related to the fact that Yugoslavia has a highly participatory form of government down to the grass-root level which is perceived as superior to the forms of government found in the countries of employment. It is notable that these perceptions

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are not diminished because of the need for economic migration on either a temporary or semi-permanent basis. No discussion of multilingual states would be complete without reference to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Although language policy in the U.S.S.R. has evolved since the 1917 revolution, it can probably be safely stated that it has evolved within unchanging parameters. As the most distinguished English-speaking scholar of Soviet language policy, E. Glyn Lewis, puts it, the parameters are actually the expansion and contraction of a single initial policy (Lewis 1972). Soviet language policy is and will remain resolutely pluralist and responds to extreme linguistic as well as developmental diversity. In a way, the initial policy, outlined in a Resolution of the Tenth Congress of 1921, stresses the dialectic relationship which was to underpin the creation of a socialist state. The dialectic is between the centralizing forces and the nationalist elements to be simultaneously encouraged: 1) to develop and consolidate their Soviet statehood in forms appropriate to the conditions of national way of life of the various peoples. 2) to develop and consolidate in the native language, justice, administration, and economic and governmental bodies composed of local peoples who know the way of life and psychology of the local population. 3) to develop the press, theater, clubs and educational establishments generally, in the native tongue. 4) to establish and develop a wide network of courses and schools general as well as professional and technical, in the native language, (quoted in Lewis 1972: 350) From its inception, education was perceived as an important tool for creating the Soviet state. Given the enormous linguistic diversity of the populations of the U.S.S.R., as well as their equally diverse levels of economic and social development, national languages were considered instrumental as vehicles for the new social ideas as well as for creating a sense of national identity. In fact, the first mass literacy campaign in the twentieth century was undertaken in many parts of the Soviet Union only after a written form was given to some fifty minority languages. The tension or dialectic between the importance of an over-arching lingua franca, Russian, and the development of national languages to meet changing social and economic needs continues to this day. Scholars of Soviet language planning identify periods of increased emphasis on centralization or attempts to impose Russian as a lingua franca and more

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liberal periods in which national languages were encouraged at all levels. As with the other federal multilingual countries, territorial rights have always been fundamental in the development of actual rights to education and public service in one's mother tongue. The populations without territorial rights have suffered most as a result, Jews being the bestknown case. A first phase of Soviet language policy clearly favored pluralism for national and minority languages. In the late 1930s, a second phase emphasizing centralism as spelled out in terms of Soviet patriotism meant, in fact, an identification with Russian patriotism. After the repressive experience under Stalin, divergent views on language policy were once again aired under Khrushchev. Khrushchev developed a strategy of returning power to national languages and sought a balance between those who favored centralism through increased use of Russian and those who favored linguistic pluralism. Under Brezhnev, however, a return to a more centralizing view gained considerable ground. It is not altogether clear whether language policy under Gorbachev will emphasize this trend or not. What does appear from the Soviet experience, however, is that major social change cannot occur without the full participation of society and, in the case of the U.S.S.R., of a linguistically extremely diverse one at that. Regardless of one's ideological bias, it is difficult to refute the fact that early Soviet policy provided mass literacy in the native tongue and formal schooling, as well as entire administrative infrastructures, on a scale which remains unmatched elsewhere in the world. While the creation of territorial rights alongside the movement of populations to settle in these territories is frequently criticized, it could also be argued that many languages would have simply died out if that had not been the case, particularly in Central Asia. What has been seen is an enormous development of literature and publishing in all the languages of the Soviet Union. The tensions between the use of Russian as the most powerful language of international and inter-republic communication and the use of national languages will never be eliminated. These tensions will continue to be played out within already defined parameters which preclude the attempt to impose Russian as the "official" language of the U.S.S.R.

4. Personal Reflections On Official Language Policies If we were to agree with the original assessment made by E. Glyn Lewis regarding the primordial importance of tolerance in dealing constructively with the inevitable tensions of cultural and linguistic diversity, then we

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might go on to state that maintaining a language through the education system is a political act. The political act, according to Lewis, is conditioned by an understanding of the social and political consequences of its maintenance. It may be that those consequences are intended to foster a critical and open pluralism or that they are intended to segment and isolate groups in a larger society. These are some of the critical issues addressed in looking at language policies in several European countries. We have looked at a range of policies which begin with a resolutely monolingual intolerance for diversity to an equally resolutely multilingual setting in which the tension resulting from the strength of its lingua franca is omnipresent. Let us reexamine our initial set of three questions. First, is the cohesiveness of the country actually in jeopardy? As has been described here, the imposition of an official language beyond the tacit recognition of the fact that there is a dominant language has only occurred in monolingual policy situations in Europe, such as France, in order to create national unity and has in fact, had a seriously repressive effect on the actual linguistic diversity of that country. Is that the case in the United States as we near the end of the 20th century? Is the cohesiveness of the country at stake? Secondly, given the important role of migration both in the United States and Europe, has its nature and effect actually changed during this period of economic recession and political conservatism? Are migrants and minorities in the United States actually confined to segmented labor markets as in Europe, in which they are barred from extensive competition with nationals? If, in fact, there is little prospect for migrants to either compete in, or fully benefit from the host society, are there actually grounds for the legitimization of xenophobia and isolationism through legislating an official language? Finally, can a post-industrial society in an interdependent world, such as the United States, afford to take the step of an official language and still maintain that it is a model of democracy? Note * The views expressed in this paper are the responsibility of the author and in no way reflect those of the organization with which she is normally employed.

The Legislation of Bahasa Malaysia as the Official Language of Malaysia William G. Davey

1. Introduction Malaysia is a multiethnic and multilingual country; however, the Malaysian government has established one of these languages, Bahasa Malaysia, as the single official language of the country through the National Language Act. This act, originally passed in 1963, amended in 1967, and reviewed again in 1987, installed Bahasa Malaysia as the national and official language. The transition of Bahasa Malaysia from a regional lingua franca to an official language representing Malaysian nationhood has been relatively rapid, and it has been stressful on ethnic minorities. It is not particularly unusual or surprising that the Malaysian government took this step. National identity is often linked to a particular language. Fishman (1968: 6) points out that in the "absence of a common, nationwide, ethnic and cultural identity, new nations proceed to plan and create such an identity through national symbols.... It is at this point that a national language is frequently invoked (along with a national flag, a national ruler, a national mission, etc.) as a unifying symbol." National symbols are designed to move a population toward acceptance of a mythical national identity. Frequently, this process occurs to the detriment of minority language communities. Under such conditions, language policy may become a substantial barrier to national development. Kelman (1971: 21) argues that, while a national language may create a national identity, "deliberate use of language for national identity may — at least in a multiethnic state — have more disruptive than unifying consequences." This study reviews the process of legislating Bahasa Malaysia as the national and official language of Malaysia. While there is a compelling case for the establishment of a single national and official language, the value of the present National Language Act as a mechanism for promoting unity and efficiency can be seriously questioned. In fact, divisive effects can clearly be traced to the installation of Bahasa Malaysia as the official language.

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It is difficult to predict the long-term significance of the language issue on the lives of Malaysia's Chinese and Indian minorities. However, it is not difficult to perceive a dissonance. Kelman suggests that the long-term legitimacy of a national system must be predicated on the "extent to which it reflects the ethnic-cultural identity of the national population and the extent to which it meets the needs and interests of that population" (1971: 23). It can be argued that the language policies of Malaysia have produced ethnic tension and have effectively conferred lower status on ethnic minorities. The distinguished Malaysian linguist Haji Omar Asmah has characterized the implementation of the major national language programs as representative of the theory of "the carrot and the donkey"; she summarizes the government's attempt to develop an alternative social and behavioral structure as follows: The choice of Malay to be the national and official language as well as the main medium of instruction means the choice of a language of one particular ethnic group. Although all factors, be they historical, cultural, or linguistic, go to show that the choice was the most feasible, it is not easy to offset prejudices which are, in general, ethnic-flavored.... Acceptance has finally been obtained by utilizing facts, close to people's sensitivities, which touch on their economic and professional opportunities. In other words, people were won over to accept and learn the language not just by projecting national aspirations and the need for a national identity, but by utilizing the theory of the carrot and the donkey. Incentives for learning the language were offered in terms of opportunities in job recruitment, study grants, and bonuses. (1979: 3 0 - 3 1 ) This quote is representative of the position held by many among the Malay academic and government elite. To understand this perspective, it is necessary to explore several salient aspects of Malaysian history and world view. A historical perspective facilitates an understanding of the demographic issues, the impact of colonialism, and the emergence of Malaysian nationhood. The analysis of the Malaysian world view permits an understanding of several key philosophical assumptions surrounding the implementation of the national language policy.

2. Historical Perspectives For centuries, Malaysia has been a center for maritime trade. It is thought that migrants from China and Tibet settled the area more than 5,000

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years ago. The ancestors of modern day Malay populations appeared by 1000 B.C. and migrated from this base to other islands. These Malay peoples, combined with the aboriginal inhabitants, comprise what has been labeled bumiputra, or 'sons of the soil'. This distinction survives today and is a significant variable in the development of both national identity and national language policy. During the first century B.C., expanded trade led to contact with India and China, which resulted in Hindu and Buddhist influence. It was not until the thirteenth century A.D. that Islam appeared. After the conversion of the Malay rulers of Malacca, Islam spread rapidly and became the major religion of the bumiputra. While Portuguese, Spanish, and Dutch explorers had modest impact in the region, it was when the British arrived in the eighteenth century that European influence became prominent. British rule brought the usual trappings of colonial empire: Language, social systems, technology, and the infusion of English as the medium of instruction in the schools. Under the British, English, as well as the ethnic languages Malay, Chinese, and Tamil, were recognized for official purposes. The invasion of the Japanese marked the beginning of the decline of British influence. After World War II, the British founded the Malay Union, a unification of the Crown Colonies of Penan and Malacca with the Peninsular states, excluding Singapore. This action motivated the development of political parties, such as the United Malay National Organization. In 1948, political pressure caused the British to establish a system of autonomous states. The new Federation of Malaya resulted in a political alliance among Malay, Chinese, and Indian groups opposed to British rule. This alliance won independence in 1957. The alliance was significant because it set the tone for the citizenship and the language policies which were mandated by the new constitution. Citizenship was granted to all races and religions provided they supported the constitution which made Malay the national language, and: ... in return for the recognition that Malays were the bumiputras, 'sons of the soil', and as such were entitled to special privileges and rights... the non-Malays were granted major concessions on citizenship rights which would qualify non-Malays in Malaya to qualify for citizenship either by birth or by fulfilling requirements of residence, language and an oath of loyalty. (Datar 1983: 1 4 - 1 5 ) Bumiputra privilege as established by the Constitution provided for concessions in land, quotas in public service, educational grants and university positions, permits, and the like.

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3. Development of Language Policy Related to citizenship, significant compromises also were struck in the area of language. At the time of independence, the population was 49.78% Malay; 37.1% Chinese; and 11% Indian (Asmah 1979: 13). In general, there was little opposition to Malay as a national language. (Although from its inception, the concept of preference for Malays has been questioned by non-Malay minorities with regard to other bumiputra advantages). The constitution confirmed Malay as the national language but guaranteed the right to teach other languages, provided that they were not used for official purposes. Further, it gave the federal and state governments the right to support the general use of other languages. The constitution provided for a ten-year transition period, after which it was hoped that Malay would supplant English. In 1967, at the end of that ten-year period, the National Language Act was passed after considerable debate, by a vote of 95 to 11. The use of Malay as a symbol of national identity was generally supported by all. Interestingly, some opposition came from Malay groups who believed there was too little emphasis on Malay. In general, however, opposition came primarily from Chinese and Indian communities who argued that English, Chinese, and Tamil should also be given official status. This position was opposed by the Malay interests. Asmah summarizes the situation: It is then clear that controversies arising from the national language issue were not spurred on by the people's rejection of Malay as the national language, but rather of Malay as the official language and as medium of instruction. What people perceived as a symbol of identity was something quite different from a tool of communication and education. Hence, the national language, or Malay, was seen fit as a symbol, just like the national flag and the national anthem — a symbol that called for reverence and devotion to one's country. Any extension of the role of this language would not augur well for certain sections of the population, as this meant an extension of the changes of their behavior, social and verbal. (1979: 14) The selection of Malay as the national language was appropriate for several historical and cultural reasons. It was indigenous and the language of the majority; it was the traditional language of the Sultans; and over the centuries it had been used far and wide in maritime trade. But the argument for Malay as the sole official language is less persuasive. Malays contend that opposition is based on ethnic interests and chauvinism. They

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contend that a more fitting perspective would be to readily embrace the language and the concept of Malaysian identity, in essence, all that bumiputra represents.

4. Language as a Source of Conflict As an outsider looking into the complicated scene in Malaysia, I view the opposition less as chauvinism and more as an effort to protect basic cultural values. Although the language issue has been used as the symbol of ethnic division, the divisions go much deeper than language. One senses that the Malay intellectuals who support the Language Act and the corresponding extensions of the policy truly believe in the necessity of a single national and official language, the notion of bumiputra preference, and the dedication of the government to the eradication of ethnic divisions. They argue their position with consistency and integrity. The present analysis does not challenge the perceived legitimacy of their feelings toward their country, religion, or ethnicity. Rather, this paper suggests an alternative interpretation: The legislation of Bahasa Malaysia as the national and official language has contributed significantly to the inability of the Malaysian government to develop a strong national identity and unity. Fundamentally, concerns about language policy are secondary to concerns about citizenship, the right of language maintenance, and the basic definition of what national identity ought to be. In isolation, each difference in perception represents a stumbling block on the road to establishing national identity. Taken together, they represent a fundamental flaw in the Malaysian model.

5. Issues in Developing a Workable Policy While the alliance of pre-independence times presented a uniform voice, it was a unity derived from a dislike for the British rather than a cohesive policy orientation: The benefits of a consensus on independence far outweighed the diversity of ethnic positions. There was, and continues to be, agreement that the survival of Malaysia is the most salient issue. Critical to the development of national identity are the following factors: 1) definition of Malaysian identity; 2) development of parity among ethnic groups; 3) liberalization of language policy.

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5.1. Malaysian identity While a cultural definition of being Malay is provided in the constitution, the formal recognition of other major ethnic groups is absent. Constitutionally, being Malay means being Muslim, speaking Malay, and adhering to Malay customs and traditions. Datar discusses two differing perceptions of Malaysian identity: The former starts from the premise that Malays are the bumiputras, the sons of the soil, and therefore Malay culture must form the basis of Malaysian identity.... The symbols of the "Malaysian identity" are viewed by the majority of the non-Malay Malaysians as exclusive to the Malays and outside the periphery of the non-Malays. The Chinese and the Indians (with the exception of some Indian-Muslims) are all non-Muslims, and hence religion separates them. The Indians and Chinese take pride in the rich cultural heritage of their "countries of origin" and are reluctant to accept the "Malay" cultural base which creates a sense of alienation among the non-Malays. (1983: 22) The minorities envision what has been termed a "Malaysian Malaysia" where "people of all ethnic origins are equal and have equal rights, where linguistic and cultural identities of all ethnic groups are respected and allowed to merge in a 'Malaysian' identity" (Datar 1983: 22). Thus, the policies of bumiputra preference drive a wedge between races. The preoccupation with ethnicity and the promotion of Malay interests to the exclusion or detriment of minorities have promoted an artificial rivalry between groups. In fact, ethnic tension escalated into a bloody confrontation on May 13, 1969. In response, the Sedition Act of 1948 was amended in 1969 to prohibit media discussion about four issues: The Bahasa Malaysia language policy; the special rights of Malays; the special role of the sultans and other Malaysian royalty; and the citizenship policy toward non-Malays (Lent 1977: 35). Shortly thereafter, the government passed the Printing Presses Act of 1971 which prohibited inflaming communal hostility in the presentation of facts or pictures. The act was strengthened in 1974, giving the government the right to deny a license to a publication not owned by Malaysians. Restrictions on the free flow of information and the open discussion of salient language and ethnic issues are a severe impediment to the normalization of ethnic relations. It must be difficult to accept the status of immigrant, as many Chinese are forced to do, despite the fact that their family has been resident for several hundred years, and Malaysia is their country of birth. Equally, it

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must be difficult to hear that you are apathetic toward Malaysia, when significant positions of power and even the discussion of salient issues are denied you.

5.2. Ethnic parity Unlike most political systems, where political power is linked to economic standing, Malaysian politics is dominated by the economically subordinate Malays, while economic power is held by non-Malay races, notably the Chinese. Historian Lea Williams describes the Malays as having "experienced the disillusionment of staying poor as their native land grew ever richer. The emotional impact of that painful experience is still the prime driving force of politics in Malaysia today" (1976: 161). Policy has promoted the economic advancement of the Malay, and the acculturation of the non-Malay. The Malay viewpoint is "that democratic viability can be assured only when the Malays have caught up economically with the more affluent Chinese, and when non-Malays have demonstrated loyalty to the country by shedding expatriate attachments, most conspicuously by mastering and using the 'Malaysian' language — that is, Malay" (Williams 1976: 247). University of Malaya researcher Raymond Lee (1986) suggests that the development of superior:subordinate ethnic identities had moral overtones, and that the resulting conflict led to fixed ethnic group positions within the power structure. These relatively firm ethnic identities work against the formation of a national identity, and have, in fact, created several important symbols of separatism which serve to "heighten the cognizance of status differences between ethnic groups" (Lee 1986: 35). The riots of 1969; the mandating of Malaysian dress at the convocation of the Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) in 1978; the rejection of the establishment of the Chinese language Merdeka University in 1978; the disagreement about who founded Kuala Lumpur in 1980; and other religious and language conflicts illustrate the heightened differentiation of the ethnic groups (Lee 1986: 35 — 40). In all cases, one group gains prestige at the expense of the other. In the search for national identity, government policy has promoted assimilation rather than acculturation. For the Chinese, with such strong ties to their cultural past — combined with their superior economic position — it is doubtful whether true assimilation will ever occur.

5.3. Liberalization of language policy What Asmah has characterized as the theory of the "carrot and the donkey" — that is, providing incentives for complying with the govern-

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ment's language policy — has produced some concessions toward the growth of the Malay language. The metaphor of the donkey, one who is stubborn and difficult to motivate, seems apt in this case. Government policy, including language policy specifically, has forced non-Malays to give up, or at least subordinate, significant aspects of their cultural values. One wonders if a stronger atmosphere of acceptance would not be more effective in establishing a supportive climate for race relations. The present policy has caused the development of parallel education structures, and in many ways driven a wedge between groups, despite its goal of promoting unity and efficiency. A liberalization of policy would permit all groups to function equally, to maintain their own identity, and, most importantly, to devote more time to developing a strong Malaysian identity.

6. Conclusion Malaysia is a young country, faced with the difficult but important task of establishing a sense of national identity among an ethnically diverse citizenry. One of the key elements in this effort has been the establishment of Bahasa Malaysia as the only official language of the country. Rather than resulting in a sense of unity, however, this policy is seen as punitive by the ethnic minorities, a symbol of the favoritism enjoyed by the bumiputras. As a result, the minorities cling stubbornly to their traditional languages as a symbol of their own independence and loyalty to their cultural heritage. The case of Malaysia is instructive for language planning scholars in the United States. Malaysia has taught us that attempts to legislate monolingualism in a multilingual society through the institution of a single official language does not infuse national identity and unity. Rather, it produces serious tensions between groups. The official English movement has similar goals, suggesting that English is the glue that binds us as a nation. Some are skeptical of the ability of government to legislate unity and efficiency through the imposition of an official language. It is clear that the National Language Act in Malaysia has had a negative impact on the Chinese and Indian minorities. What is not clear in the United States is the impact of official English on bilingual education and on the civil rights of minority language citizens. This lack of clarity stems from the ambiguous nature of most official English legislation. Some have received the movement enthusiastically. For others, the official English movement represents racism and social alienation. The intense

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bipolar reaction has prompted many responses: Intellectual curiosity, political activism, and significant speculation concerning the educational, economic, linguistic, and social welfare of the ethnically and linguistically diverse population of our state and nation. Cases from around the world suggest that a more thorough evaluation of the impact of language legislation is essential. Attempts to legislate unity have consistently failed. Given the lesson Malaysia and other countries, it would appear that official English legislation is unlikely to contribute to the solution of the social, economic, and political problems facing the United States.

PERSPECTIVES ON THE SUCCESS OF THE OFFICIAL ENGLISH CAMPAIGN

Introduction One remarkable characteristic of the referenda sponsored by proponents of official English has been their high degree of success in the face of almost universal opposition by politicians, public figures, and the media. The most striking example is California, but the campaigns in Colorado and especially Florida have been similar. Even in Arizona, where the margin of victory was much narrower, it was still a victory which the great majority of public figures had opposed. The successful campaigns in California and Florida are the focus of this section. Earlier legislation restricting the use of languages other than English, the campaigns for official English amendments, and surveys of voter support for such legislation are discussed in the articles which follow. California was the first state in which U.S. English put a referendum before the voters. The voters' public perception of the ethnic groups in California is that they have remained identified with a language other than English. A number of studies indicate that this identification is not as strong in fact as public perception holds it to be (see Amastae, this volume). Nevertheless, since, in the arena of public policy, perception is reality, it is not surprising that U.S. English chose California for its first state proposition initiative, the campaign for Proposition 63, to declare English the official state language. Actually, Proposition 63 was not the first public effort at establishing official English policies. A statewide Proposition 38 in 1984 and a San Francisco Proposition "O" in 1983 both revealed voter opposition to bilingual ballots. The passage of these two pieces of legislation, in addition to others, also signaled to official English supporters that the state might be ready for an amendment declaring English the official language of the state. This section discusses the events of the successful passage of Proposition "O," the anti-bilingual ballot measure in San Francisco, and Proposition 63, the amendment to the state constitution requiring that no activity or policy be carried out by the state government which diminishes the status of English (see Appendix I). The passage of these bills in California is particularly important, not only because California has such a large number of people with non-English language backgrounds, but also because the state is known as a social and political trend-setting state in general and for its language policies supporting multilingual rights in particular.

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The major national organizations presently supporting the passage of official English legislation are U.S. English and English First. According to a past president of U.S. English, Linda Chavez, the goals of these two organizations are largely the same, the major difference being that U.S. English does educational outreach and political organization, whereas as English First is a lobbying organization.* In the lead article in this section, Stanley Diamond, one of the founding members of U.S. English and, for a time, its acting president, describes the role of that organization in the passage of Proposition 63. One of his major points is that passage of Proposition 63 was due to popular grass roots support; it was a referendum put before the voters, not legislation passed by the California legislature. The success of this strategy is of great concern to opponents, who are often capable of tabling or defeating bills in the legislature. This same referendum strategy has now been followed successfully in Arizona, Colorado and Florida. In Colorado and Florida, the referenda were especially successful, winning by margins of 60% to 40% and 84% to 16% respectively. For Florida, the grass roots nature of anti-bilingual legislation is discussed in Castro, Haun, and Roca. The Diamond article also lays out the arguments for official English. His article makes the claim that large numbers of immigrants are now refusing to learn English, unlike earlier groups. It also argues that bilingual ballots and bilingual education only help to perpetuate this problem. These are two issues that seem to generate strong support for the official English movement. The article by Nunberg supplies typical examples of the arguments that are made against such legislation. This article, which is Nunberg's testimony on Proposition 63 before the California state legislature verbatim, declares that such policies are unnecessary and that they are contrary to the traditional language policies of our "forefathers." It also discusses the problems in legislating language policy through examples from other countries. The papers of Woolard, Dyste, Castro/Haun/Roca, and Zentella all discuss voter attitude surveys. The article by Woolard discusses possible reasons for the passage of Proposition "O" in San Francisco prior to the passage of Proposition 63. San Francisco is considered a liberal area where one might reasonably expect voters to support multilingual voting rights. In fact, however, Proposition "O" passed handily. Woolard discusses some of the reasons why people came to support such legislation so enthusiastically. Her article draws many parallels to the later support of Proposition 63.

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Dyste, in the next article in this section, describes the support given to Proposition 63 by different voting groups in the state of California, including the ethnic minorities. Only the Hispanics voted against it, and even then not in overwhelming fashion. This widespread support has been of great concern to opponents. They often attribute it to a lack of information. Dyste points out that the majority of the voters in California are often neutral towards such propositions. It is really the people involved in the legislature and in certain organizations who are most strongly for or against. For most, the vote seems to have been a symbolic one, perhaps in an attempt, as Fishman (1988) suggests, to reestablish a sense of national pride (see Hudson-Edwards, this volume). An overview of the dynamics of the official English campaign in Florida is provided by Castro, Haun, and Roca. This article shows how similar underlying attitudes and economic forces were at work in both Florida and California in support of the official English movement. They also discuss the passage of earlier anti-bilingual legislation in Dade County, a precursor to Florida's 1988 official English campaign. Zentella's paper, partly based on surveys conducted in New York City, shows the degree to which voters can be affected by the way the official English issue is put to them, as well as the need for greater subtlety and precision in defining how various ethnic and social groups feel about the various issues associated with language legislation. Zentella, like Castro, Haun and Roca, demonstrates the need to distinguish among many language-use issues in order to understand the level of support for official English. Collectively, Dyste, Castro/Haun/Roca, and Zentella show that the same populations have responded differently to official English legislation. In all cases, Whites are more likely to be for such legislation and Hispanics against, but there is otherwise a wide range of regional attitudinal differences. The success of the state referenda for official English has been significant, as these articles demonstrate. The debate is still in an early stage, but the issues are becoming clearer and better defined as proponents and opponents learn what sways the population. Note * Linda Chavez provided this explanation at a reception for the Board of U.S. English in Phoenix, AZ, on January 29, 1988. The meeting was to kick off the movement to get an official English referendum on the November, 1988, Arizona ballot.

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U.S. English-California: Policy Statement "Language is a fundamental bond through which a people is held together. This bonding gives us harmony and unity. It permits debate in which all can take part. We can talk to each other, reach understandings or if we disagree, explore our disagreements and then resolve them, compromise them or agree to disagree. "Making English official deprives no one of any right to use and enjoy his or her ethnic heritage. All languages and cultures are precious in our history and are to be preserved and maintained. These are not, however, public responsibilities. They belong, as they have throughout our history, in homes, churches, private schools and ethnic celebrations. "Where linguistic unity has broken down, our energies and resources flow into tensions, hostilities, prejudices, and resentments. These develop and persist. Within a few years, if the breakdown persists, there will be no retreat. It becomes irrevocable, irreversible. Society as we know it can fade into noisy babel and then chaos. "Our common English language is critical for our unity and for our democratic functioning. Protecting it in the months and years ahead is a deep personal responsibility of all our citizens."

1. Introduction The preceding policy statement of U.S. English is what gives direction to the officers, directors, staff, the hundreds of active volunteers and the U.S. English membership. The national organization, U.S. English, was founded by former U.S. Senator S. I. Hayakawa in January, 1983, with 300 members. In December, 1987, U.S. English had a membership of 340,000. By December,

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1989, membership will, at the present growth rate, reach 450,000, making it one of the major public interest organizations in the country. The founding team, along with Senator Hayakawa, included Dr. John Tanton of Petoskey, Michigan; Mrs. Gerda Bikales of Washington, D.C.; Mr. Leo Sorensen of Oakland, California; and me, Stanley Diamond, of San Francisco, California. In the first meeting, the founders agreed that all officers and directors of the national organization must be multi-lingual or multi-cultural. That requirement remains today. U.S. English is a non-profit and non-partisan research and educational center. Its function is to encourage states to establish English as an official language and ultimately to pass a constitutional amendment declaring English the official language of the United States.

2. English Language Legislative Initiatives in California In California, three citizen initiatives between 1983 and 1986 attracted national attention. They dramatized the English language movement in California as well as in many states in the country. These were: 1. Proposition "O," an advisory initiative in San Francisco in 1983; 2. Proposition 38, a statewide advisory initiative in 1984; and 3. Proposition 63, a statewide constitutional amendment in 1986. The purpose of Proposition "O" was to solicit the opinion of voters in San Francisco on "ballots and voting materials in English ONLY." San Francisco at the time had trilingual ballots printed in English, Spanish and Chinese. The resulting vote was startling. In perhaps the most liberal and ethnically diverse city in the country, Proposition "O" won with 66% voter support. Republicans, Democrats and Independents alike supported the initiative, as did people from all socioeconomic levels and ethnic communities, including Hispanics and Asians (see, also, Woolard, this volume, eds.). Encouraged by the Proposition "O" victory, U.S. English decided to expand its horizons and proceeded with a statewide test of voter sentiment on bilingual ballots. 520,000 signatures were filed with the Secretary of State, and Proposition 38 was put on the ballot in November, 1984. Proposition 38 won in all 58 counties of the state with an overwhelming 72% of California voters supporting it. This result confirmed the increasing evidence that voters in California, and perhaps the country, were incensed with ballots in languages other than English. Moreover, this

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campaign, as well as the passage of the proposition, made the public aware that the issue was more than ballots. The real need was for an official language, and that language had to be English.

3. Proposition 63 "English as the official language of California," therefore, became the next major undertaking of U.S. English. For a fledgling organization with limited resources and no experience, the survival of U.S. English itself rested on the outcome of this test. In many meetings after the campaign, the following was frequently heard: "If we really had understood the costs, and complexity of a successful constitutional amendment initiative, we might well have abandoned an adventure on such dangerous seas." Anyway, knowing generally but not precisely where we were going, we set sail on January 23, 1986, for a rough ride. The constitutional amendment declared "English is the official language of California (emphasis added, S.D.)." Implementing and clarifying clauses were also included in the amendment itself (see Appendix, eds.). Why did U.S. English try a constitutional amendment and why an initiative? Prior to January, 1986, assemblyman Frank Hill of the California State Assembly, a state and national leader in the English language movement, had introduced Assembly Bill 201 in May, 1985. Bill 201 was a statute declaring English the official language of California. The bill came up for hearing before the Ways and Means Committee of the Assembly late in May, 1985. After about five minutes of testimony by Assemblyman Hill and me and after several interruptions by the Chairman, Committee Assemblyman Elihu Harris moved for a vote. It was immediately seconded and a vote called for by the Chairman. The bill was defeated, six ayes and four nays with nine votes required to move the bill to the Assembly floor. In answering my request for permission to complete my statement and for a fair hearing, Chairman Richard Alatorre pounded his gavel ending the hearing with, "I am from Mexico, I am bilingual, I find you and your bill offensive." This response made it clear that it would be difficult to get a bill through the assembly. Therefore, the logical next step was an initiative. A constitutional amendment in California requires 670,000 signatures. Through volunteers and the help of a contractor, ultimately 1,100,000 signatures were turned in to the Secretary of State, the second largest total in California history.

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The organization which distributed petitions, gathered signatures, handled media relations, and conducted daily operations was the "California English Campaign." Senator Hayakawa was Honorary Chairman, and I was Campaign Chairman. We were unpaid volunteers. The campaign " s t a f f ' consisted of one part time computer specialist who worked out of her home. The state office in San Francisco was a cold, dark, damp storage room rented to us by a supporter for $100 per month. Four volunteers manned two phones, counted signatures and filed petitions. The blowing of runny noses and a concert of hacking coughs were the normal sounds of the office. Senator Hayakawa, on his frequent visits to the office would ask, "Anyone who doesn't have a cold?" When a hand went up, the Senator would walk over, shake hands and say, "You must be new. Welcome aboard." In Southern California, with its approximately 12,000,000 inhabitants, the campaign organization was an answering machine. Messages were picked up daily. The media budget was zero. Not one cent was spent on television, radio or print. As one political consultant said, after a visit to the San Francisco office, "What you call an organization is not to be believed." Supporters of Proposition 63, in addition to the 110,000 members of U.S. English in California, were: The California Republican Party, California Republican Women Federated, American Legion, California Farm Bureau Federation, California State Grange, several hundred community groups and thousands of highly motivated volunteers who gathered signatures. Eight spokespersons, dedicated and trained, in addition to Senator Hayakawa and me, presented the positions favoring the amendment throughout the state. Arguments in support of the amendment were as follows: English, our language for over 200 years, was being eroded by other languages, particularly by Spanish. Examples of erosion were bilingual education that maintained the home language, and bilingual and trilingual ballots, that are divisive. Bilingual ballots are a disincentive to learn English. They are not necessary, are costly, and need to be eliminated. They are not necessary because only citizens can vote and citizens must either be born here or, if immigrants, have lived in the United States for five years and have passed an examination for fluency and literacy in English. Bilingual education needs to be fundamentally reformed to permit flexibility in teaching. Innovative ideas should be encouraged and tested. There should be local control over teaching methods, and teachers' counsel should be sought for program effective-

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ness and evaluation. The method of teaching non-English speaking children only in the child's native language was ineffective and in California a $500,000,000 annual waste.

4. Opposition to Proposition 63 The opposition to Proposition 63 was formidable. It was organized quickly with an umbrella organization called Californians United. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) seemed to lead the opposition. Other opposition organizations were the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), the Japanese American Citizens League, La Raza, a number of Chinese coalitions, the League of Women Voters, at least forty diverse ethnic and social organizations, and others having names but otherwise unidentified. In addition to these organizations, all leading public officials opposed Proposition 63. Governor Deukmajian, Lt. Governor McCarthy, Attorney General Van de Kamp, Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, and Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti all publicly stated their opposition. Moreover, all the major press in California except the San Francisco Examiner opposed the amendment. These newspapers included the Los Angeles Times', Los Angeles Herald Examiner, the San Diego Tribune; the San Diego Union; the San Francisco Chronicle-, the McClatchy newspapers; the Sacramento, Fresno and Modesto Bees; the Stockton Record; plus scores of other daily and weekly papers and magazines in the state. In addition, all major television channels and radio stations editorially opposed Proposition 63 — all. Our wry comment after each review of the daily media bashing was, "Well, relax, nothing exciting or new yesterday." Among the arguments presented by the opposition during debates, in press interviews, on the radio, and in press releases were the following: First, emergency services, among them the police and fire fighters, would not respond unless calls were in English; second, social services and hospitals would be banned to all who could not speak English; third, court translators and interpreters would be eliminated; fourth, courts would be flooded with lawsuits because all California residents would have a right to sue under the amendment passed; fifth, police would have authority to arrest non-English speaking persons; sixth, all signs of businesses would have to be in English; and lastly, names of cities, Los Angeles, San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, etc., would have to be

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changed to English. Some speakers said the city of Los Altos had already been changed to "The Heights." (This was a conscious lie.) Other such arguments were equally ridiculous, equally absurd. Voters, of course, did not believe such nonsense.

5. Public Support for Proposition 63 On November 4, 1986, the election day, Proposition 63 won with a stunning 73% of the vote. There were 5,016,556 voters supporting the English language amendment in all 58 counties in California, from all ethnic communities, and from all socio-economic levels. Republicans, Democrats, Independents, all supported Proposition 63 (see, also, Dyste, this volume, eds.). The victory was not only dramatic news in California but was the top story for much of the media nationally. Thirty-eight states sent telegrams, letters and phoned asking for details and for copies of the amendment. The expression of the voters in California, considering the massive opposition was, or should be, a powerful lesson to elected officials and to the media. Voters, when they feel deeply, will act on such feelings and will not forget those who attempted to mislead them. One month after the victory a statewide survey was conducted by the U.S. English staff to seek out reasons for support of the amendment. Several were most frequently heard. The first was that California was becoming fragmented. Ethnic communities, especially Hispanic ones, were not integrating into our society. An ethnic nationalism was replacing the unity of "Americanism." New immigrants did not have the sense of personal responsibility that immigrants had had in the past. Responsibility for learning the new language, English, and a responsibility for becoming part of the new society seemed to be lacking. In addition, ballots in languages other than English were a constant irritation. An often heard comment was, "Every time I see a ballot in Spanish or Chinese I get mad — what's happening to this country? You have to be a citizen to vote, you have to know English to become a citizen. So how come a special ballot in Spanish or Chinese?" And they would say, "I have to pay for these ballots. That's the final insult." There were frequent blasts of profanity along with the statements. Many voters expressed the view that English has been the language that has unified us through our 200 year history. They could talk to people wherever they lived in this country. Now, they were not so sure what would happen in Florida, Texas, California, Arizona, and New

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Mexico. Hispanics seemed to want two official languages and want their own customs and culture, not that of this country. Many said, in essence: "I don't object to other languages or customs. I like chile rellenos, burritos, sushi, won ton, ossum bucco and every pasta on the menu. Fine, preserve your languages and your cultures. But these are not my responsibility. They belong, if you want to keep them, in your homes, churches, private schools and your own celebrations. They're not my responsibility or that of my government." They also argued, "Our English language, because of our history, has some meaning for how we live. Our values, our freedom, our democracy itself is a part of our English language. It carries with it a sense of loyalty to our state and to our country. Our English language, in a fundamental sense, is US." In a similar vein, many Hispanics said things like: "Our elected Hispanic leadership doesn't represent us. They want us kept in our barrios so they can stay in power. We need new Hispanic leadership, elected officials who want us educated, assimilated and becoming a part of our new country." The arguments presented by the opposition also came in for their share of criticism. "No 911 emergency services, no social or welfare services, business restrictions, changing names of cities — nobody believed such garbage. I knew they were lying and they lost my vote before they finished their speeches!" Lastly, bilingual education was bitterly criticized by parents, teachers and the children themselves. Many people felt that immigrant children should be in English speaking settings within one year, perhaps slightly longer, certainly not three, four, six or more years after they started school. They worried about children hearing Spanish daily in classes. Parents of children from English speaking homes were particularly critical. "My child should be reading and writing English, not sitting in the back of the room doodling while a teacher teaches in Spanish in the front of the room." Parents of Hispanic children also said, "I want my child to learn English now. We speak Spanish at home. He doesn't have to have it at school." Parents and teachers are close to revolt at the continuing teaching of children in Spanish and calling it a method of acquiring English proficiency.

6. Future U.S. English Programs Did the passage of Proposition 63 end the language struggle? Not at all. In January, 1987, two months after the passage of the amendment,

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ignoring the 73% vote of the people, State Assemblymen and Senators introduced nine bills that would have crippled any implementation of the amendment. The effect of these bills included: Making investigation of complaints difficult, placing decision-making for filing of suits on agencies of the state or on the legislature itself, calling for expensive studies of language needs that would duplicate other studies, calling for a continuation of ineffectual bilingual education methods, and requiring document translations that would have been both expensive and a continuation of the bilingualism goal of the opposition. Through the leadership of Assemblyman Frank Hill, these bills were either defeated on the Assembly floor or vetoed by Governor Deukmajian. U.S. English representatives appeared in opposition to all these bills at committee hearings. I personally presented testimony at 24 hearings during the 1987 session. What lies ahead? There are signs of progress. Even though the opposition of Californians United continues with forums, conferences, and political pressure on legislators, other legislators who were opposed to U.S. English are becoming cautious in their attacks. In 1988, only two bills were introduced that were troublesome. Both are, at the moment, off the calendar (see the introduction to this section for an update, eds.). One U.S. English project that has the enthusiastic support of the education community and the Hispanic community is a "teaching English to immigrant adults" program in Southern California. The project was organized and is directed by Barbara Kaze, U.S. English Regional Director in Los Angeles. Foundations and U.S. English have pledged $650,000 for a startup of the program through radio and television. The second program involves on-site teaching to employees at factories, shops, and hotels without charge to employers or employees. It is directed by Fernando de la Pena of the Cambria Institute. The third program consists of cassettes, distributed without cost, that teach survival language. How to deal with emergencies, shopping, asking directions, and elementary conversation are taught through these cassettes. These are given to churches, United Way agencies, community centers and to selected individuals. This project is extremely popular in Southern California. As funding increases, the project will expand throughout California and to other states. The funding goal is $2,000,000 with partial contributions by U.S. English. Nationally, Florida, Arizona, and Colorado have initiatives in progress to establish English as the official language of their states (and all three passed, eds.). Texas has just completed an advisory vote on the English language issue with 92% in support of the resolution. Thirty-five states

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have the issue on their agendas for 1988 and 1989. Action by the U.S. Congress and court tests lie ahead. The will of our citizens throughout the country is quite clear. English must be the official language of the United States and the only official language. Time and perseverance will inevitably bring the will and the voice of the people into the law of the land.

Testimony before the State Legislature on California Proposition 63* Geoffrey

Nunberg

I want to make a few remarks about Proposition 63 from my perspective as a linguist, and in particular as someone who has devoted a lot of time to studying and writing about the English language. I want to concentrate on making two points. First, measures like Proposition 63 fly in the face of everything we have learned about the processes of language shift and acculturation. And second, Proposition 63 demeans some of the basic traditions of the English-speaking world. I do not think it would be going too far to say that the U.S. English movement represents a greater threat to the English language than any group of immigrants could possibly pose. I will start with the lessons of history. It is beyond doubt that people will learn a new language when they perceive the economic and social advantages of doing so. And if they do not want to change to a new language, legal measures are not going to do any good. Let me give you some examples. In Spain, Franco banned the use of Catalan, the language of the area around Barcelona, for more than 40 years. By the time of his death, there were more speakers of Catalan than ever before. The Polish language was submerged for two hundred years, but when the Polish state was established after World War I, lo and behold! there was a whole nation still speaking the language. Or you could look at what happened to English after the Norman Conquest, when French was made the language of justice, administration, and literature. For a period of about three hundred years, in fact, we have almost no records in English at all — if that were all the evidence there were, you would think that the language had utterly disappeared. It is only when English re-emerges in the fourteenth century that we realize that people had been using it all along. Of course, sometimes you can impose a language in this way, if you go at it hard enough and long enough. For a number of centuries, it was actually illegal to use Gaelic in Ireland. (In fact, the use of Gaelic is restricted to this day in Northern Ireland.) And of course the English finally succeeded in establishing English as a common language in Ireland

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(see Hudson-Edwards, this volume, eds.). But the imposition of English scarcely resulted in an increased sense of British unity, or of loyalty to the Crown. Now of course these situations are not like ours, in that people did not want to acquire the language that was being forced on them. But even in situations in which people do want to acquire the new language, we find that attempts to impose it officially invariably backfire. Not only do they wind up creating political turmoil and disunity, but they often actually slow down the spread of the national language. Take the example of the Soviet Union, where Russian is the native language of less than 60 per cent of the population. The use of Russian has been spreading ever since the Revolution, particularly among people who want to rise in the system or the party. But in the 1950s the Soviets began to get worried about the growth of non-Russian minorities, many of whom have much higher birthrates than the Russians do. They said to themselves, "We had better make sure that these people all speak Russian, in the interest of national unity." So they took a number of steps, such as restricting the use of languages other than Russian in higher education in certain republics. The result was that in areas like Soviet Georgia there were mass demonstrations protesting the policy. Now I think you can appreciate that the Soviet Union is not a place where people get together and demonstrate whenever somebody closes a neighborhood school. In fact, the Soviets have had to back off some from their schedule of "russification," as they call it. What they learned is that while people are willing to learn Russian, they do not like being forced to do so. Or take the case of Sorbian, a Slavic language spoken in Eastern Germany. Hitler was so concerned that the Sorbians should become German-speaking that he actually instituted a policy of requiring Sorbian parents to hire German-speaking maids. When the communists came to power after the war, they discovered that the number of Sorbian speakers had increased. They took a diametrically opposite line on the language — they encouraged the use of Sorbian, and established Sorbian schools. The result was that the use of Sorbian fell off drastically. This might seem surprising, but here again you have to realize that the Sorbians really did want to learn German, but felt compelled to resist the imposition of German from outside. Now let me turn to English itself. From the eighteenth century on, one thing that has made English almost unique among the major Western languages is that we have had a sharp separation between language and state. The French have an official academy and a society charged with

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encouraging the use of French abroad, but both the English and later the Americans have explicitly rejected this sort of approach. As the great lexicographer Samuel Johnson put it, any attempt to establish an official basis for the language must be destroyed by "the spirit of a free people." And his American counterpart, Noah Webster, who realized better than anyone else the importance of linguistic unity in forging a single nation, opposed any state interference in matters of language. Instead, these men argued that language use should be a matter of individual choice, precisely because they had faith that citizens would agree on language standards out of their own free will. This was the view adopted by the framers of our Constitution, who debated and rejected proposals to make English an official language (Marshall 1986). This policy has been vindicated in the face of tests much more severe than anything we face today. We tend to lose sight of the fact that the use of foreign languages was much more common in the nineteenth century than it is now. Bilingual education was common, and the U.S. Commissioner of Education could write in 1870 that "the German language has actually become the second language of our Republic, and a knowledge of German is now considered essential to a finished education." In reaction, certain states tried to impose English by official means, particularly in the early years of this century, when xenophobic sentiment was at a high (often, these measures were coupled with attempts to restrict foreign immigration). In 1923, for example, the Nebraska legislature made it illegal to give instruction to primary-school students in any language other than English, and the law was upheld by the state supreme court, which held that such instruction would "inculcate in [students] the ideas and sentiments alien to the best interests of this country" (see Weinstein, this volume, eds.). Fortunately, the law was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court on grounds of the Fourteenth Amendment. Of course, this all seems silly now. The children and grandchildren of earlier immigrants are proficient in English, and the pockets of bilingualism that still exist — among the Pennsylvania Dutch, the Cajuns, or the Finns of Michigan's Upper Peninsula — are the pride of local tourist commissions. And I assure you that fifty years from now, Proposition 63 is going to appear just as absurd as the Nebraska law of 1923. The trouble with movements like the U.S. English group is that they lose sight of the enormous cultural and economic appeal of English, which have made it the most widely-used language in the world, without the help of official support.

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Let me sum up my objections to this proposition. When you start to pass laws to protect English, you send off two signals. The first is to speakers of other languages; you tell them, in effect, that they must give up their native tongues. And they react as anyone would; they begin to see the measure as an attack on their group identity, and it becomes a point of pride with them to resist and to keep using their original language. But the second signal is even more pernicious. You say to English speakers: "Our language is not rich enough or strong enough to win speakers on its own; it needs to be bolstered by the full force of state authority" (Zeydel 1964: 345, as quoted in Heath 1981: 13). This is the mark of groups that have lost faith in the power of their language — people like the French and Italians, for example, who have enacted laws to restrict the use of English words in their newspapers. Whereas the wonderful thing about English, and particularly American English, is that we have not felt the need to protect our language against foreign influences. Take such "all-American words" as nix, bum, kibitzer, phooey, hoosegow, buckaroo, barbecue, stampede, tycoon, chow, pizza, canoe, skunk and succotash. What these words have in common is that they have all been taken into English from the languages of immigrants or native American groups. Now I do not know whether Proposition 63 would have the effect of actually preventing the official use of further loan words of this sort. But the important thing is not that, but rather that the "English language" that the proposition purports to protect is actually an amalgam of tongues, and that this enrichment has been possible precisely because English-speakers have had enough confidence in the strength and flexibility of their language to resist the temptation to try to protect it. For the sake of the English language, then, if for nothing else, I urge voters to reject the amendment. Note * Verbatim testimony before the California State Legislature, September 29, 1986. See also Nunberg (1989), eds.

Voting Rights, Liberal Voters and the Official English Movement: An Analysis of Campaign Rhetoric in San Francisco's Proposition "O"* Kathryn A.

Woolard

1. Introduction In November, 1986, the voters of California passed Proposition 63 with a nearly 74% approval rate, making English the official language of the state and directing the legislature to "make no law which diminishes or ignores the role of English." Behind that ballot initiative was an official English movement that had built successful campaigns around more limited issues in the preceding years. In 1984, the state's voters passed Proposition 38, voicing disapproval of bilingual election materials and voting procedures. That referendum in turn was an echo of San Francisco's Proposition "O," a 1983 voter initiative that directed that city's officials to urge the federal government to amend the Voting Rights Act so that the city and county of San Francisco would no longer be required to provide election materials in any language other than English. The approval of Proposition "O" with 62% of the votes signaled the beginning of the wider campaign against official uses of languages other than English. Both Proposition 38 and Proposition "O" were non-binding, since federal legislation does not derive its authority from local voters. Therefore, many counties throughout the state still used bilingual election materials at the time of Proposition 63. Various observers agree that, along with bilingual education, bilingual ballots were the major target of California's Proposition 63 (Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1986b, I: 1,29 —30).1 In his comprehensive review of attempts at an English Language Amendment in the United States, David Marshall has said that "of all the... issues of the ELA, multilingual voting seems to engender more anger than any other. If the ELA is a powder keg, multilingual ballots are the fuse" (1986: 69). One important route of access for understanding what is at issue in the ELA campaign, then, is through an examination of the more specific battle of bilingual balloting. In an effort

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to clarify some puzzling aspects of the official English movement, I will discuss here the 1983 campaign for San Francisco's Proposition "O," and the ideological themes that made it successful. To some observers, and especially to opponents, the purpose of the official English movement seems quite obvious; they see it as "really" motivated by a deeper anti-minority and anti-immigrant sentiment, which in turn is rooted in economic interest, or racism, or both: "The elimination of the bilingual ballot is an anticultural and racist attempt to silence our voice and vote" (Tiempo Latino, editorial, October 12, 1983). While there is little doubt that xenophobia plays an important role in these referendums, this explanation alone does not seem entirely adequate to account for the high approval rates, particularly in areas like San Francisco which are generally known for liberal voting patterns. Perhaps what needs to be questioned is San Francisco's mythic liberalism, but many people are taken by surprise when they learn that the voters of that city were the first to approve one of the new generation of anti-bilingual measures. In the following sections of this paper, I will describe the events that led up to Proposition "O," as well as the campaign itself. I will then turn to an analysis of campaign materials and of interview data in order to identify the themes that resonated throughout the debate. 2 Although we cannot divine how individual voters understood the issue, it is possible to see how multilingual elections were presented in campaign literature as a "public problem" to be solved (Gusfield 1981). By closely examining the printed texts — campaign flyers, editorials, columns, the Voter Handbook — that carried the messages of the debate, we may find elements that help us reconcile the more surprising aspects of this political event. From this examination, I will argue that Proposition "O" usually was presented as fulfilling, rather than violating the principles of a liberal political agenda, and that this presentation may account for its appeal to liberal voters.

2. Background of Prop "O" The federal legislation that was targeted in Prop "O" was the 1975 amendment to the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which extended the protection of that civil rights legislation to "language minority groups." In the 1975 amendment, the definition of "tests and devices" (in 1965, primarily literacy tests) banned by the Act was broadened to include monolingual English ballots for minority-language voters. The new law specified that

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wherever 5% of the voting-age citizens of a political subdivision were members of a "single language minority," and where the illiteracy rate of this minority language group was higher than the national average, election materials were to be provided in that language until August, 1985.3 Congress set forth its reasoning on this point. It found that voting discrimination against language minority citizens is pervasive and national in scope; that such minorities have been denied equal access to education, resulting in severe disabilities in English; and that the practice of providing election materials only in English therefore excludes language minority citizens from participating in the electoral process (1975 Voting Rights Act, Section 4(f)(1)). In 1976, the Bureau of the Census released its identification of counties subject to the new requirement. San Francisco was found to have, out of a total 495,099 voting age citizens, 5.1% Chinese, of whom 15.7% were considered illiterate, and 8.9% of Spanish heritage, of whom 6.7% were illiterate. Trilingual election materials — registration forms, ballots, and Voter Information Pamphlets (free pamphlets provided by the Registrar of Voters, with sample ballots, explanations of initiatives, and paid arguments) — were thus mandated for San Francisco at least until 1985. The Census Bureau's determination was not the real turning point for San Francisco's election process. Minority organizations claimed that the measures taken by the Registrar of Voters were inadequate, and in 1978 the U.S. Attorney filed charges of non-compliance against San Francisco in Federal District Court. The suit was settled under a consent decree that specified extensive procedures to be implemented by the Registrar and monitored by the court. The incumbent Registrar of Voters was removed after charges of racism surfaced, and replaced by an Assistant Registrar who appeared more sympathetic to the bilingual provisions. The struggle thus appeared to have been brought to a successful conclusion. In a 1981 report on the implementation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Commission found that, of all the counties consulted across the nation, only in San Francisco did representatives of minority organizations perceive that local election officials were trying to implement adequately the minority language provision (U.S. Civil Rights Commission 1981: 82).

3. P r o p " O " The petition drive to place Prop "O" on the ballot was initiated in July, 1983, by San Francisco Supervisor Quentin Kopp, a conservative

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Democrat with a large constituency in the White, upper-middle-class areas of the city. The recently established U.S. English organization quickly joined forces with Kopp. Working primarily at shopping centers in White, middle class areas, the organization garnered 14,400 signatures in less than a month. The Registrar of Voters certified the validity of 12,400 of these signatures, well above the 9,679 needed to place the measure on the ballot. The Committee for Ballots in English which orchestrated the Prop "O" campaign, and the coalition of minority and civil liberties organizations that opposed it, each had small budgets of under $30,000. Although both sides used direct mailings and phone banks targeted at areas of likely support, the limited budgets led them to rely primarily on the free public media and on public meetings to get their messages across. The November election results were within 5 or 6 points of a poll commissioned in early September by the anti-"0" forces. Organizers on both sides agreed that very little change of opinion was created by the campaign efforts, and that the campaign was best viewed as having mobilized existing sympathies. Only 45.9% of registered voters went to the polls. Although the mayor was up for re-election, there were no serious challengers, and other offices were not hotly contested. Prop "O" and an anti-smoking initiative drew the most attention in this election. Of those attending the polls, 92% cast votes on Prop "O," and the measure was approved with 62% of those votes. It was not surprising to local commentators that "O" carried the city's high income areas and particularly the "West of Twin Peaks" neighborhood that constitutes Kopp's territory. On the other hand, Prop "O" was rejected in the Chinese areas and the Latino area of the Mission, although by a remarkably narrow margin. 4 But only in one other identifiable neighborhood, Haight-Ashbury, then still the home of many newleft radicals, was there a clear-cut rejection of Prop "O" (61%). Dismaying to the anti-"0" forces was the failure of typically liberal and progressive neighborhoods to oppose the measure. This failure was of particular concern because the anti-"0" campaign had relied heavily on the endorsements of leading politicians. Among the public supporters it had enlisted were Mayor Dianne Feinstein, almost all of the City Supervisors other than Kopp, the Democratic County Central Committee, all the Democratic clubs, including the Gay and Black organizations, and the powerful speaker of the California Assembly, Black politician Willie Brown. Feinstein was re-elected with ease, but she and other leaders

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neither reflected nor shaped their constituents' perception of the Prop "O" issue. The measure carried in normally progressive neighborhoods such as Eureka Valley and Potrero Hill. Election analysts calculated that gay as well as Black areas of the city failed to take a stance against "O," with 51% of those voters supporting the measure (Binder 1983). These same neighborhoods had passed another proposition, N, expressing disapproval of Reagan's military policy in El Salvador, with margins ranging from 60% to 76%, so it is not simply the case that the progressive voter did not turn out for this election.

4. The Themes of Prop "O" I have examined the pro-Prop "O," anti-bilingual campaign material and related newspaper editorials using techniques of discourse analysis to identify recurring themes (Agar 1983; Quinn 1987). Several themes appear in a number of texts; each is given below with an example: 1. Cost: "Bilingual ballots waste scarce tax dollars" (Voter Information Pamphlet [hereafter, V.I.P.], 72). 2. Logic: "Knowledge of English is already required for citizenship, which is a prerequisite to vote" (V.I.P., 73). 3. Unfairness: "Immigrants in the past felt it a duty and a privilege to learn English" (V.I.P., 73). 4. National unity: "A common language is the basis of American nationhood" (San Francisco Chronicle editorial, November 1,1983). 5. Full life: "The individual who fails to learn English is condemned to semi-citizenship, condemned to low pay, condemned to remain in the ghetto" (Guy Wright, San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, November 6, 1983). 6. Hinder English acquisition: "The provisions prolong English illiteracy" (V.I.P., 71). 7. Uninformed voter: "It is questionable whether a non-English-speaking voter can form an opinion and cast an intelligent vote" {Bay Area Reporter, November 3, 1983). 8. Ethnic bossism: "Multi-lingual ballots encourage political bossism" (Sun Reporter, November 2, 1983). Three of these themes, 'ethnic bossism', 'uninformed voter', and 'full life' were tied to each other and to the stated goal of Prop "O," the abolition

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of multilingual elections, in a complicated argument structure. In the rest of this paper, we will take a closer look at what is involved in this construction. Example (1), below, is taken from an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, the major daily morning newspaper, which endorsed Prop "O." The excerpt represents the uninformed voter and bossism themes in the most dispassionate tone using the least inflammatory rhetoric of all the texts: 1) Non-American born citizens should, thus, be able to comprehend a ballot printed in English. If they cannot, they go to the polls unable to even understand what candidates have been saying, a poor basis on which to exercise electoral judgment. This situation, it seem to us, presents a potential danger which far exceeds the mere irritation of the multilingual ballot. In close elections, a candidate might prevail only because he has assembled the largest number of poorly-informed and incompetent voters. (San Francisco Chronicle, November 1, 1983) A basic inferential chain linking the uninformed voter-ethnic bossism themes is developed here, although it is not made fully explicit. There are several enabling but unstated assumptions in the Chronicle's argument: That English is the language of political information, that legitimate contestants for political power conduct their campaigns in English, and that print is the medium of campaign information (or, alternatively, that lack of literate proficiency in English entails lack of oral/aural proficiency). In contemporary American politics, the third assumption is particularly unwarranted, since it ignores the much-vaunted impact of television and radio, as well as the public meetings and door-to-door campaigning that are typical of local elections. In the development of the ethnic bossism theme on the foundation of these implicit assumptions, it is reasoned that citizens who need to use non-English ballots must, therefore, be uninformed voters. It is then asserted that uninformed voters are easy prey for unscrupulous candidates capable of "assembling voters," quite as if, in the logic implied by the familiar machine metaphor of politics, assembling meant fabricating them. Left unstated is the basis for inferring that abolishing bilingual ballots will put an end to this perceived danger. Thus, important chunks of the argument are absent, whether simply taken for granted or intentionally suppressed, and additional terms are logically necessary to motivate the final conclusion, namely, that bilingual balloting should be eliminated.

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That this conclusion was not fully warranted was acutely apparent to opponents of Prop "O," who were infuriated by what they saw as the absurdity and inconsistency of the argument, and the inability of the voters to recognize it. One attempt to point out this inconsistency is given in example (2), taken from a statement by J. Avila of MALDEF, from the California Living section of the San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle'. 2) Opponents of the use of bilingual voting materials claim nonEnglish speakers can't vote intelligently because they can't understand election debates in the mass media. No better rationale exists for the bilingual voter pamphlet. It provides full information on both sides of the issues — much of which is absent even in the English-language press. (San Francisco Sunday Examiner & Chronicle, October 16, 1983) Thus, in the argument constructed by Avila and his sympathizers, abolishing bilingual election materials would actually eliminate a major source of unbiased information and thus contribute to, rather than diminish, the perils of uninformed voting. A way that abolishing bilingual election materials could be construed as solving rather than exacerbating the uninformed voter problem is if two additional elements are supplied as part of the argument: 1) that uninformed voters should not be allowed to vote, regardless of their citizenship, and 2) that restoring the monolingual ballot will effectively bar that participation. This is of course the implicit argument and agenda that opponents of Prop "O" discerned in the initiative. If the thrust of Prop "O" is indeed to restrict access to the vote, it is not surprising that these terms of the argument would be suppressed. The full argument is open to legal challenge as unconstitutional; moreover, it would be difficult to find convincing backing for the proposition that "unqualified" voters would be prevented from voting by monolingual English ballots. However, the opposition was not free to attack this weak link since a similar proposition is central to its own argument for bilingual ballots. In example (3), a Pro-"0" text explicitly rejects the premises I have suggested as implicit but unexpressed in the nexus of the uninformed voter-ethnic bossism themes: 3) Private assistance has been traditionally afforded by family members, friends, political parties and various associations. The bilingual provisions, however, require that, under given conditions,

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governmental assistance be provided to a select group of language minorities.... "O" would NOT prevent citizens from exercising the right to vote.... An informed vote assumes an understanding of the English-only debate waged in this arena on issues and candidates. To assume less reduces the value of the independent vote and renders the voter easy prey for ward-type manipulators. (Voter Information Pamphlet, 73) To the pro-bilingual advocates, arguments like that of (3) were patently self-contradictory. The tacitly approved "private assistance... traditionally afforded by... political parties and various associations" is the same "ward-type manipulation" condemned in the next paragraph. Since the contradiction seemed too gross to be ignored, Anti-"0" activists insisted that the disclaimers must be false, and that the intention of the proposition really was to deprive minority citizens of the right to vote. Their insistence that the "O" position was either illogical or unconstitutional, however, fell on deaf ears. From the anti-"0" point of view, it appeared either that 62% of the usually fairly progressive voters of San Francisco advocated depriving some citizens of their constitutional right to vote, or that they were unable to spot gaping holes in the "Englishonly" argument even when these were pointed out to them. However, there are other processes at work that offer an alternative explanation for the failure of the anti-"0" campaign to get its message across. The uninformed voter-ethnic bossism link to bilingual ballots, as developed in these campaign texts, is based on a figurative rather than linear logic, and figurative language depicts the proposed political action not as revoking rights but as an act of liberation. The important figures of speech at work here include metonym as well as metaphor. Political bossism is associated with immigrants who speak foreign languages, through the implicit argument structure outlined above. Then the languages themselves become a metonym, that is, a term used in an associative, symbolic sense, substituting for the whole ensemble of bosses and immigrants. Because the languages are functioning metonymically, on the basis of association, an attack on bossism can seemingly be carried out through an attack on those languages. For some voters, it may not be non-English languages that are the target of Prop "O," nor immigrant voters themselves, but ethnic political leaders. This metonymic structuring is essential to the Prop "O" argument, but equally powerful is a recurring metaphor in the representation of the

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uninformed voter-ethnic bossism themes, a metaphor of imprisonment. Both the metaphor itself and the contradiction it hides are displayed in example (4), an excerpt from a taped interview with the head of the Committee for Ballots in English: 4) KAW: And you see them [multilingual election materials] primarily as disincentives to learning English? R: There are two things: Disincentives to learning English and ... certain Hispanic leadership who strongly support bilingual ballots in Spanish. They want the core constituency, for their own political ambition, Spanish-speaking. There're a number of them who're very happy to have the Hispanics stay in the barrio, keep them there, their only language is Spanish. 'We will tell you how to vote.' Now this can and is becoming an increasingly serious problem in California. And we have enormous numbers of the Hispanics, in the millions, we don't even know, if we count the illegals. Here's another thing we're very much afraid of, and I may get into this, at least officially, telling the U.S. Attorney and telling the Attorney General, this is unconfirmed, I can't verify this, but the city of Oxnard, until the last election, fifty percent of that vote were illegals, undocumented. Fifty percent. KAW: How would that have happened ? R: Uh, this is really pretty simple, you get the leader, there are many who are in and around on the farms, they're Hispanic, so the Hispanic leader, he gets them all in the house or in the barn and he says, 'I'm going to pass out some pieces of paper, you sign them and put your address in, and I'll put them in for you.' These are absentee ballots, then they go to the registrars or the county clerks of whatever county they are in, and the ballots come back in time of election to whomever these people are, get them back in the same barn or the same room in the house and mark all their ballots, send them back in. Easy, [pause] Nothing to it, in California, [pause] First to get, first to get an absentee ballot, and you make it out. KAW: If that is a problem... do you think that the fact that the materials are bilingual makes any difference to that process? In other words could you stop that process of make a dent in it by having monolingual ballots? R: Probably not. ... (July 25, 1984)

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As in earlier texts, we see an associative semantic relation at work here, this time with the Spanish language conjuring images of illegal aliens, even though Prop "O" has little to do with illegal aliens. Moreover, we also find an important metaphor of imprisonment in this striking exposition. Hispanics are "kept in the barrio" by the leaders. The imprisonment image becomes quite literal in the hypothetical sequence with illegal aliens: In order to politically exploit workers, leaders corral them physically, "get them all in the house or in the barn" and then "get them back in the same barn ..." again. The imprisonment metaphor enters explicitly in example (5), excerpted from a statement that appeared under the name of Quentin Kopp, the Supervisor who introduced the initiative, in a polictical supplement to the Bay Area Reporter. 5) Without an impetus to learn English, it is far too easy to become sequestered in a language prison, a prison that many politicians attempt to perpetuate, manipulate and control. Bilingual voting is the classic retreat from integration. For two centuries ethnic groups have fought to be included, to be integrated into American society. Now, this integration is being broken down, piece by piece, with the illusion that bilingual voting is beneficial. Without the ability to speak our language, an individual is forced to follow the tenets of self-appointed leaders of that minority. There is no choice. Information from other sources cannot penetrate the language barrier. {Bay Area Reporter, November 3, 1983) The same metaphor of imprisonment echoes in texts that develop a related theme, the full life theme, as can be seen in example (6), excerpted from an article by Guy Wright which appeared in the San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle: 6) ... the individual who fails to learn English is condemned to semicitizenship, condemned to low pay, condemned to remain in the ghetto ... (San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle, November 6,1983) In the campaign for Proposition 63 three years later, similar rhetoric appeared, showing both the links between the two referendums, and that the "language prison" theme was considered a persuasive one. For example, The Los Angeles Times reported that California Assemblyman Frank Hill charged some Latino leaders with wanting to control Latino communities by keeping people in "a language ghetto, a language barrio, where they're out of touch with the common language of this country" (Los Angeles Times, October 12, 1986b, I: 1,29-30).

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In a great number of campaign-related texts, we find "politicians," "self-appointed leaders," "ward-type manipulators," and "political scoundrels" "commanding," "manipulating," "imprisoning," the "ethnic groups," "minorities," "inarticulate voters," and "citizens." For example, the following from an editorial in a well-established Black newspaper, the Sun Reporter. 7) ... multi-lingual ballots encourage political bossism, which means bloc voting, and there are many political scoundrels who are seeking large blocs of inarticulate voters who will vote just as the scoundrels command them to vote. (Sun Reporter, November 2, 1983) In these representations, Prop "O" becomes not an attack on minority rights, but a crusade to liberate minorities from minority leaders and protect their "real" rights and interests. Language is the prison, or the bars on the prison, and it is minority leaders who are the jailers. In this metaphorical line of reasoning, it follows that to release the imprisoned, the language barrier must be removed. Without prison bars, the jailers will be out of a job. Removing the offending languages from the ballot is presented symbolically as a move toward freeing the minority-language citizens. The prison image also seems to suggest what may be a more deeply and generally held tenet of linguistic chauvinism: That English is a vehicle of pure information, while other languages are obfuscating cloaks, vehicles of manipulation. "Truth" is more likely to come in transparent English, free of the seductive packaging of foreign languages. This implication, that, in contrast to others, English speakers enjoy transparent communication, is comparable to the naive belief we all hold that we don't have accents, only others do. In its initial design in 1975, the multilingual ballot was devised to give a political voice to so-called language minorities. Congress asserted that minorities have been barred from full participation through devices manipulated by entrenched powers. The discriminatory "device" then was the monolingual ballot, and the prescription for redress was the bilingual ballot. In 1983, the rhetoric of the Prop "O" campaign recast that same bilingual ballot as a means of robbing minority members of their voice; those who use bilingual ballots have become "inarticulate voters," in the words of the Sun Reporter. The same argument was called into play in 1983 as in 1975; namely, that minorities are being barred from full participation through devices manipulated by entrenched power. Only now it was the bilingual ballot that was the discriminatory "device," the monolingual ballot the liberating redress, and ethnic rather than Anglo political elites the

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entrenched abusers of power. Identifying this echo of a familiar, liberal American argument in the Prop "O" campaign makes interpretable the support the measure found among traditionally more liberal districts of San Francisco. This structuring of the issue proved to be extremely effective for Prop "O" proponents. It gave the referendum a meaning that was not only acceptable in polite public talk but was laudable even by progressive and pluralistic standards. Additionally, it framed the argument in such a way that it was difficult to respond. Any minority leader who spoke in favor of bilingual ballots was effectively discredited, since the very act of speaking out for bilingual ballots could be interpreted as providing positive evidence of the Pro-"0" allegations of self-interest. Lastly, the opportunity to characterize leaders identified or allied with minorities as self-interested scoundrels was in itself useful to their political competitors. The bilingual ballot issue allowed them to define minorityidentified politicians as unsavory, undemocratic, and malevolent. This image may persist after bilingual ballots have gone. Political myth is generated in these texts, and: "Myth essentially aims at causing an immediate impression — it does not matter if one is later allowed to see through the myth, its action is assumed to be stronger than the rational explanations which may later belie it." (Barthes 1972: 130)

5. Conclusion It is quite possible, then, that the usually more progressive voters who supported Prop "O" did not intend primarily to strip people of the right to vote. Since these voters might not have perceived this to be the function of Prop "O," the weak logic of the argument was of no consequence, and the opposition's counter-argument was not attended to; it was irrelevant to the perceived issues. Prop "O" was not seen by progressive voters as a devious smokescreen for a discriminatory attack on the constitutional right to vote. Regulating access to the ballot for minority voters was probably not the heart of the issue at all for them. Rather, from the evidence of the these campaign texts, it appears that a main issue was limiting the influence that minority politicians have over bilingual ballots and voters. Similar language ideology, as well as political ideology — stemming from animosity toward ethnic political elites — may have played a significant role in the success of the ELA campaign.

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Notes * The field research on which this paper is based was made possible by a summer fellowship from the National Endowment for the Humanities. My thanks to Professor Joshua Fishman, Alan Hudson-Edwards, and fellow members of the 1984 NEH seminar on ethnolinguistic minorities at Stanford University for helpful comments in early stages. The opinions expressed here are mine and do not reflect those of NEH. Julia Roberts helped with the thematic analysis of the texts. Earlier versions of this paper were presented at the "Language and Political Economy" session of the 1986 American Anthropological Association meetings in Philadelphia, and at the Center of Psychosocial Studies in Chicago, and this version has benefitted from those discussions. A related version appeared in the American Ethnologist, 16,1. Special thanks to Susan Gal, Richard Handler, Selma Sonntag, Claudia Strauss, Ben Lee, Michael Silverstein, Del Hymes and Greg Urban for very helpful comments. Responsibility for failure to make the most of them is mine. 1. Although strictly speaking, multilingual ballots were at issue in San Francisco and some other counties, "bilingual ballots" were usually discussed. This may have been in part because leaders dismissed the Chinese component as dwarfed by the demographic importance of Spanish in California. But it is also undoubtedly because "bilingualism" has peculiar associations and highly charged meanings that "multilingualism" does not carry in the United States. 2. The corpus on which the present analysis is based consists of 62 texts of varying lengths, including reportage, editorials, columns, and letters to the editor, collected from twelve newspapers covering the period of the campaign, from July to November, 1983. This was a nearly exhaustive survey of community newspapers, mostly weekly, as well as the two major dailies. Partisan publicity and campaign materials were also analyzed, including that published in the Voter Handbook by the city. The texts are supplemented by interviews I conducted with leaders of both the pro- and anti-"0" campaigns in the summer of 1984. 3. The neologistic "language minority groups" meant "Spanish heritage," Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Filipino and Korean), American Indian, and Native Alaskan. Illiteracy was defined as less than five years of schooling, and by this criterion, the national illiteracy rate was 4.6%. Illiteracy in English was undoubtedly intended but never specified by Congress in the law, an interesting sidelight on the linguistic chauvinism to be discussed later in this paper. 4. According to almost any calculation, neighborhoods with at least 30% Hispanic population rejected Prop "O," but not resoundingly (53%) and with an abysmal voter turnout (36%) even lower than the citywide rate (Binder 1983). There was considerable debate over the results in Asian areas. While Binder calculated a 60% approval rate for precincts with at least 30% Asian population, post-election claims that Chinese voters had supported "O" were challenged. The advocacy organization Chinese for Affirmative Action analyzed five core Chinatown precincts and found the rate of rejection of "O" ranged from 62% to 79%, figures almost identical to the proportion of Chinese surnames registered (Pettit 1984).

The Popularity of California's Proposition 63: An Analysis Connie

Dyste

1. Introduction Throughout the history of the United States, language issues have had a prominent position in debates over education and civil rights, especially during times of increased immigration. At present, most Americans — native-born or newly-arrived — recognize that the ability to speak English is essential for full participation in American society. Not all Americans have that ability, however, and measures have been introduced to provide for multilingual services and bilingual education in an attempt to provide equally for all citizens regardless of language background. Some people see such multilingual legislation as running counter to the traditional ideal of America as a melting pot. These views have resulted in a movement to make English the official language of the United States. In spite of its demographic diversity, California is in the forefront of this swing against multiculturalism. English was made the official language of the slate through passage of Proposition 63 in the 1986 mid-term election. This proposition passed by a margin of 73% to 27%, a figure which indicates very strong voter preference. This paper assesses the basis of popular support for Proposition 63 by examining what Californians believed it would accomplish. Three sources of data will be used: A questionnaire distributed by the author, the Southern California Social Survey (SCSS), and the Field Institute Public Opinion Poll (the "California Poll") of August, 1986.

2. A Questionnaire on Proposition 63 In order to gain an understanding of what Proposition 63 meant to the people most involved in the issue, I distributed a questionnaire in October, 1986, to five groups: 1) proponents of the proposition, 2) opponents, 3)

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English-as-a-Second-Language professionals, plus members of the general public, both 4) Anglo and 5) minority. The questionnaire was mailed or distributed in person to legislators, politicians, community spokesmen, and leaders of organizations connected with the issue. In total, 95 responses were returned of the 150 questionnaires which were distributed. The questionnaire consisted of 15 questions on issues related to Proposition 63, drawn from public debate on the measure, together with a copy of the proposition. The questionnaire was designed using a Likert-type attitude scale in which opinions on given statements are answered on a 5-point rating scale. Questions were worded so that a low score indicated agreement with issues addressed by Proposition 63, and a high score indicated disagreement. Neutral responses fell in the middle range. The 15 items in the questionnaire (see below) fell into three basic categories: Attitudes towards the official language issue, attitudes towards other languagerelated issues (bilingual ballots, bilingual education), and beliefs about the possible effects of Proposition 63. As might be expected, the greatest differences in attitude are seen in the scores of the proponents and opponents of the proposition. These two groups are the furthest apart on almost all questions, while the politically uninvolved groups (ESL professionals, Anglos and minorities) are relatively neutral on almost all questions. After deletion of Questions 8 and 12, a very high degree of reliability was found for this questionnaire (Cronbach's alpha = .913). Thus, attitudes towards foreign language sign restrictions on businesses and views of the effect of official English on illegal immigration were not strongly associated with attitudes toward Proposition 63. (This is consistent with the rejection of a sign regulation policy as a possible effect of the proposition by the pro group on Question 14.) Table 1 shows the results of a one-way analysis of variance run on the questionnaire with items 8 and 12 deleted. Highly significant differences are found between most groups. Duncan's multiple range test (Table 2) shows where these significant differences are to be found. Table 1. One-way Analysis of Variance for Attitudes toward Proposition 63 Source of variance

SS

d.f.

MS

F

between groups within groups

39.98 35.49

4 89

9.99 .39

25.06*

* p < .001 SS = sum of squares; d. f. = degrees of freedom; MS = mean of squares; F = F ratio

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As Table 2 shows, proponents (group 1) were significantly different (p < .05) from everybody else; English as a Second Language (ESL) professionals (group 3) and opponents (group 2) were significantly different from all groups except each other; and the Anglo and minority groups were also significantly different from all groups except each other. Table 2. Duncan Multiple Range Test for Attitudes toward Proposition 63: Groups Significantly Different at the 0.05 Level Mean

Group

1.85 3.14 3.25 3.81 4.24

1 5 4 3 2

Pro Minority Anglo ESL Con

1 Pro

5 Minority

4 Anglo

X X X X

X X

X X

3 ESL

2 Con

Responses to the five questions in the first category (attitudes towards the official language issue) are, in general, internally consistent: Those for the proposition see the status of English as a common language threatened; those against it see no such threat. It is interesting, however, that the pro group does not fear a threat to English (as reflected in Questions 2 — 4) as strongly as they feel the necessity of making English official. Similarly, it is interesting that the con group, while strongly rejecting the notion that there is any threat to the practical status of English as California's common language (Question 2), is not as sure that some other language might not gain official status in the future (Question 3). Responses to the items in the second category (Questions 6 — 10: Attitudes towards other language-related issues) are also generally consistent with expectations; those for Proposition 63 are not in favor of bilingual education or bilingual ballots, and vice versa. There are some interesting differences in intensity, however. The con group, for example, is strongly concerned about bilingual social services and bilingual education, slightly less strongly about bilingual ballots, and sees the symbolic value of official English legislation (Question 10) as relatively insignificant. The pro group, on the other hand, sees bilingual ballots as a matter of major importance, followed in intensity by the symbolic guidance an official English policy would provide and then bilingual education. Social services do not appear to be as significant an issue to them. The last set of five questions (beliefs about the possible effects of Proposition 63) show similar differences in the type of sub-issue which is of impor-

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tance to the pro and con groups. Responses to Question 11 are consistent with Question 10, with the pro group placing great store by the symbolic value of Proposition 63, and the con group seeing little practical effect in this regard. Question 13, which concerns lawsuits, gets a strong reaction from the con group but little reaction from those for the proposition. The strong reaction of the con group in this case is probably because the "unnecessary lawsuit" argument was frequently used as an argument against the proposition in anti-63 campaign literature. Other than Question 1, the pro and con groups are nowhere as consistently extreme in their views as on Question 15, which addresses the divisiveness issue. It is clear that both groups, in spite of the differences in their responses, see unity as a desirable goal. Their differences of opinion have to do only with whether official English legislation will lead to, or away from, that goal. These results indicate that the proponents of Proposition 63, who were its authors and sponsors, had the clearest attitudes about what it represented. Responses to the questions indicate that "language activists," pro or con, held much stronger beliefs about these issues than did ESL professionals and the general public, with this latter group being fairly neutral on almost all questions.

3. The Southern California Social Survey Data from the Southern California Social Survey (SCSS) illustrates public opinion on the issue of mother tongue maintenance in February, 1986, nine months before the election and three months before Proposition 63 had even qualified for the ballot. The SCSS is an annual, computerassisted telephone survey of metropolitan Southern California conducted by the Institute of Social Science Research (ISSR) at UCLA. A total of 1,038 people were interviewed on a variety of topics of concern to Southern Californians. The sample has been weighted to correspond to the actual demographic composition of Southern California, thus n = 2,090 in Table 3. For this study, responses to the language question were cross-tabulated with demographic variables of race/ethnicity, place of birth, education, and political ideology, to create a picture of attitudes towards this issue within groups. These data are useful in examining the hypothesis that some of the support for Proposition 63 stemmed from symbolic, rather than issue-specific sources.

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of California's Proposition 63: An Analysis

143

Among other questions, respondents were asked whether it was more important for immigrants to learn English and the traditions of the United States, or to hold on to the language and culture of the country they come from (the options to reply "both" or "don't know" were also available). As Table 3 shows, the majority of almost all groups favored response 1, that immigrants should learn English. The only exceptions were respondents whose race/ethnicity was "other" than those listed and those with a graduate level education. A slight majority of Hispanics (52%) agreed with Response 1. Response 2, that immigrants should hold on to their own language and culture, had very little support, from a low of 5% of Whites, "others," and conservatives, to a high of 15% of Hispanics and 14% of those who describe themselves as "very liberal." A major difference between this question and Proposition 63 is the option to respond Table 3. Southern California Social Survey (SCSS), February, 1986: "What should be more important to immigrants?"

n =

Learn English

Own Lang.

Both Langs.

Don't know

Race/Ethnicity White Black Hispanic Asian Other

(1347) (267) (326) (91) (42)

63% 63 52 60 45

5% 13 15 11 5

30% 21 32 25 50

2% 3 1 3

U.S. Born Yes No

(1662) (428)

62 53

7 11

28 34

2 2

Education < High school High school only AA/BA Graduate degree

(323) (1041) (544) (179)

53 66 57 49

12 7 8 7

31 26 33 39

3 1 1 5

Liberal/Conservative Very Liberal Liberal Moderate Conservative N o choice

(209) (263) (748) (382) (440)

52 60 64 62 57

14 11 8 5 8

33 28 26 33 32

1 2 1 4

(2090)

60

8

30

2

Average

Source: Institute for Social Science Research, U L C A

-

-

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that both learning English and maintaining one's native language and culture are important, a response that indicates an acceptance of bilingualism and cultural pluralism. Half of those whose race/ethnicity was "other" gave the response "both," as did a substantial minority of almost all groups. In fact, "both" responses ranged from a low of 21% of Blacks to highs of 39% of graduates and professionals, and 33% of those with AA or BA degrees, as well as those classifying themselves as very liberal and conservative. The average for all respondents was 60% for Response 1 (immigrants should learn English), 8% for Response 2 (immigrants should hold on to their own language), and 30% for "both." This indicates that the majority of those surveyed, including those of Hispanic and Asian descent and those born outside the U.S., are in agreement with the importance of learning English. This corroborates data from a 1985 survey by the Rand Corporation, which found that, in California, more than 90% of first-generation Mexican-Americans born in the U.S. speak English only (Trombley 1986a; McCarthy and Valdez 1986).

4. The California Poll The California Poll is a random telephone sampling of age-eligible Californians. The sample (n = 1028) was weighted to bring it into conformity with census-established population parameters for California. Data from the California Poll conducted in August (and September), 1986, showed a high degree of awareness of and support for Proposition 63 early in the campaign (Field Institute 1986). The variables of race/ ethnicity, education, and political ideology were used to determine who the strongest supporters and opponents of the measure were. Table 4 shows the percentages of responses of these groups to the three questions concerning Proposition 63. Table 4 reveals that the strongest supporters of Proposition 63 were Whites, conservatives, and the less educated (although even those with BAs and MAs were generally for it — 74% and 77%, respectively). The strongest opponents were Hispanics and Asians, the highly educated (i.e. post MA), and liberals. Interestingly, the use of a "filter" (defining the proposition for the respondent) in the interview resulted in increased support and decreased opposition, indicating that, for most people who were not aware of the proposition, there was very little objectionable in it.

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Table 4. California Poll, August, 1986: Voter Awareness and Disposition Toward Prop 63 Have heard of/ seen Prop 63: n = * Yes

No

Race/Ethnicity White Black Hispanic Asian

(609) (40) (70) (13)

67% 65 57 54

30% 3% 7 28 43 46 -

Education < High School High School AA BA/MA MA +

(50) (160) (257) (156) (52)

58 58 66 72 65

38 39 32 24 29

Liberal Conservative Liberal (125) Moderate (228) Conservative (250) Don't know (137)

59 68 67 66

(740) 66

Average

Don't know

From what seen, how vote: Yes

No

75% 69 48 43

19% 23 45 57

4 3 2 3 6

83 84 73 74 44

3 11 21 19 47

37 31 28 33

4 1 5 1

50 68 85 71

31

3

72

Prop defined, how vote:

Don't n = * Yes know

No

Don't know

(410) (26) (40) (7)

79% 75 53 46

17% 4% 20 5 37 10 39 15

14 5 6 7 9

(29) (93) (169) (113) (34)

82 84 78 77 46

4 11 18 21 44

14 5 4 2 10

41 24 11 22

9 8 4 7

(74) (154) (167) (90)

54 75 89 72

39 20 9 20

6 5 2 8

22

6

(485) 76

19

5

6% 8 7

* Number of respondents who had heard of Prop 63 Source: Field Institute, San Francisco, August, 1986

The only group who did not give majority support to Proposition 63 was the most highly educated. Members of this group who had heard of the measure were 44% in favor and 47% opposed. This finding is comparable to the finding in the Southern California Social Survey (Table 3), indicating as it does that the people with graduate education were the weakest supporters of that survey's language question on learning English and the strongest supporters of using both languages (except for the "other" Race/Ethnic group). Those with less than a high school education were 83% in favor and only 3% opposed. This group also registered the highest percentage of "don't know" responses (14%). According to these data, education seems to have been the strongest determinant of voter disposition towards Proposition 63: Better educated voters had a more balanced distribution of preferences than the less educated, possibly because they were more likely to have heard of the issue and were more able to form a considered opinion. The least educated, on the other

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hand, had the lowest percentage of voter awareness (58%), the highest concentration of opinion, and the highest degree of non-attitude. Distinct differences were also found according to political ideology. Conservatives were the strongest supporters — 85% of those who had seen or heard of the measure and 89% of those who had it defined for them would have voted yes. Liberals were the weakest supporters — only 50% of those who had seen or heard of the measure and 59% of those who had it defined for them (still a majority) would have voted for the measure. On the other hand, 41 % of the liberals who had seen or heard of the measure were opposed to it, compared to only 11 % of informed conservatives.

5. Conclusion The popularity of Proposition 63 can be attributed to several sources. On the negative side, voter ignorance and overt and symbolic racism can be said to have played some part in the measure's success. The notion of "symbolic racism" provides an important perspective for understanding how symbolic aspects of Proposition 63 transferred to voting behavior. The concept of symbolic racism (Cardoza, Huddy, and Sears 1984) was first introduced to explain the political role of White racial attitudes in postwar America. It explains the kind of racism involved in the White majority's political responses. The concept has traditionally been used primarily to explain anti-Black attitudes, but certainly the notion extends to anti- "other" discriminatory attitudes in general. Symbolic racism is conceptualized as a joint function of anti-Black effect and traditional American moral values operating within the broader theory of symbolic politics, which holds that much adult political behavior results from symbolic predispositions acquired in childhood. The symbolic racism approach suggests that old- fashioned racism no longer has political force, whereas symbolic racism does. Overtly racist reactions have had a small but significant impetus. On the other hand, symbolic racist attitudes in the form of a backlash, against affirmative action or compensatory programs such as bilingual education and bilingual ballots, have had a strong influence not only on the vote in California, but also on the inception and proliferation of official English legislation on both the state and federal levels. On a less pejorative note, many voters may have been responding to an American ideological symbol — or would have felt that the measure

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would in some way strengthened the position of English in California. The data quoted in this article show that, although many people were aware of the measure, few understood its context or purpose. Proposition 63 was also symbolic on a more ideological plane. To many people it represented a basic social norm of American society — Americans speak English — and in that sense it was very hard to be against it. And, for some, it was an idea which was already felt to be true anyway. The evidence leads to the conclusion that the official English issue was largely symbolic, and that the mood of California and the United States at the time of the election was very receptive to the various symbols that Proposition 63 represented. Appendix: Questionnaire on Proposition 63 (The following abbreviations are used in this questionnaire: n = number of respondents; mean = mean score of group; sd = standard deviation; average = average of mean scores, all groups.) 1. Is it necessary to make English the official language of California? (1 very necessary — 5 completely unnecessary): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 1.25 4.78 4.36 3.62 3.19 3.44

sd .45 .44 1.25 1.29 1.11

2. What is the possibility of English losing its role as the common language of California? (1 highly likely — 5 impossible): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 2.00 4.67 4.08 3.59 3.19 3.51

sd 1.28 .50 1.04 1.24 1.68

3. What is the possibility of a language other than English gaining official status in California? (1 highly likely — 5 impossible): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average,

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 2.00 4.00 3.68 3.59 3.12 3.29

sd 1.28 1.32 1.28 1.13 1.31

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4. What is the possibility of California becoming officially bilingual at sometime in the future? (1 highly likely — 5 impossible): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 2.17 3.44 3.21 2.91 2.37 3.20

sd 1.27 1.24 1.32 1.20 1.02

5. Should immigrants be required to speak English before immigrating to the U.S.? (1 strongly agree — 5 strongly disagree): n mean sd Group 1. Proponents (pro) 12 3.33 1.30 .44 2. Opponents (con) 9 4.78 1.05 25 4.33 3. ESL professionals 32 3.41 1.24 4. Anglo 3.62 .72 16 5. Minority 3.54 Average 6. Should ballots be available in languages other than English? (1 strongly disagree — 5 strongly agree): n mean sd Group 12 1.17 .58 1. Proponents (pro) 4.11 1.36 2. Opponents (con) 9 1.33 25 3.71 3. ESL professionals 1.33 32 3.19 4. Anglo 3.37 1.09 16 5. Minority 3.11 Average 7. Should social services and documents be available in languages other than English? (1 strongly disagree — 5 strongly agree): mean sd Group n 1.27 12 2.50 1. Proponents (pro) 4.67 .50 2. Opponents (con) 9 .87 25 4.48 3. ESL professionals 32 3.62 1.18 4. Anglo 16 3.25 .86 5. Minority Average 3.70 8. Should foreign language business signs be required to have English translations? (1 strongly agree — 5 strongly disagree): n mean sd Group 1.34 12 2.83 1. Proponents (pro) 2. Opponents (con) 9 3.33 .87 3.12 1.35 3. ESL professionals 25 1.02 4. Anglo 32 2.72 .94 5. Minority 16 2.20 2.84 Average

The Popularity of California's Proposition 63: An Analysis

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9. Does bilingual education help or hinder immigrant children in learning English? (1 greatly hinders — 5 greatly helps): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 1.91 4.67 3.76 2.91 3.50 3.35

sd .94 .50 1.12 1.25 1.15

10. Does the availability of services and documents in language other than English encourage or discourage immigrants in learning English? (1 greatly discourages — 5 greatly encourages): Group n mean sd 1. Proponents (pro) 12 1.50 .52 2. Opponents (con) 9 3.44 .88 3. ESL professionals 25 2.95 .81 4. Anglo 32 2.37 .87 5. Minority 16 2.69 .70 Average 2.59 11. If it passed, what effect would Proposition 63 have on immigrants learning English? (1 strongly encourage — 5 strongly discourage): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 1.42 3.50 2.74 2.74 2.25 2.53

sd .51 .76 .96 1.09 1.00

12. If it passed, what effect would Proposition 63 have on illegal immigration? (strongly discourage — 5 strongly encourage): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 3.00 2.87 3.00 3.00 3.12 3.00

sd .00 .35 .29 .52 .72

13. If it passed, would Proposition 63 result in unnecessary lawsuits? (1 highly unlikely — 5 highly likely): n mean sd Group 12 1. Proponents (pro) 2.33 1.37 .44 2. Opponents (con) 9 4.78 25 4.32 .75 3. ESL professionals 4. Anglo 32 3.35 .98 .74 16 3.13 5. Minority Average 3.58

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14. If it passed, would Proposition 63 place restrictions on foreign language business signs? (1 highly unlikely — 5 highly likely): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority Average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 1.17 3.67 3.72 3.32 3.25 3.03

sd .39 1.32 1.06 .87 .34

15. If it passed, would Proposition 63 unite or divide the community? (1 strongly unify — 5 strongly divide): 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Group Proponents (pro) Opponents (con) ESL professionals Anglo Minority average

n 12 9 25 32 16

mean 1.50 4.55 3.92 3.71 3.56 3.45

sd .67 .73 .97 1.04 1.03

The Official English Movement in Florida Max J. Castro, Margaret Haun, and Ana Roca

1. Introduction In November, 1988, Florida voters passed Amendment 11, the Florida English Language Amendment. This amendment, now added to Article II of the Florida Constitution, reads: a) English is the official language of the state of Florida; b) The Legislature shall have the power to enforce this section by appropriate legislation. The vote followed a flurry of extensive media attention, open forums, and heated debates organized by a number of community organizations. The state's pro and con official language campaigns concentrated their efforts in South Florida where the vast majority of Hispanics reside. South Florida is the birthplace of the contemporary language restrictionist movement in the United States. In November, 1980, voters in Dade County (Greater Miami) reversed a policy of official bilingualism and biculturalism which had been established by the Board of County Commissioners in 1973. They decisively approved an ordinance that prohibited "the expenditure of any county funds for the purpose of utilizing any language other than English or any culture other than that of the United States" (Section 1). This act marked the beginning of the backlash against the 1970s trend toward linguistic pluralism in Florida. The nature of the backlash that ensued could not have been more clearly presaged than it was in the language of Section 2 of the 1980 ordinance, which stated categorically that "all county governmental meetings, hearings, and publications shall be in the English language only" (see Appendix I, eds.).

2. Round One: The 1980 "Anti-Bilingualism" Referendum The "anti-bilingual" campaign in Dade County was a spontaneous, local affair, but its success set an important precedent that informed and

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Haun, a n d Ana

Roca

inspired the national official English movement that would emerge within a few years. Because the 1980 Dade County referendum was a watershed in the politics of language in contemporary America and set a pattern for more recent official English struggles, it is useful to look more closely at what transpired. The reasons Miami pioneered the backlash movement against linguistic and cultural pluralism are difficult to identify. By 1980, Miami had a considerably higher percentage of foreign-born residents (35%) than any other metropolitan area in the U.S., mostly Cuban exiles and other Spanish-speakers. In 1960, less than 5% of the Dade County population was Hispanic, but by the time of the 1980 Census, fully 36% of the population came from this ethnic background (Metro-Dade County Planning Department 1986: 4). The massive Mariel influx later that year increased that percentage considerably. The sudden and uncontrolled nature of the Mariel boatlift and the presence of a highly visible minority of criminals and mental patients among the new arrivals raised grave concerns among many Miamians about the changes they saw occurring about them. Another reason for the backlash was the economic success of many Hispanic newcomers: The number of Hispanic-owned businesses in Miami zoomed from 3,447 in 1969 to 24,898 in 1982 (Cuban American National Council 1988b: 9). Cubans posed a threat as economic competitors, and their success made possible a Latin sub-economy that facilitated linguistic and cultural maintenance. If these were the underlying reasons for building resentment against Hispanic immigrants among some sectors of the native population, it was the actions of government to accommodate the new arrivals that most directly infuriated non-Hispanic residents. In practice, the county's official bilingual/bicultural status was a modest concession to the changing ethnic composition of the local population. It hardly implied that Spanish functioned co-equally with English in local government. Rather, it meant that certain county documents were translated into Spanish and some services were provided bilingually. This limited bilingualism nevertheless upset many non-Hispanic South Floridians because it meant the government was symbolically conferring a semblance of official status on Spanish and spending money in a way they felt made learning English less urgent. These were the antecedents of the movement that led to passage of the "anti-bilingual" referendum on November 4, 1980. The movement

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153

itself seemed to arise as if by spontaneous combustion. Here is the account that appeared in The Miami Herald on the day after the election: It began as an idea batted around on a late-night talk show last July, and that swiftly gathered irresistible momentum... Marion Plunske heard Emmy Shafer on a WNWS radio talk show on July 8. The two women started their campaign the next day and the Citizens of Dade United registered as a political action group on July 21. From the start, the campaign seemed to run itself. In just over four weeks the group had gathered 44,166 signatures, nearly twice as many as they needed. Exulting in their strength, they brought another 25,767 signatures to the supervisor of elections on Sept. 16. (Browning 1980: 11A) The anti-bilingual movement was led by non-elite white ethnics and was opposed by the white corporate and civic elite. According to The Miami Herald, "by late October, Shafer reported she had received only about $10,000 in campaign contributions from about 1,100 people — an average of $8.06 per contributor" (Browning, 1980: 11 A). In contrast, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce alone spent $50,000 on newspaper and television advertisements against the ordinance (Browning 1980: 11 A). The vote was extremely polarized between the majority White population and Hispanics, with Black American voters between the two poles. According to a study of precinct results by The Miami Herald, 71% of Non-Hispanic whites supported the referendum, while 85% of Hispanics opposed it. Among Blacks, 44% supported the anti-bilingual referendum (Browning 1980: 11 A). Support for the anti-bilingual ordinance within the majority population was widespread among virtually all subgroups. The Miami Herald study concluded that "little else besides ethnic group — not age, nor sex, nor education, nor choice of presidential candidate made much difference in how people voted on the ordinance." The same analysis found that 54% of Reagan voters and 52% of Carter voters approved the measure (Browning 1980: 11 A). The tone of the campaign was exceedingly bitter. Both proponents and opponents of the ordinance played on the theme of "unity," but they saw the issue in diametrically opposed ways. Following the vote, Emmy Shafer, the leader of the "anti-bilingual" forces, said: "I think now the two communities can finally exert their best efforts toward each other. Now we can really get to work on communication." In contrast, Chamber of Commerce Chairman Lester Freeman said that "this kind of thing doesn't do anything except create disunity" (Browning 1980: 11 A).

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The 1980 Dade County vote showed for the first time the extent of voter support for language restrictionism: 59% of all Dade County voters and 71% of white voters supported the anti-bilingual ordinance. The campaign also provided the method — the referendum — that could be employed to combat effectively an emergent body of language rights and mildly pluralist policies that had been instituted by legislative, judicial, and administrative action. Miami had led the way toward a limited form of bilingualism and biculturalism in the 1960s and 1970s; now it provided a model for their undoing. Emmy Shafer and her Citizens of Dade United proved that an English-only campaign hastily organized by a political novice could triumph in the face of opposition by the established civic leadership and the English-language press in a city with one of the largest and most powerful Hispanic communities in the U.S. The prospects for a well-organized and well-funded language restrictionist movement on a national scale must have seemed bright indeed. It was ultimately as a result of that national movement and its flagship organization, U.S. English, that eight years later Florida would join the growing ranks of official English states.

3. Round Two: The 1988 Official English Campaign In November, 1988, 84% of voters in Florida cast their ballots for an amendment to the state's constitution declaring English the official language. For years, state representative Robert Melby had introduced official English measures in the Florida legislature, without success. Politicians from both parties undoubtedly felt it unwise to alienate the growing number of Cuban-American voters in order to pass a law for which there was little visible clamor outside Miami. Yet, it was clear from the Dade County experience and the more recent campaign in California that if official English advocates could manage to get their proposal on the ballot, it would almost surely pass. But Florida official English advocates, geographically concentrated in South Florida, lacked the organizational and financial resources to mount a statewide petition campaign. The decisive factor in changing that equation was U.S. English, which had targeted Florida as one of its initiative states for 1988 and provided the necessary resources, including $70,000 it paid a private firm which collected 140,000 of the 350,000 signatures needed on a single day, Super Tuesday 1988 (Viglucci 1988: ID). The game was essentially over: A

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statewide poll commissioned in the summer of 1988 by English Plus, a largely Cuban-American group based in Dade County that opposed the amendment, revealed massive and nearly unshakable support for official English. Opponents of the amendment included groups as diverse ideologically as the American Civil Liberties Union, the Greater Miami Chamber of Commerce, and Greater Miami United, a tri-ethnic community relations coalition. The opposition campaign was run by two groups: English Plus, a Miami-based group organized by a coalition of Cuban organizations known as Unidos, and Speak Up Now for Florida (SUN), an Anglo-led group formed to run the statewide campaign. While lack of resources and internal divisions were a problem for anti-amendment forces, the basic difficulty lay elsewhere: The strong voter appeal of the official English measure to the Florida electorate.

4. The Campaign and the Issues For over a year prior to the Florida vote, local newspapers carried numerous articles discussing the benefits and perils of language restrictionism. Proponents of official English argued that the legislation amounted to much more than a symbolic gesture — a law that would have little effect on the everyday lives of the citizens of Florida. The official English legislation, which according to the polls reported in The Miami Herald, had "strong grass-root support," would encourage immigrants to learn the common language and enter the mainstream much more quickly (Von Drehle 1988:18A). But proponents of initiative, Amendment 11, failed to indicate just how this mainstreaming was to be accomplished. According to Miami Herald writer Dave Von Drehle, supporters of official English "shied from specific [accounts of how the legislation would be implemented]. They pitched [Amendment 11] mainly as an inoculation against state-sponsored bilingualism and a message to immigrants: Learn English, and learn it quickly" (1988: 18A). Leaders of the Amendment 11 campaign stuck to the general theme that "government should speak a single language," while discounting opponents' charges about racism and the possible adverse impact of the amendment on tourism and foreign trade. Opponents of the legislation, on the other hand, were very explicit in detailing the futility and possible negative consequences of an enforced common language. Miami Herald columnist Charles Whited maintained

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that attempts to "ram English-only resolutions through the state Legislature" would not do anything to change the linguistic reality of heavily Hispanic Dade County. Such legislation, however, would immediately result in greater divisiveness. What the arguments surrounding the language resolution have accomplished, Whited wrote in March, 1987 (more than a year and a half before the November, 1988, vote), is to "make people a little angrier, on all sides of the ethnic fence" (1987: Bl). Perhaps the most elaborate attempt to spell out the perils of a single language policy in Florida was "Questions and answers about language enforcement," an English Plus position paper. The "Language Enforcement Amendment" was the term used by official English opponents in Florida to describe Amendment 11. Depending on legislative decisions about implementation of the amendment, medical treatment, tourism, and foreign investment could be the hardest hit areas. Language restrictions in health information materials could be disastrous in an area where the rate of immigration is high. And efforts to attract foreign investment and tourist dollars to Florida — especially from Latin America — could be doomed to failure by the language enforcement amendment. The English Plus paper also describes the possible costs of testing the amendment as courts try to determine the meaning of an "official" language — "dangerously vague" in this legal context. "Does 'official' mean state business only, or does it include private communication?" (English Plus 1988: 2). The language of the amendment simply is not explicit: "Proponents of the amendment say [it] isn't 'meant to apply to emergency services or public welfare, but these exceptions are not in the amendment and will be left up to the sole discretion of the courts and the legislature'" (English Plus 1988: 2). Indeed, interpretive chaos was one of the most immediate consequences of the 1980 bilingual ordinance in Dade County. Legal opinions on library purchases in foreign languages, government job training for nonEnglish-speaking employees, and the distribution of fire prevention information in languages other than English followed passage of the ordinance, and, of course, preparation of these opinions was paid for with taxpayers money. Opponents of official English predicted this might happen in the state if Amendment 11 passed. It is this last issue — the costliness of the amendment — that English Plus emphasized in its anti-official English campaign. In spite of the "intentions" of the authors of the amendment, the law could impact seriously on Florida taxpayers. In addition to the entanglements of litigation as courts attempt to make vague language less vague, there

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are the costs of language enforcement. The state will need language enforcement guidelines: Bureaucrats would have to be paid with tax money to draw up these regulations. As well, if foreign investors took their business to states with less restrictive language policies, tax revenue will be reduced. According to supporters of English Plus "Florida taxpayers will have to pick up the tab" (1988: 6). While opponents of official English emphasized the likely adverse economic impact of Amendment 11 as a theme that might appeal to nonHispanic voters, the racist underpinning of the official English movement was also a frequent theme. During the last phase of the campaign, a memo written by the Chairman of U.S. English, John Tanton, came to light, which opponents charged was the "smoking gun" that proved the often-denied charge of racism as the core of the official English movement. Ultimately, the arguments and issues proved less important in determining the final outcome than the benign-sounding wording of the item on the ballot and, especially, some deep-seated attitudes of the Florida electorate.

5. Attitudes Toward Official English What was the nature and structure of support for official English in Florida? Data from a statewide poll taken for English Plus by the firm of Howard M. Burkholz and Associates in July, 1988, provide some answers. The Burkholz poll showed that, in essence, voter preference for official English was broad-based, founded on strong feelings — and scant knowledge — about the amendment, and rooted in intense beliefs about language and substantial fears about immigrants. The poll also showed that voter support for official English was essentially a reaffirmation of the place of English in the society, but not an endorsement of a broader language- restrictionist agenda. The pattern of support for official English in Florida resembled the profile of support for the anti-bilingual amendment in Dade County in 1980. The data from the Burkholz poll indicated that, in the summer of 1988, 80% of Florida voters favored the amendment, 10% opposed it, and 10% were not sure, figures that turned out to be remarkably close to the actual vote in the fall. The amendment was favored by wide majorities in all regions of the state, by both men (81%) and women

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(82%), by liberals (81%), moderates (75%) and conservatives (81%). Fully 85% of non-Hispanic whites favored the amendment, compared to 66% of Blacks. The poll also showed 54% of Hispanics favoring the English Language Amendment, a figure that would not be borne out in the voting, where the evidence is that the overwhelming majority of Hispanics voted against the amendment. The figure likely reflects an error based on the small size of the Hispanic subsample. Overall, however, the result of the November vote was remarkably close to the July poll, which suggests that voters had already made up their minds on official English by the summer and did not change their views during the campaign. This inference is reinforced by the fact that 85%> of those who favored official English in the July poll said that their support was either "total" or "strong." Also, an overwhelming 72% of voters also maintained that the outcome of the vote on official English was "very important" to them, and another 20% said it was "somewhat important." And yet only 23% of the total sample and 20% of the "strong supporters" had heard of the English Language Amendment and could correctly identify it! Floridians followed their feelings on the issue of official English, and their feelings were rooted more in conceptions linking country and language than in personal experiences or resentments. Fully 83% of the sample and 92% of strong amendment supporters agreed with the statement that "if you live in America you should have to learn English." In contrast, only 55% of all respondents and 56% of strong supporters said they felt uncomfortable in a crowd where few people could speak English. Fear also played a significant role. In response to the statement "we are losing control of our state to foreigners," 48% agreed, 41 % disagreed, and 11% were not sure. Fear of losing control of the state to foreigners varied directly with support for the amendment. Such a fear was expressed by 55% of strong supporters of official English, by 40% of weak supporters, and by 24% of opponents. The object of such anxieties can be more precisely identified by looking at how respondents answered two questions about language and immigrants. There was overwhelming agreement with the statement that "nearly all immigrant groups believe learning English is important," with 75%> agreeing, 15% disagreeing, and 10% not sure. But the response to the statement "most Cubans in South Florida don't want to learn English," was markedly different: 37% agreed, 36% disagreed, and 27% were not sure. Moreover, the response was correlated with support for official

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English, as 42% of strong supporters of the amendment agreed that Cubans do not want to learn English, compared to 28% of weak supporters and 12% of opponents. Despite the alarming evidence of voter ignorance about the amendment, widespread support for the measure, general xenophobia — specifically anti-Cuban sentiment — there is more encouraging news in the fact that the poll revealed no voter mandate for the broader objectives of U.S. English and other language-restrictionist organizations. For example, respondents agreed to a surprising degree with a view of bilingual education diametrically opposed to that of the language restrictionists: 59% agreed that "bilingual education helps students learn English more quickly," while only 32% agreed that "bilingual education in Florida is a failure and should be significantly reduced or eliminated." And, while 39% of voters polled agreed that "English is being threatened by the state's bilingual services," a larger percentage (44%) disagreed. The poll results point out some key strengths and weaknesses of the official English movement. The symbolic issue of the primacy of English as the nation's language elicits broad and overwhelming support from all demographic sectors except Hispanics. That is the central reason why the Florida official English Amendment, which contained no specific implementation provisions, was approved by such a huge margin. But that support, which should be read largely as an affirmation of English as the nation's language, does not translate into voter support for specific language-restrictionist policies. This means that in the future the path will be more difficult for the language-restrictionist movement in Florida, for it has essentially used its strongest card. Language restrictionists must now convince the kind of elite groups which have never been the strongest supporters of their movement, mainly state legislators, to implement enforcement legislation for which there is no voter groundswell and which will meet intense opposition from Hispanic and civil rights groups. The prospects for such legislation in the near future are not very good. In the absence of any enforcement provisions, the main effect of official English in Florida as of mid-1989 was a flurry of media attention over some instances of apparent discrimination against Spanish-speakers that took place immediately following passage of the amendment. Some Hispanics felt that passage of the amendment was responsible for these occurrences because it sent a message that language-based discrimination was acceptable. What is clear is that the attention generated by the controversy over passage of the amendment focused public attention on

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these cases, with results that could hardly have pleased official English advocates. For example, following the vote it was discovered that Mount Sinai Hospital in Miami had an English-only policy; the hospital quickly announced that the rule was in the books but not in effect and would be officially rescinded. In 1989, months after Amendment 11 was approved by Florida voters, discussion of a restrictive language policy shows little sign of abating. In public forums, position papers, television and radio debates, newspaper articles, and academic meetings, proponents and opponents of official language measures continue discussing the dangers and merits of official English. As the language minority population in Florida continues to grow, the struggle will continue in the legislature, the courts, school boards, and city halls, as well as in offices, factories, and schools where, in the America of the late 20th century, people of differing cultural and linguistic heritages come together. And the language issue will continue to be framed around the question of unity. As the official English issue moves from the states to the U.S. Congress, its supporters will agree, with Trudy J. Sundberg, that "the United States is...a country of great diversity, and English, our common language, is the social glue that holds this multicultural country together, making all of us regardless of national origin, Americans" (1988: 16). Opponents will continue to argue that "the movement to make English the official language must be fought because it threatens to exacerbate societal divisions, reverse important civil rights advances, and generally promote a climate of cultural intolerance" (Castro 1988: 3). As in other states, both sides now wait to see what action, if any, the courts and the state legislature are going to take on the official language amendment.

Who Supports Official English, and Why?: The Influence of Social Variables and Questionnaire Methodology Ana Celia

Zentella

Prologue 1988 was a very discouraging year for those who oppose the movement to make English the official language of the United States. Despite the fact that national media attention was drawn to several incidents which revealed the hidden agenda of some key figures in the English only movement, three states with large numbers of speakers of other languages passed constitutional amendments declaring English their official language. Given the damaging nature of the revelations that occurred almost on the eve of the November elections, it seemed only reasonable that voters would no longer believe that the official English movement was inspired by an attempt to "give everyone an equal opportunity to participate in the economic, social, and political fabric of our society" (U.S. English 1988: 5). The revelations in question centered on a memo written by the national board chairman of U.S. English, John Tanton, which reflected a distinctly anti-immigrant, anti-Hispanic bias. Among the more outrageous insults in that memo by John Tanton — who co-founded the Federation for Immigration Reform as well as U.S. English — was to link Latin American immigrants with bribery, to portray Catholicism as a national threat, and to charge that "perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down" (Detroit Free Press, February 14,1989, 6a). The inflammatory tone of the memo, which questions whether "whites... will simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?" is the best example of the very world that Tanton claims he is trying to avoid: "nasty, brutish, and short." Although the memo had been circulated two years earlier, the Executive Director of U.S. English, Linda Chavez, felt obliged to call for Tanton's resignation only in 1988, when it was widely reported just before the fall elections. When the board backed Tanton, Chavez resigned, as had previously another member of the board. (See also Nunberg 1989, eds.)

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John Tanton finally stepped down, but not out; he continues to be a leading proponent of population control, stiff immigration laws, and official English legislation. And he can gloat over the fact that voters seemed to agree with his agenda, because "record numbers of signatures were gathered in Arizona and Colorado [to place the amendment on the ballot], and the 84% to 16% victory in Florida made the English language amendment the most popular initiative on any ballot in the nation this [1988] year" (U.S. English 1988: 1). If we are unwilling to believe that the majority of the voters in Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and the 14 other states that have official English statutes are motivated by racist fears, what explains the widespread public support for English only? Who votes for it, and why? In what follows we will attempt a partial answer to these questions.

1. Manipulating the Language of the Polls Various analyses of voter attitudes have demonstrated the importance of the media and of U.S. English literature. They also have correlated background variables such as education, ethnicity, class, etc., with pro or con positions (see, for example, Woolard and Dyste, this volume, eds.). Although the issue is language, and, appropriately, all of the major national associations of professionals in the fields of linguistics, English, and foreign languages have declared their opposition to English only, almost no attention has been paid to the language of the questions that are posed to the public.1 Our analysis of nationwide polls conducted by the NY Times/CBS News in 1986 and 1987 and our own research in NYC reveals that, in addition to group-specific attitudes, both the wording and order of questions influence whether voters favor or oppose the legislation. When we compare the results of the nationwide 1986 poll (1,618 subjects) with the 1987 poll (1,254 subjects), as summarized in Table 1, we find that 13% fewer respondents favored English only legislation in the second year, i.e., 60% favored the legislation in 1986, but only 47% favored it in 1987. It is conceivable that a great many people changed their minds on this issue from one year to the next, but the 1988 election outcomes lead us to discount that possibility. It is more likely that what caused more than half of the group to support the legislation one year and to reject it the next is the difference in the way the issue was presented. In 1986 people were asked: In parts of this country where many people speak a language other than English, should state and local governments conduct business in that language, as well as in English, or should they only use English?

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Table 1. New York TimesjCBS News English-Only Poll June 1 9 - 2 3 , 1986 Sample Size: 1618

May 11-14, 1987 Sample Size: 1254

QUESTION: In parts of this country where many people speak a language other than English, should state and local governments conduct business in that language, as well as in English, or should they only use English?

QUESTION. Would you favor or oppose an amendent to the Constitution that requires federal, state, and local governments to conduct business in English and not use other languages, even in places where many people don't speak Englisch?

English Only %

Other Lang. %

Favor %

Oppose %

Total

60

36

47

47

Gender Male Female

64 57

33 38

51 43

45 49

Ethnicity (1) White Black Other

63 51 41

33 44 55

49 33 29

45 57 69

Ethnicity (2) Hispanic Non-Hisp.

34 62

63 34

29 48

71 46

Party Democrat Republican Independent

54 70 62

42 29 33

45 48 50

47 48 47

Region West South Northeast N. Central

65 60 58 60

33 34 39 36

52 47 48 42

44 47 47 51

Age 18-29 30-44 45-66 65 & over

51 59 65 72

47 39 30 20

38 40 55 62

59 57 37 24

Religion Protestant Catholic Jewish Other

60 55 70 82

36 43 26 15

45 51 47 56

48 47 40 44

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Table 1 (continued)

English

Other

Favor

Oppose

Education < High School H.S. Grad. Some College College Plus

55 58 62 72

37 39 36 26

50 44 49 48

36 51 49 49

Family Income < $12,500 $12-25,000 $25-35,000 $35-50,000 >$50,000

55 58 61 61 70

38 37 37 36 30

55 44 44 48 52

35 49 52 49 45

Source: EPIC, English Plus Information Coalition, Washington, D.C.

Sixty percent endorsed English only, 36% accepted other languages (4% were 'not tabulated/no answer'). In 1987 people were asked: Would you favor or oppose an amendment to the constitution that requires federal, state, and local governments to conduct business in English and not use other languages, even in places where many people don't speak English? Forty-seven percent favored the amendment, 47% opposed it (6% were 'not tabulated/no answer'). On the surface, both questions have the same focus: The language in which local, state, and federal governments conduct their business; yet, they differ in three significant ways: 1) the extent to which they require or restrict other languages; 2) the way in which the repercussions for non-English speakers are addressed; and 3) the manner in which allegiance to English is manipulated. The 1986 version asks if governments should conduct business in languages other than English, which seems to stipulate the use of other languages, as if in preference to English, since the phrase "as well as in English" puts English in secondary position. The 1987 variant asks if a constitutional amendment should require governments not to use other languages, thus focusing on the restrictive nature of the legislation. This question suggests a punitive, exclusionary attitude towards the speakers of other languages. This tone is in sharp contrast to the 1986 version of the question, which seems to embrace, even mandate, the official use of

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other languages, thus encouraging voters to rally to the defense of English. Both versions are leading questions, initially presenting a strong appeal for one point of view, and then asking the respondent to consider an opposite alternative, implying that an important consideration had been overlooked. The significant phrase in 1986 is a tag-like clause introduced by "or should they" and in 1987 it is the clearly manipulative "even if." Subjects responded accordingly, by agreeing with the final thrust of each question, thereby endorsing contradictory points of view in the two polls. To this point, we have analyzed the consequences of posing an issue in dissimilar ways in terms of the total percentage of replies in each instance. A further analysis of the response of the diverse sub-groups that participated in the two polls reveals notable shifts in the categories of people who changed their opinion from one year to the next. Those who were polled were categorized according to nine major background variables — gender, race, ethnicity, political party affiliation, region, age, religion, education, and income — with a total of 30 sub-classifications. Of these 30 subclasses, fully 28 were in favor of state and local governments conducting business in English only, as the issue was posed in 1986, at a rate of 57% or above. The only groups with a majority in favor of allowing governments to conduct business in other languages as well as English were Hispanics (63%) and those who designated themselves as "other than White or Black" (55%; in addition to including Asians and Native Americans, many in this last group may have also been Hispanic). The most ardent supporters of English-only were members of "religions other than Protestant, Jewish or Catholic" (82%), those with more than a college education (72%), and those 65 years or older (72%). A dramatic shift occurred in the 1987 poll. Every one of the thirty groups lessened their support for official English, some by as much as 26%. For example, whereas 82% of those who belonged to religions "other than Protestant, Catholic, or Jewish," favored the ELA as it was proposed in 1986, only 56% of them favored it in the 1987 questionnaire, the one which ends with a plea for considering the repercussions for language minorities. Also, in contrast to the 28 groups that agreed with the ELA the previous year, in the 1987 poll only nine groups could muster a slight majority — between 50% and 56% — who were pro-ELA. They included, among others, men 45 years of age or older, political independents, those with less than a high school education, and those earning under $12,500 or over $50,000 (see Table 1). The strongest opposition to an amendment that would not allow the use of other languages came from Hispanics (71%) and from members of races other than Black or White (89%), joined in 1987 by people between 1 8 - 2 9 years old (59%).

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In sum, these nationwide polls indicate that the only allies Hispanics can count on consistently to reject English-only measures, no matter how they are worded, are those who classify themselves racially as 'Other'. As we have already suggested, it is likely that this category includes many Hispanics because Hispanics who are racially mixed, and even some who are not, do not identify themselves as White or Black (Rodriguez 1980). The extent to which Asians and Native Americans form part of the 'Other' category in these polls is impossible to determine, because the ethnic breakdown only distinguishes Hispanics from non-Hispanics.

2. Disassociating the Amendment from its Repercussions The need to differentiate among ethnicities was further underscored by the results of an questionnaire that was administered in 1988 orally by my students in New York City to their families, friends, and co-workers. 2 Circulation of this questionnaire was motivated by the re-introduction of ELA legislation in the New York State legislature. The research focused on attitudes towards such legislation in New York City. Two distinct concerns shaped the design of the project: 1) the possible disparities in attitudes among New York's major ethnic groups, as well the influence of gender and education, and 2) the impact of question order and question wording on the public's response to an ELA poll: Of particular interest was the possibility that voters would not favor the amendment if it were clearly linked to its repercussions. Accordingly, two versions of a questionnaire were devised which included the same six questions, worded in the same way, but presented in different order. Both "A" and "B" questionnaires asked for pro or con attitudes about the federal and state amendments in an impartial and straightforward manner, but "A" began with that question: Al) Are you in favor of, or against, the constitutional amendments to make English the official language of New York State and the U.S.A? and then went on to ask: A2 —5) Are you in favor of or against the elimination of: Bilingual education, bilingual ballots, bilingual emergency telephone operators, bilingual advertisements, and monolingual foreign language advertisements? In contrast, the "B" version of the questionnaire began by inquiring about the elimination of bilingual education and the other services, and ended

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with the ELA item. Our hypothesis was that those who were given the opportunity to consider the possible repercussions of official English amendments for education, voting rights, and public safety (because they had been asked about the elimination of those services first: Version "B") would oppose the ELA more than those who had been asked for their opinion of the legislation before any of its implications were raised (version "A"). A total of 417 people were interviewed: 217 with the "A" version and 200 with "B"; the results are tabulated in Table 2. Overall, there was more opposition to the ELA among the respondents to "B" (60%) than among the respondents to "A" (52%), thereby supporting our argument that voters are more likely to reject the ELA if they understand its negative implications. Table 2. Impact of Ethnicity, Gender, Education, and Order of Questions vs. ELA n =

vs. Elimination of:

A* - B * %

av. %

911 %

BILED %

BILAD %

BILBA %

FLAD %

(93) (50) (65) (78) (32) (99)

72 - 8 3 75 - 8 1 56 - 6 4 54 - 4 9 30 - 6 7 29 - 2 7

79 78 60 51 48 28

92-- 9 8 92-- 9 6 91-- 8 6 79-- 7 4 85-- 9 2 76-- 8 5

94-96 92-85 88-82 72-71 75-83 65-58

86 - 9 1 92 - 1 0 0 81 - 7 3 79 - 6 6 70 - 9 2 51 - 5 3

92-93 92-81 84-86 76-54 65-92 55-56

89-87 87-96 81-68 74-66 70-92 55-50

Gender Fem. Masc.

(224) (193)

54 - 5 3 50 - 4 8

54 49

85-- 8 9 84-- 8 9

82-80 77-78

76 - 7 8 73 - 7 4

77-75 71-74

75-72 75-77

Education Elementary High school College Grad school

(43) (233) (112) (29)

71 - 7 2 45 - 5 8 59 - 6 7 58 - 2 9

71 51 63 43

86-- 9 0 85-- 8 5 84-- 9 4 83-- 9 4

93-86 77-80 82-76 83-71

86 - 7 6 74 - 7 2 72 - 8 6 83 - 8 1

86-90 72-70 74-76 83-76

86-76 72-71 75-78 83-81

Average

(417)

56

81

79

75

75

74

Ethnicity Puerto Rican Other Latino Afro-Caribbean Afro-American Other Euro-American

* A and B versions of the questionnaire differed in question order. The "A" version began with the general question, "Are you in favor of, or against, the amendment to make English the official language of NY and USA" (ELA), followed by the more specific questions "Are you in favor of, or against, the elimination of bilingual emergency operators (911), bilingual education (BILED), bilingual advertisements (BILAD), bilingual ballots (BILBA), and foreign language advertisements (FLAD)? The "B" version began with the specific questions and ended with the general ELA question.

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3. The Impact of Ethnic Background The differences between the "A" and "B" results were not, however, that significant. Furthermore, these aggregated results are confounded by the larger proportion of Puerto Ricans and other Latinos in "B" (41%) versus "A" (28%). More importantly, they obscure significant inter-ethnic, gender, and educational biases. Unlike the NY Times¡CBS News polls, which limited ethnicity to Hispanic vs non-Hispanic, our NYC study distinguished six ethnic categories: Puerto Ricans, Other Latinos, Afro-Caribbeans, Afro-Americans, Euro-Americans, and Others. When each group's responses to the "A" and "B" versions were compared separately, we found that some opposed the ELA more when their opinion of the legislation was sought after the implications were presented, while others opposed it less. When the patterns were analyzed, they provided some interesting insights into crucial ethnic similarities and differences. The majority (4/6) of the groups did vote against the ELA at higher rates in the "B" version as predicted: Puerto Ricans, Other Latinos, Afro-Caribbeans and Others showed greater opposition, one group — already strongly opposed — by as little as 6% (Other Latinos: A = 75%, B = 81%), another by as much as 37% (Others: A = 30%, B = 67%). Two groups, however, the Euro-Americans and Afro-Americans, did not appear to be swayed by the placement of the ELA question after an account of its implications; on the contrary, they were less inclined to oppose the ELA question presented in final position ("B") than when it was presented first ("A"). Neither group's increase in support was as significant as any of the other groups' decrease in support; the Afro-Americans backed the ELA by 5% more ("A" = 46%, "B" = 51%), and the Euro-Americans by only 2% more ("A" = 71%, "B" = 73%). Given the relatively small numbers in both groups, (35 Afro-Americans and 48 Euro-Americans in "B," and 43 and 51 respectively in "A"), the importance of small percentage differences should not be exaggerated. Nevertheless, we are intrigued by the reverse trend that these small percentages represent, and shall consider plausible explanations of the phenomenon later. At this point, it is important to underscore that the most notable outcome of the correlation of ethnic identity with pro or con attitudes is the fact that only Euro-Americans voted with a substantial majority for official English in both versions. This is in distinct contrast to the five other groups, all of which voted against the amendment in at least one

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version of the questionnaire, and three of which voted against it in both "A" and "B" versions (Puerto Ricans, Other Latinos, and AfroCaribbeans). Clearly, Euro-Americans stood alone among the ethnic groups that we studied in their consistent support of official English legislation. If our questionnaire had been limited to the amendment, we would have been left with the impression of a wide gulf between the language policy attitudes of those from European backgrounds and all others. However, a close examination of the attitudes expressed in the five questions that concerned the elimination of bilingual services reveals that the groups are not so far apart in all language policy matters, and that, in fact, there is a fundamental unity to their views. In general, the attitudes of each ethnicity towards the elimination of bilingual services reflected its basic position on the ELA: Those who opposed the ELA vigorously also strongly favored providing educational, electoral, and public-safety help in English and other languages, while those who were strong supporters of an official English policy were much more willing to eliminate them. Thus, Puerto Ricans and other Latinos were the most ardent advocates of bilingual services, averaging more than 90% (in both "A" and "B" versions), and Euro- Americans were their greatest detractors. Yet some important areas of agreement existed. First and foremost is the fact that the majority of all of the groups, despite their position on an official English amendment, were against the elimination of any of the five services. As mentioned above, the level of their commitment to bilingual assistance did reflect their position on the ELA, but even the Euro-Americans did not produce a majority in favor of eliminating services. Euro-Americans opposed monolingual foreign language advertisements the most. (Fifty percent of the Euro-Americans who answered the questions about the services before they were queried about the ELA ("B") wanted to do away with them, but when their number was averaged with the respondents to "A," more than half (53%) of all Euro-Americans favored allowing advertisements in other languages. It was surprising to find that it was the language of advertisements that stimulated the greatest disparity in opinions, and not bilingual education or bilingual ballots, as U.S. English literature would have one believe. Bilingual advertisements received the greatest support — from 100% of Other Latinos in "B" and 92% in "A," averaging 96% - and the greatest rejection — an average of 48% by Euro-Americans. More significant than this contrast, however, is the overriding similarity in the ranking of each ethnicity's preferences. Regardless of their

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position on the ELA, everyone upheld strongly the need for bilingual telephone operators to handle emergencies, and gave it top priority. Agreement on the need for the other services followed two different orders for third, fourth, and fifth places: Puerto Ricans, Afro-Caribbeans, and Euro-Americans placed bilingual education and bilingual ballots before advertisements, but Other Latinos, Afro-Americans, and Others placed advertisements before bilingual education and bilingual ballots. These results were unexpected in two ways: 1) they provide evidence that the opinion of the dominant group in NYC, Euro-Americans, who official English organizers hope will dismantle bilingual education, coincides with Puerto Ricans, the group that established bilingual education in the city, in their ranking of the order of importance of bilingual education; and 2) they reveal a break in the consistently high pan-Hispanic unity against official English and in support of emergency operators, since Other Latinos put their concern for advertising before educational and electoral service, and Puerto Ricans reversed this priority. Nevertheless, Puerto Ricans and Other Latinos did lead all groups in their support of bilingual education and bilingual ballots. The fundamental unity to which we referred is obvious in the extent to which each ethnic group endorses bilingual emergency services more than it endorses or rejects official English, and the extent to which all except Euro-Americans voted for maintaining bilingual education more than they voted for or against the English language amendment. In other words, every ethnic group was more concerned about offering bilingual safety and educational assistance than it was about passing or defeating the amendment. Even the most ardent opponents of the amendment, Puerto Ricans and Other Latinos, cared more about the elimination of services (94/94% pro services, as compared to 79/78% against ELA), and the ELA's most ardent supporters, Euro-Americans, supported it at a rate that was 9% less (72%) than their support for 911 operators (81%). Clearly, everyone made a distinction between their stand on the official English movement and their stand in regard to the public use of languages other than English in order to provide assistance.

4. The Impact of Gender The two major patterns that resulted when ethnic backgrounds were correlated with language policy attitudes were also apparent when the impact of gender was considered. Both men and women expressed much

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greater support for the maintenance of bilingual services than for the rejection of official English, and, in contrast to some of the ethnic groups, both genders supported all five services by a wide margin. They ranked the importance of the services in similar ways, placing 911 operators and bilingual education before advertisements and ballots, but men ranked foreign language advertisements slightly ahead of bilingual advertisements, in third position, while women placed them last. Women consistently had slightly higher levels of support than did men for all of the bilingual assistance that would be affected by passage of the ELA, and they averaged 5% more opposition to the ELA (M = 49%, W = 54%). In our study, women and men do not differ dramatically in their attitudes on ELA, although there is some evidence that women are more sensitive to the social needs of language minorities.3

5. The Impact of Educational Background The third background variable analyzed was education. The level of education of those interviewed did not turn out to play its expected role, if it is assumed that those with more education would be more aware of the socio-political underpinnings of the language policy issues and the damaging repercussions of an English-only amendment. Instead, those with the least education — elementary or below — were most against the amendment (71%), and those with the most education — graduate school — were most in favor of it (57%). Except for the fact that those with some college opposed the ELA by 12% more than those with a high school education, in general, as the subjects' educational level increased, so did their pro-ELA sentiments. These results parallel those of the 1986 NY Times/CBS poll, although that pattern was reversed in the 1987 poll: Whereas more education correlated with significantly higher pro-ELA percentages in response to the 1986 question, those with the most education were more opposed to the amendment as it was posed, more restrictively, in 1987. Those results suggest that people at the top of the educational ladder were more sensitive to the differences in wording than those at the bottom. The California Poll of voter awareness and disposition toward Proposition 63 (Dyste, this volume, eds.) directly contradicted the NYC pattern. In that case, support for official English decreased as education increased. The strongest support came from those who had not completed high school, the lowest educational category, — 82% in favor — and the least

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from post MAs — 46% in favor. Since we have no basis on which to attribute the contrasting patterns in the NY and California studies to differences in East vs. West coast education, and since the majority of Hispanics (53%) in the California poll voted 'y e s ' in the California poll — in stark contrast to the pronounced anti-ELA position of Hispanics in NYC, — further research into the impact of other variables must be carried out before we attempt an explanation of these East-West contradictions. Questionnaire methodology certainly may have been one contributing factor. Our NYC sample was non-random, selected by college students who were primarily of lower working class Black and Hispanic backgrounds from among their relatives, friends, co-workers. Because they questioned personal acquaintances, they may have received more honest answers, or they may have tapped into personal networks that shared their concerns (or their professor's concerns!). The California pollster(s), on the other hand, may have queried Hispanics who were anxious to appear supportive of a popular majority group proposition. Another factor that might explain the disparate results, especially the Hispanic data, is the amount of language loss that is characteristic of each group of Hispanics. Census data confirm that New York's Hispanics speak more Spanish at home than California's Hispanics, primarily because there are more members of third and older generation Chicanos in the West. Clearly, intra-group analyses based on three-way chi squares are needed in order to tease apart the relative weight of ethnicity, gender, and education, because the inter-relationship of background variables is obscured when only one variable is considered at a time. There was not a sufficient number of items in the present study to ensure reliability under such methods. But even without the benefit of such research, we may still have confidence in some of the results in our small study. This is particularly true of the patterns that are borne out across ethnicities, genders, and educational levels. As with the first variables considered, the responses of each educational group support our two principal findings: 1) each group is committed more to the continuation of bilingual services than it is to either pro or con attitudes on an English language amendment; and 2) the maintenance of emergency service telephone operators and bilingual education are given higher priority than other services by most groups.

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As a final note on the impact of educational level on ELA attitude, the one striking intra- and intra-group difference that surfaced when educational backgrounds were compared in our study was the significant difference in the responses to versions "A" and "B" from people who had done post-graduate work (Grads). All other educational levels increased their No votes (against the ELA), when the law was presented after the services ("B"), at rates of from 1% (Elementary) to 13% (High school). Unexpectedly, however, the opposition from Grads decreased, and by nearly 30% (58% in "A," 29% in "B"). Perhaps the Grads who participated in "B" included more Euro-Americans; it seems likely that background variables exerted a more powerful impact than the order of questions, since this trend reversal is unique to this educational group. However, even if it were true that those with post-graduate schooling become pro official English after being made aware of its consequences, their extensive backing of bilingual services, ranging from 77% to 88%, is all the more impressive. It can be taken as definitive evidence of the fundamental view that all respondents share, regardless of background variables: They make a clear distinction between the ELA and its repercussions. As a result, a stance in favor of English-only does not necessarily imply an anti-bilingual services position. Thus, official English advocates may count on votes for their amendment, but not on support for dismantling the provision of services in other languages, which is their principal objective.

6. Wording the Amendments to Win The wisdom of limiting the amendment to an "official English" policy, espousing its symbolic nature to ensure maximum support, has not been lost on its promoters. In fact, U.S. English has gone so far as to disassociate itself from the pending Suffolk County, NY legislation, labelling the bill "counterproductive," because it "bar investigations of human rights abuses." It "would prohibit social workers, child-abuse investigators, consumer-protection advocates and doctors in county clinics from speaking to clients in Spanish or any other foreign language" (Schmitt 1989). They prefer, instead, to sponsor two different formulations of the amendment which reappear in the federal and state proposals: One simply declares English the official language, and the other stipulates other languages' restrictions and/or exemptions. With these two approaches in

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mind, we can better explain the electoral success of the official English amendments in the last few years. The most popular initiative, in Florida, was worded as a beguilingly straightforward statement of "official language" policy, with no mention of its possible applications as Article II, section 9 of the Florida Constitution: a) English is the official language of the state of Florida. b) The Legislature shall have the power to enforce this section by appropriate legislation. In Colorado, Article II, section 3D was similar: The English language is the official language of the state of Colorado. This section is self-executing; however, the General Assembly may enact laws to implement this section. (U.S. English 1988: 4) The constitutional amendments that were passed in California (1988) and in Arizona (1988) are longer, with several subsections. The California law is vague while it attempts to be reassuring when it states that it "is intended to preserve, protect and strengthen the English language, and not to supersede any of the rights guaranteed to the people by this Constitution." This last caveat, and the fact that specific restrictions on the use of other languages are not mentioned, may have convinced the public that no harm could come from passing it; it passed by a wide margin. Yet, because the scope of its powers is so broad — e.g., "the Legislature shall make no law which diminishes or ignores the role of English as the common language of the State of California" — and because "any person... shall have standing to sue... to enforce this section," the amendment is clearly a dangerous weapon that can be wielded against those who speak other languages. The wounds that have been inflicted to date include the exclusion of non- English speakers from shelters for the homeless in Los Angeles (Newsweek 1989: 23). The Arizona amendment passed by a much closer margin (51% to 49%), a fact which U.S. English attributes to "the most vicious... negative campaign," but which may have been due, at least in part, to the restrictive nature of the bill; it is the most oppressive version to date. It clearly specifies that English "is the language of the ballot, the public schools and all government functions and actions" (Section 1.2), "prohibiting the state from using or requiring the use of languages other than English" in all actions, making or enforcing a law, order, decree, policy, or document. After these applications are spelled out, the law goes on to

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list exemptions: compliance with federal law, instruction in a language other than English ("to provide as rapid as possible a transition to English"), teaching of foreign languages in a regular school curriculum, protection of public health or safety and protection of the rights of defendants and victims. In view of our analysis of several polls, we may assume that Arizona voters were assured by the listing of exemptions — exemptions designed to quiet their misgivings about the possibility of negative fall-out from the amendment. This approach is effective because too many voters separate the proclamation of official English from its repercussions, i.e., they believe that declaring English the official language is merely a long overdue rectification of an oversight, a symbolic gesture that will ensure the primacy of English as a lingua franca, but one that in no way will jeopardize the rights of speakers of other languages. This attitude may explain why several groups, in particular the Afro-Americans in our NYC study, were not swayed by being asked about the amendment after they supported the continuation of bilingual services (questionnaire "B"). Apparently they saw no contradiction in voting for bilingual education, ballots, and/ or advertisements and, at the same time, voting for the official English amendment. Voters in the three states that passed the legislation in 1988 were encouraged to separate the law from its repercussions by the vague or exemption-riddled wording of the propositions. Even in the face of direct statements about the breadth and power of the control that English is to exert at the expense of other languages and their speakers, a list of exemptions that seems to cover the most crucial areas is enough to convince many that no harm will come.

7. Fanning the Flames of Intolerance But the harmful repercussions of the official English movement have surfaced everywhere, in states with the law, as well as in those without it. Media attention has covered some of the firings, curtailed social services, and forbidden signs, but it has not captured the atmosphere of intolerance and outright abuse of speakers of other languages that has increased. I have been told to "Speak English! This is America!" by a clerk in a supermarket in midtown Manhattan who overheard me greet another employee in Spanish. Moreover, these belligerent attitudes have permeated all levels of our society, in much more serious ways. Consider the outrageous response of Ohio State Representative Richard Rench to

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that State's Commission on Spanish-speaking Affairs. When Commissioner Estrada wrote to Representative Rench on April 6, 1987 to "reaffirm our concern and ask that you reconsider your legislation" [to make English the official language of Ohio], the representative returned the letter stamped with a one word reply — BULLSHIT — which he labeled "very typical English." In his accompanying letter of April 22, 1987, Rench urged, "if you are not happy with our United States of America, with English as its official language, you [should] consider moving to a country that does have an official language that makes you happy." 4 Frankly, the loss of jobs and the denial of services that have occurred already or that may occur in the future, damaging as they may be, are less disturbing than the growing climate of linguistic discrimination and violence that Rench's letter reflects and that the official English movement incites. This is why it is so critical that well meaning supporters of the official English amendments become aware of the dangerous repercussions of the ELA and the crusade behind it. And this also is why, despite our efforts to explain most voter support as a response to manipulative wording of the laws and to propaganda that obscures the link between the amendment and the impoverishment of the life of the people who are affected most by it, we must also face the fact that many Americans support the ELA precisely because it is repressive. How else can we explain the fact that 84% of the 1,400 Suffolk county residents who were polled supported a bill that is so repressive that even U.S. English has distanced itself from it? Even more telling is the tone and content of the many calls and letters — more than on any other issue in the last ten years — that county officials are receiving. As one Supervisor describes them, they are all too reminiscent of Rench's attacks: "The letters I get are really red-neck...." They say: "If they can't speak English, they should go back to where they came from." (Schmitt 1989). Some may suggest that these "get tough with non-English speakers attitudes" are prompted by fear, not by racism, but the devastating results are the same: Greater polarization and increased inter-ethnic hostility. This is just the opposite of what official English advocates claim as their primary goal. "Unity," "integration," "prevention of discrimination," "equal opportunity": These are the key words and phrases in their literature. But as their internal memos and tax records reveal, this patriotic talk is a cover, at least for some, for an anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and eugenicist agenda that dishonors the most respected democratic principles of this country. 5 When we call on those principles in our efforts to convince the public that the ELA is unnecessary and dangerous, we find that our opponents

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have wrapped themselves so completely in the flag that there seems to be no red, white, and blue left for the opponents of the ELA movement. There is a difficult task ahead if we wish to turn the tide against this divisive official English movement, one that requires an understanding of the motives of its architects and the ability to distinguish these motives from those of their supporters. To accomplish this, the tactics, techniques, and wording of the proposed laws, and the associated campaign thrusts, must be analyzed and understood. In this paper we have attempted to demonstrate how background variables, question wording, and objectives are interrelated. We have documented how a large part of the public disassociates the amendment to make English the official language from the negative impact it is already having, not only on the elimination of services for those who do not speak English, but on the very fabric of democratic life that we hold so dear. The challenge is fivefold: To clarify the wording, explain the repercussions, calm the fearful, uncover the hidden agenda, and unmask the bigots. Notes 1. The Modern Language Association, the National Association of the Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages, the Linguistic Society of America, and the National Council of Teachers of English are among the many professional organizations that have passed resolutions against the ELA. 2. I am indebted to Nicole Mcintosh, a MARC scholar, for ably coding and tabulating the responses with the aid of the SAS computer program. 3. When the same questionnaire (B version) was submitted to 141 Hunter College students by Nicole Mcintosh, a significant percentage of females opposed the ELA more than males. 4. Eugene Rivera, a leader of Ohio's Puerto Rican community, charged Rench with violating the code of ethics; the legislature's Ethics Committee unanimously dismissed the charges. 5. The largest single contributor ($2.5 million) to U.S. English is Cordelia Scaife May, who also financed The camp of the saints by Jean Raspail, a book which, according to Crawford (1988: C,3), has been characterized by Linda Chavez as a "racist, xenophobic and paranoid" book. Also among the donors to Tanton's network is the Pioneer Fund, dedicated to "racial betterment" through genetics (Crawford 1988: C,3).

IV. LANGUAGE PATTERNS IN THE UNITED STATES: THE SOUTHWESTERN PERSPECTIVE

Introduction This section describes patterns of language use in the Southwest, regional language policies designed to improve the English skills of the population as well as to promote maintenance of languages other than English in the American Southwest, and the specific local impact of such legislation. Several of the articles directly address the arguments made by proponents for the need for an official English policy. The first article by Adams gives an overview of the Asian, Hispanic and Native American populations and their language use. These groups are likely to be most affected by official English legislation and are most commonly characterized by proponents of official English as not assimilating. It also discusses the role of these populations in the official English campaign. The articles by Amastae and Brandt challenge the claim by proponents of official English that non-English language background people resist learning English, that official English amendments will improve the rate at which English is learned, and that language use is an issue that can be legislated. Amastae finds no evidence that the sizeable Spanish-speaking populations along the Rio Grande in Texas are not learning English. His findings are in harmony with research on Hispanic groups in California reported in a Rand study done by McCarthy and Valdez (1986: 61—62) and in research on Hispanic groups nation-wide reported in Veltman (1983). On the contrary, argues Amastae (as do Brandt, Bingaman, and Dubois), there is a clear and compelling need of improved opportunities for learning English because more people seek admission to English classes than there are places available. The position statement by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-New Mexico) supporting the English Proficiency Act also discusses indigenous Hispanic populations, as well as the Native American populations, whose English is non-standard and who still speak a variety of Spanish. The Proficiency Act, which passed in the last legislative session (under the name English Literacy Grants Program), is designed to improve opportunities for dropouts and adults to learn English. According to Bingaman, such programs address these needs in a more positive fashion than would an official English policy. Many proponents of official English regard bilingual education as a way of segregating minorities, of holding them back, and of encouraging

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them not to learn English. They argue that only "transitional" bilingual education designed to teach English to "foreign" students as quickly as possible should be allowed. The articles by Brandt and Dubois (as well as Moran, this volume) challenge the idea that this method of teaching English is the best way of insuring a student's success in the school system. Native American populations in the Southwest may not be English proficient, or may speak an English that is not standard. Among these populations, the school dropout rate is high. Part of the reason for the dropout rate may be language related. The article by Brandt demonstrates that programs among Native American students that improve native language use actually enhance English skills. Dubois argues for an informed, rational debate on the issue of bilingual education; we should avoid the temptation to go for a simplistic legislative "quick-fix" for a complex and multi-faceted problem. She stresses as well (as does Fidel, this volume) the profound difficulty in the real world of implementing laws, as opposed to policies, about language. The paper by Benally and McCarty discusses language use among the Navajo. It addresses the centrality of language to the maintenance of culture and the benefits of bilingualism. Benally and McCarty demonstrate that the Navajo language and its use is an essential and valued part of the culture necessary to maintain social organization and religious beliefs of Navajo culture. However, the article does point to signs of growing disregard for Navajo. The difference in off- and on-reservation usage is of importance in understanding the role of Navajo and English in Navajo life. The paper by Zepeda discusses in detail two Native American language policies, that of the Tohono O'odham Nation and that of the Pascua Yaqui Nation, both located in Arizona. Examples of a relatively new phenomenon, both of these policies were written and approved in the last four years and reaffirm the unity of language and culture and the goal of maintaining and developing the use of native languages. (Other examples of tribal policies and statements about Arizona's Proposition 106 are included in Appendix I.) It is unclear what the status of these policies and of Native languages in general will be under official English.

Ethnic and Linguistic Minorities in the Southwest: an Overview Karen L. Adams

1. Introduction The border states of Arizona, California, New Mexico and Texas make interesting targets for the official English movement because the nonEnglish speaking populations comprise a sizeable percentage of these states' total population. A 1976 study of the geographic distribution of language minorities in the United States (National Center for Education Statistics 1978) shows the states with the largest proportion of people with a non-English background to be New Mexico (44%), Hawaii (35%), and New York, California and Texas (25%). Included among these five states are three of the four border states. These three states have a large portion of both immigrant and indigenous non-English-speaking populations. Arizona, the fourth border state, has a similar demographic profile, (see Tables 1, 2 and 3, Appendix V). This paper will focus on the Asian, Hispanic and Native American populations, since these groups are the most involved in opposition to the official English movement in the Southwest and are important linguistic minorities in the border states, although for different reasons. The immigrant populations in these four states include large numbers of people of Asian and Hispanic origin. The 1980 Census compared the percentage of populations according to race, (see Tables 2A, 2B and 3, Appendix V).1 This comparison shows that, of the border states, California has the largest percentage of the population that is Asian, 6.8%. In Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico, the Asian populations are much smaller: 1.7%, .8%, and .5% respectively.2 The Hispanic population of the border states, as it is throughout the United States, is significantly larger than either the Asian or Native American one. It is highest in New Mexico at 36.6%, while in Texas, California, and Arizona, Hispanics constitute 20.9%, 19.2%, and 16.2%» of the population, respectively. Also, when compared with the other three

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states, more of New Mexico's Hispanic population is indigenous, unlike other states where the majority identify themselves as Mexican (see Table 2, Appendix V). In all four border states, in addition to the indigenous Hispanics who have lived in the area since it was a part of Mexico, the Native American population represents a second sizeable indigenous group. 3 While their numbers are much smaller than the native and immigrant Hispanic groups, Native Peoples are often considered a special case. They were the aboriginal occupants of the United States, Canada and Mexico, and a certain amount of national guilt exists over the way that Native Peoples have historically been treated by the Anglo population. The relative size of the Native American populations varies significantly in the different states. In California and Texas, the Native American percentage of the population is smaller than the Asian one, .8% to 6.8% and .2% to .8%, respectively. However, in New Mexico and Arizona, Native American populations are much larger than Asian ones: 7.9% to .5% in New Mexico, and 5.6% to .8% in Arizona, (see Table 2A, Appendix V). As mentioned above, neither of these two populations come close to the size of the Hispanic one in each state. The Hispanic population is over four times larger than the Native one in New Mexico and three times larger in Arizona. In Texas and California, where the Asian population is larger than the Native one, the Hispanic population is 20 times larger than the Asian one in Texas but only about three times larger in California. Of these three communities, Asian, Hispanic, and Native, the proponents of official English appear to have directed most of their criticism at and drawn most of their examples from the Hispanic community. Among the groups that constitute the Hispanic community, Mexicans are discussed most. Various Asian groups are mentioned, but less frequently, and Native Americans are often not mentioned at all or, in the case of U.S. English, are claimed to be a group that should and would not be effected by official English legislation. Other immigrant populations, especially Europeans, are generally ignored, except when used as examples of groups that have learned to assimilate.4

2. Asian Communities While the border states, especially California and some areas of Texas, have large numbers of immigrants from Asia, throughout the United

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States, the number of Americans of Asian and Pacific Island origin has increased 120% since 1972 (Cheng 1987: x). These immigrants have come from China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Korea, and Japan in Asia and from the Philippines, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia (Kampuchea), and Thailand in Southeast Asia. There are also immigrants from India and neighboring areas, as well as people from Guam and other Micronesian Islands under United States' control. The Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and Filipinos immigrated earlier than other Asian groups, especially to Hawaii and the West Coast, as laborers of various kinds. From 1845 on, Chinese were contracted as laborers to work in mines, on the railroads, and on farms. The Japanese, like the Koreans, came later, in the 1890s-1900s, to do the same kind of work. The Philippines were under U.S. control from 1898 until 1935, when the Philippine Independence Act established the timetable for independence, which came in 1946. The earliest Filipino immigrants came around 1903 to study in American schools. While they were supposed to return to 'modernize' their own country, many chose to stay. Other Filipino immigrants came to Hawaii to help in the sugar industry and to the mainland, particularly to California, in order to work in a variety of lowpaying jobs (Beebe and Beebe 1981: 3 2 5 - 3 3 0 ) . The experience of early Asian immigrants was often one of exclusion and isolation from other populations. For example, in 1882 the Chinese Exclusion Act denied citizenship by naturalization to Chinese. 5 Even children were affected when in 1906 the San Francisco Board of Education segregated Chinese, Japanese and Koreans in Oriental schools. Similar acts continued to exclude, restrict and isolate Asian immigrants well into the 20th century. In 1943 President Roosevelt abolished immigration rules against Chinese, but set quotas at only 105 a year (Cheng 1987: 22 — 23). During World War II, the Japanese population was interned; generally, Japanese from the coast were interned in Arizona. However, the Immigration and Naturalization act of 1965 began a second wave of Asian immigration because quotas were raised, with preference given to professionals and workers in underemployed fields such as nursing (Knoll 1982: 305). Many Indochinese immigrants are in this country because they are refugees from the Vietnam War and from continuing conflicts in the mainland Southeast Asian area. The first group in 1975 was from Vietnam; the second wave, starting in 1979, came from Vietnam, Cambodia (Kampuchea), and Laos. This migration continues today (1988), though at a slower rate.

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Table 2B (Appendix V) identifies Asians presently residing in the border states and includes both native and foreign born and gives some idea of the different origins of the Asian populations. However, these figures give only a partial picture, since the only Asian groups included are: Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Guamanian, and Samoan. Groups such as the Thai, Khmer, Lao, Hmong have been grouped together in the 'Other' category. Since the population of many of these countries is multilingual, so are the groups that have immigrated. For example, recent immigrants from Laos may speak Lao, Hmong, Khmu or a variety of other languages. The dialects of Chinese are also as different from each other as separate languages. In addition, many Asians speak varieties of English, such as Hong Kong English and Standard Philipino English, which are distinct from Standard American English. The size of the individual Asian populations is not of course the same as the number of people using Asian languages. As with all originally non-English speaking groups who have immigrated, there has been a shift from use of mother tongue to use of English. The use and retention of a group's mother tongue depend on many factors. Among these are the number of generations ethnic groups have been in the U.S., the number of recent immigrants to the U.S., the degree of isolation of the group, the number of marriages within or outside the group, business opportunities in the native country, and the amount of social mobility of the group. Other factors that affect the maintenance of a native tongue or the shift to English include the original status of the non-English language and attitudes toward political events in the native country. 6 Moreover, the educational experience of the immigrant, the likelihood that he/she studied English prior to immigration, and the similarity of the mother tongue to English may also have an effect. For example, one effect of the early isolationist policy directed towards the Chinese especially was the development of close-knit Chinese communities where children born in the U.S. would learn Chinese as their first language. The landmark 1974 Supreme Court decision in Lau vs. Nichols, which directed schools to provide "appropriate relief' for nonEnglish speaking students, was originally filed in 1970 on behalf of 3,000 Chinese speaking children in San Francisco. Veltman (1983) compares data on language use among Filipinos, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans and Vietnamese in the U.S. and notes that there is a higher than anticipated maintenance of native language among the Chinese and Japanese populations as the Lau case described above

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indicates. For example, these two groups show a slower shift toward becoming monolingual English speakers than do some of the other groups. In 1976 data which compared Chinese and Japanese over the age of 14 who were born in the U.S. to Filipinos with the same characteristics, 73.8% of the Filipinos had become monolingual English users, compared to only 44.8% of the Chinese, and only 54.3% of the of the Japanese (1983: 43). In the same study, the percentage of Koreans who were monolingual English speakers was 66.4%. This difference is even more interesting when one realizes that the percentage of native born Chinese and Japanese constitutes a much higher portion of the total population than is found for the other groups: 12.7% for the Chinese and 51.0% for the Japanese, but only 5.7% for the Filipino and 1.6% for Koreans (1983: 46). When one compares the language shift of those Asians that arrived before 1960, the Chinese and Japanese speakers show a much higher percentage of speakers whose usual language is not English and who report a low competence in English: 25.7% for the Chinese, 38.4% for the Japanese, but only 4.4% for the Filipinos and 14.0% for the Koreans (Veltman 1983: 53). For those who arrived during the 1970s, however, the Koreans show the lowest competence in English, 50.1%, although most of the Korean population had arrived between 1970 and 1976 (Veltman 1983: 51). 1980 census data for California continues to show a much higher percentage of Chinese and Japanese who are born in the U.S. using their native language at home: 23.3% for the Chinese and 44.6% for the Japanese. However, for Filipinos, Koreans and Vietnamese, the figures are 4.8%, 7.4%, and 4.0% respectively (U.S. Department of Commerce 1988b: 25). In Texas, on the other hand, foreign born account for most of non-English home language use even in the case of Chinese, where 86.8%) of the speakers are foreign born. With all the other groups, the percentages are in the 90th percentile (U.S. Department of Commerce 1988b: 27). These figures reflect the different immigration patterns of the two states. As can be seen from the above, the differences in the usage and maintenance of native languages derive from a variety of causes. They are partly due to issues of isolation in the case of Chinese and Japanese. In the case of the Filipinos, educational experiences may have made a difference. Certainly, with the Vietnamese and Koreans their recent arrival means that native language use will be higher. For example in Table 5, Appendix V, among school age children in Arizona, the highest percentage

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of Limited English Proficient (LEP) Asian students' home languages (grades K-12) are Vietnamese, Chinese, Korean, Cambodian, Laotian, Philippine languages, Japanese and Thai. Even though the Asian community is following the typical pattern in the United States of shifting to monolingual English usage, as we have seen, the community is sizeable and linguistically complex and will be affected by official English; some groups, such as the Chinese and Japanese, stand to be more affected than others.

3. Hispanic Populations The Hispanic population in the United States is truly diverse. Some were here before the United States existed as a nation. Spanish-speaking explorers and settlers occupied large sections of what are now the Gulf states and the states directly north of Mexico, including all of the border states under discussion here. Moreover, our proximity to Spanish-speaking areas and our continued economic and political involvement in Central and South America have resulted in American control of Spanishspeaking areas such as Puerto Rico; these factors have also led to the immigration of many Spanish speakers, often as political and economic refugees. According to the Census Bureau, in March, 1987, 63% of the Hispanic population in the U.S. was from Mexico, 12% from Puerto Rico, 11% from Central and South America, and 5% from Cuba. The remaining 9% identified themselves only as 'Hispanic' (Pear 1987: 7). (Individual figures for the border states from 1980 may be found in Table 3, Appendix V.) The Hispanic population is also the fastest growing ethnic group in the United States, having increased by 30% since 1980, a rate which is five times faster than that of the general population. This increase is due to both higher birth rates and immigration (Pear 1987: Spanish speakers are often characterized by proponents of official English as particularly likely to maintain their language at the expense of English. Reinhold (1986) reports Gerda Bikales, the former executive director of U.S. English, as saying, "Never before has the United States had such a concentration of immigrants who speak the same language (Spanish, eds.)... we are now setting ourselves up for an entrenched language ghetto." However, as Amastae (this volume), McCarthy and Valdez (1986) and others have repeatedly demonstrated, this is not true;

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the Hispanic community is also becoming monolingual English within a few generations. Veltman (1983), in a study of the maintenance of Spanish in the Hispanic community, collected data that also indicate that Hispanics are shifting to English. However, he has broken his data down for different Hispanic groups and for different regions and has found some interesting variations in this movement towards the use of English. He does find that there is a slower rate of conversion to English among Hispanics than other ethnic groups and that among the various Hispanic groups, Chícanos are likely to shift most slowly (1983: 53 — 4, 56 — 8). He also points out that, since some groups such as the Cubans have immigrated more recently, one must expect a higher rate of Spanish use. Among the regional differences Veltman noted was the fact that in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas the rate of shift to English has been the slowest. For example, the percentage of native born speakers over 14 who reported Spanish as their usual language and their competence in English as low was 36.4% in Arizona, 49.3% in New Mexico, 57.8% in Texas. In California, on the other hand, it was only 14.3% (1983: 71). These states also have high percentages of native born: Arizona 73.7%, New Mexico 91.5%, Texas 72.3%, vs. California with 41.2% (1983: 70). Veltman argues, however, that one should never lose sight of the fact that, as with other non-English speaking groups, a shift to English in the Hispanic community is clearly taking place. In general, he claims, Spanish speakers are less likely to be monolingual English and more likely to be bilingual (1983: 90). He points out, however, that even in "the most retentive region of the Spanish regions examined, the rate of anglicization achieved by young adults exceeds fifty percent" (1983: 90); that is, these younger speakers report their usual language as English. Because of the diverse origins of the members of these Hispanic populations, the "Spanishes" that they speak vary from each other in significant ways. Puerto Rican Spanish is different from Cuban Spanish, which is different from Mexican Spanish, and so on. 7 Moreover, many of these languages have regional and social class differences (Christian and Christian 1966: 291). The indigenous forms of Spanish — those spoken in the Southwest before it became part of the United States — represent unique varieties of Spanish existing only in these areas. As Craddock (1981) notes, the forms of Spanish found in Louisiana (Isleño), in New Mexico, and in Colorado have developed in isolation over a period of more than 300 years and have numerous archaic phrases and verb forms not found elsewhere. These varieties of Spanish have also

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profoundly influenced the languages of many Native American communities.8 In the United States, there has been some tradition of Spanish having special status. For Puerto Rico and for the border states at the time of statehood, special provisions were made for Spanish speakers. Puerto Rico is a "free associated state" or commonwealth, whose population is generally Spanish- speaking. Its special language status has been noted, for example, in section 4e of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which prevented Puerto Ricans from being barred from voting because they were illiterate in English. This Act set the stage for other bilingual provisions added in the 1975 amendment of the Voting Rights Act that have affected the bilingual populations in the Southwest. 9 In California, where permanent Spanish settlements started in the 1770s, the first state constitution of 1850 was in Spanish and English, side-by-side.10 The state statutes were also in Spanish and English. However, when the constitution was revised in 1878, Spanish was no longer included. From then on, English was used for all laws, and official writings and all official proceedings were to be conducted in English. Even with this revision, at least prior to the passage of Proposition 63, California was known for its support of its non-English speaking citizens. Marshall (1986: 55), for example, states that "California could serve as a model for other states in legislating for language rights." In New Mexico and Arizona, Mexicans became part of the United States through the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in 1848 and the Gadsden Purchase in 1854, which combined to bring part or all of the territory of what is now ten southern and western states under the control of the U.S. The Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo in particular, is often referred to by opponents of official English as guaranteeing the right of Spanish speakers to use Spanish. However, this is not the case. In general, it only guaranteed the property rights of those citizens of Mexico who suddenly found themselves owning land in a foreign country (see Appendix II). New Mexico and Arizona were the 47th and 48th states admitted into the Union: New Mexico on January 6, 1912, and Arizona on February 12 of the same year. Even at the time of their admission, the non-English speaking populations of the two states were a concern to English speakers. For example, a 1904 proposal for the joint statehood of Arizona and New Mexico was strongly opposed, by the Anglo citizens of Arizona, primarily because of the sizeable Hispanic population of New Mexico which represented an old and established culture. The first relatively

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permanent Spanish settlements had started in New Mexico as early as 1598 (Christian and Christian 1966: 280). A summary of the 1910 federal hearings on statehood for New Mexico and Arizona (see Appendix III) shows that language-related issues at the time included English proficiency as a voting requirement, the languages to be taught in school, the English- speaking abilities of state officials, and the language of the courts. These remain familiar issues in the debates of the present day. In the end, after an eight year delay, the federal action taken was to admit the two states separately, but without language restrictions of any kind. As a result, there are no official language provisions in Arizona's constitution. In New Mexico, however, several special provisions were added to the state constitution relating to the use of Spanish. One mandated that the state would insure the presence of Spanish-speaking teachers and would not discriminate against Spanish-speaking students, (Article XII, sections 8 and 10; see Appendix IV). Also, Article XX, sec. 12 of New Mexico's constitution provided that laws would be published in English and Spanish for the first 20 years after the constitution had taken effect. Other articles related to voting rights, the right to hold office and to sit on a jury, and the process of ratifying amendments (Nichols 1989: 17 — 19). New Mexico also has numerous statutes protecting Spanish speakers and requiring that various materials be available in Spanish (Marshall 1986: 4 2 - 4 3 and Nichols 1989: 19, 2 3 - 2 6 ) . Unlike the other border states, Texas does not have a history of special provisions for its native Spanish speakers, speakers who began to settle the area early in the 1700s but whose numbers have remained relatively small (Christian and Christian 1966: 281). It is only recently that statutes have been passed protecting Spanish speakers in areas such as voting, driving, and insurance exams. Also, the provisions for bilingual education have recently become more supportive of language maintenance (Marshall 1986: 44—46). For the most part, however, Texas does not have a record of bilingual rights such as existed in California before the passage of Proposition 63.

4. Native Americans The language situation with regard to Native Peoples differs from that of most immigrant groups since Native Peoples' languages cannot be replenished or revived as they weaken and threaten to die out. In general,

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there are no speakers of these languages in other countries who might immigrate here later or to whose homeland people can go to be educated, to hire language teachers, or to record stories, rituals and literature. Language maintenance and even language renewal take on a special significance in these cases. The status of these languages parallels that of Gaelic in Ireland (see Hudson-Edwards, this volume). The border states represent one of the largest areas where Native Peoples' cultures and languages are still viable. According to the 1980 census, of the 10 states with the largest number of Native Peoples, the top four include California first, Arizona third, and New Mexico fourth (with Oklahoma second). Texas has the ninth largest number of Native Americans (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census 1988a: 4). Moreover, of the 10 reservations with the largest number of Native Peoples, seven of them are in Arizona and New Mexico (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census 1988a: 9). Navajo, which is spoken mostly in Arizona, has the largest number of speakers of any native group and nearly as many as all the other Native American languages combined. It is the second largest Native American tribe. Native language families found in the border states include: Hokan in Texas, California, and Arizona; Athabaskan (including Navajo) in all the border states; Uto-Aztecan in all the border states: Zuni in New Mexico; Keresan in New Mexico; Kiowa-Tanoan in New Mexico and Arizona; and Penutian in California (Leap 1981: 116 — 144). Exact data on Native American language use is difficult to obtain. 11 The Arizona Department of Education keeps figures for individual languages spoken by Limited English Proficient students, although the figures are under reported (see Table 5, Appendix V). Even these underreported figures, however, demonstrate a continuing significant presence of Native languages in Arizona. Navajo speakers are the second largest group with a non-English home language (Spanish being the largest). Apache students represent the next highest group, and — after Vietnamese — the O'odham are the fifth largest group with a non-English home language. LEP Native Americans make up 18% of the total group, and Spanish 74%. The Native languages involved include Navajo, Apache — two dialects: San Carlos and White Mountain — Chemehuevi, Cocopah, Hopi, Hualapai, Kaibab-Paiute, Maricopa, Mohave, O'odham, Pima, Supai, Tewa, Yaqui, Yavapai, Yuma, and others. Some data on language retention for a few of the tribes in the border states can be inferred from 1970 census material (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census 1973: 188 — 89, 192). The use of some

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Native American languages is given by age for groups on identified reservations. The relevant languages are Navajo, Keresan, Tanoan, Zuni, Yuman and, Uto-Aztecan. The Uto-Aztecan figures are hopelessly in error, as only 32 people are given for the total figure; Keresan includes the pueblo languages of Acoma, Laguna, Santa Ana, Zia, San Felipe, Cochiti and Santo Domingo; and Tanoan includes the pueblo languages of Tiwa, Tewa and Towa. These figures can then be compared to a break down by age of total population on the reservations to find what percentage of the population in each age group is using a Native language as their mother tongue. The data show that for Zuni, those in the 45 — 64 and 65+ group use Zuni the most, 69% and 79% respectively. There is a drop in the younger groups, but the 0 — 6 and the 6 — 15 age brackets show a surprising retention rate of 60% and 65% respectively. The Zuni situation contrasts sharply with the Keresan situation where the highest usage is among the 45 — 64 group at 43%, but where a rapid decline is evident when compared to the 0 — 6 and 6 — 15 age groups: Only 17% and 20% respectively of these two groups use Keresan as a mother tongue. The Yuman examples show an even lower rate of mother tongue usage among all groups, with a high of 26.3% in the 65+ group and lows of 9.5% and 11.0% in the 16 — 24 and 6 — 15 age groups. What is surprising in this case is that the percentage of use is going up in the youngest group: 15.7% is reported for the 0 — 6 age bracket. Navajo shows a strong retention rate for all groups, with a range of 64% to 72% use of mother tongue by Natives on the reservations. According to Veltman (1983: 59) only 3.9% of the Navajo are monolingual English speakers, and most of these live off the reservation. Veltman characterizes Navajo speakers as the "most retentive language group in the United States" (1983: 86). The Navajo and Zuni represent unusual cases. As Veltman points out, 76.8% of the Native American population surveyed in 1976 claimed to be monolingual English speakers (1983: 43). For many years, it was the intended and unintended effect of federal policy to eradicate Native People's languages and cultures. Since the late 1960s, however, programs such as the Bilingual Education Act, the Indian Education Act, and the Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act have helped to maintain and to renew native languages.12 One of the results of this trend has been the development of official tribal language policies (see Zepeda, this volume). However, language loss continues at a high rate among these groups.

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5. Role of Ethnic Minorities in Official English Campaigns All three communities have organized opposition to official English amendments, often cooperatively. In California, numerous Asian organizations worked against Proposition 63 and have continued to do so even after it passed. Among these are the Asian Law Caucus, Chinese for Affirmative Action, Japanese American Citizens League, and the Asian Pacific Law Center. In California, however, a majority — albeit a small one — of the Asian population voted in favor of Proposition 63. (Asian groups were also active in the No on Proposition 106 campaign in Arizona.) Among Hispanic groups, MALDEF and LULAC have been very active. In 1986, LULAC published a volume on "English Plus" which advocated the teaching of English to non-English speakers while maintaining other languages, as well as the teaching of second and third languages to English speakers (see Edwards, D.; McCain; Simon; Tucker; and Hitchen and Combs; all 1986). The advocates of English Plus argue that not enough money has been spent on teaching programs. They view language as a resource to be used and not a problem to be dealt with (see Ruiz, this volume). In general, Hispanic groups have high national visibility in their opposition to official English.13 They voted against proposition 63 in California, although not in the sizeable numbers that were expected. Zentella (this volume) also reports large Hispanic opposition to official English in her New York City surveys. The Native American community is also concerned about the effect of an official English amendment on language maintenance programs for Native American languages. For example, in Oklahoma, State Legislator Enoch Kelley Haney, a Native American, was instrumental in turning back official English legislation in 1987. The Eighth Annual International Native American Language Issues Institute (NALI), held in June, 1988, had a special session on official English. In spite of assurances from U.S. English that official English initiatives would leave these languages alone, Native Peoples concerned with language maintenance and renewal feel that such legislation can only be detrimental. In fact, existing and proposed legislation does not give special status to Native American language.14 Native American advocates are justly concerned that these proposals and laws will have a significant effect on the status of their languages. (See the Intertribal Council Statement in Zepeda, this volume.)

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Both the Navajo Tribal Council and the San Carlos Apache Tribe in the course of the campaign against Proposition 106 in Arizona issued statements outlining possible effects and urging opposition to the bill, (see Appendix I).15 In Arizona a poll taken on October 20, 1988 (Arizonans Against Constitutional Tampering, 1988), two weeks before the election, in the two heaviest populated counties of the state, Maricopa (Phoenix) and Pima (Tucson), showed Hispanic opposition to official English at 79% and Native American opposition at 75%, Asians were counted in the 'other' opposition category at 67%. The supporters were Whites, 55%, and Blacks, 80%. African-American support for Proposition 106 is in direct contrast to a 1986 nationwide poll done by New York Times I CBS which showed little support for official English among members of that group (Fishman 1988: 134). Zentella and Castro, Haun, and Roca (this volume) also report a higher percentage of support for official English by African-Americans — 66% in the case of Florida — than what is reported in the Fishman study.

6. Conclusion While the ethnic and linguistic minorities in the border states differ significantly from each other in a variety of ways, they all stand to be effected by the passage of official English legislation. They do not, however, always agree as to what to do about such legislation, if anything. Further research is needed to understand the complex relationships among ethnicity, language use, social class and support for, or opposition to, official English. Notes 1. Most of the data for this article is drawn from U.S. Census publications, although relying on census material for profiles of ethnic minorities is not without its problems, since its accuracy can be affected by a number of factors. First, many questions require subjective evaluations and are considered unreliable by many. For example, the 1980 census, unlike the 1970 census, asked not only if people spoke a language other than English at home, but also how well they spoke English. The latter information was used to help determine eligibility of counties for bilingual ballots. The National Council of La Raza, the League of United Latin American Citizens, and the American Civil Liberties Union were all against this policy (Pear 1984). Secondly, the way the question is framed also affects the response. As Fishman (1985a: 107 — 194) and Veltman (1983) both demonstrate the census questions about mother-tongue have changed over the

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years and these changes have affected and increased the number reporting mothertongues other than English. Moreover, between 1960 and 1970 there was also a change in the willingness of respondents to claim mother-tongue. As with the reporting of language use, the reporting of ethnicity is also affected by how the data are collected, by the categories of information collected, and by peoples' willingness to answer certain kinds of questions or to see themselves as fitting in certain categories. Knoll (1982: 3) notes, for example, when trying to estimate the history of Asian immigration, that for a period of time Japanese and Koreans were counted as one group since Japan controlled Korea. Zentella, this volume, also notes the difficulty in knowing in what racial category Hispanics will count themselves. 2. Included in this volume are case studies of Florida and New York, (Castro, Haun, and Roca and Zentella). Census data on ethnicity and language use in these states are also presented in the Appendix, section V. For a more detailed discussion of California's non-English speaking populations see Estrada (n.d.). 3. The term 'Native Peoples' alternates with 'Native American' here. According to some Native Peoples the term American is from the dominant culture and is as inaccurate as 'American Indian'. They argue that the term 'American' came with Western European civilization and is not how the indigenous population referred to themselves. Most groups used a word from their own languages meaning 'people', hence 'Native People'. 4. This lack of concern with other non-English speaking populations has nothing to do with the size of these communities. As Table 1C (Appendix) demonstrates, after Hispanics and — in some states — Native Americans, many of the European populations are larger and use their language at home with greater frequency than do Asian populations. According to Table 1C, only in California are the Chinese and Philippine languages used at home with the next highest frequency to Spanish. In all the other states discussed here there are more at-home speakers of German, French, often Italian and sometimes Polish than of Chinese. Philippine language use is often the lowest. Veltman (1983) also describes the nature of language shift among these groups and finds that some of them are similar to the rates described here for Chinese and Japanese. It is also true that some of these communities report themselves as more proficient in English than the three communities described here. Some groups — for example, Germans — also shift very quickly to English. 5. In 1894, the Japanese were also denied citizenship rights. Later laws made this denial also grounds for denying land ownership to Asians (Knoll 1982: 304). This exclusion and isolation was not always a peaceful process; Knoll claims that "[f]rom 1870 through 1900, thousands of Chinese in American were shot by whites in episodes as brutal as any black lynching" (1982: 4). 6. See Fishman and Hofman (1966) for a partial discussion of these issues. 7. See Zentella (1981), for example, for a discussion of the nature of Puerto Rican Spanish and the use of Spanish and English among the Puerto Rican communities. 8. For example, in the 1940s, 65% of the words related to social organization, religion, and material culture in the Yaqui language in Arizona were of Spanish origin (Craddock 1981: 203). Zuni, Hopi, Keresan, Taos and Tewa also all have been influenced by Spanish. However, as Christian and Christian (1966: 283 — 84) argue, Native American languages had very little affect on Spanish, and many Native American and Spanish communities remained fairly independent of each other. 9. For recent developments, see Schmidt (1989).

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10. See Christian and Christian (1966) for an excellent discussion of the different histories of Spanish settlements in the border states area. 11. Fairly comprehensive data can be found in Chafe (1962), but the figures are over a generation old. In his study, Chafe found 300 separate languages and dialects. However, only 40% had over 100 speakers and, in 55% of these cases, the speakers were elderly. 12. Thorough discussions of language renewal can be found in Brandt (1988), Leap (1988), and St. Clair and Leap (1982). 13. During the 1988 presidential campaigns, both Dukakis and Bush courted Hispanic voters — Dukakis with his fluent Spanish and Bush with a Hispanic daughter-in-law. Neither party's platform supported official English, although there was an attempt to include an official English plank in the Republican platform. Hispanics felt that they could not lose no matter who won the White House. 14. One common strategy the advocates of official English use to convince voters that such legislation at the state level is essentially benign — and, therefore, to be supported — is to argue that bilingual ballots and bilingual education are federally mandated and that state legislation would have no effect on them. However, such state legislation is being encouraged with the hope of getting enough support to pass a federal amendment (see Diamond, this volume). So, when Native Peoples are also told that federal policy with regard to their language will not be altered, this is only a partial truth, if one considers the long term goals of the proponents of official English. 15. Two days before the Arizona election, the Arizona Republic carried a lengthy article characterizing Native Americans' concerns (Shaffer 1988). However, this does not mean that all Native Americans are opposed to such legislation. In New Mexico, state representative Leo Watchman, D-Navajo, was one of the sponsors of an ELA amendment. Assuming that an ELA amendment would help people learn English, he originally supported it, claiming that Navajos needed to know English to get jobs. As with other legislators, he later withdrew his support (Nichols 1989: 26—27).

Official English and the Learning of English Jon

Amastae

1. Introduction The following letter to the editor of the El Paso Herald Post appeared on March 25, 1987: EDITOR: On Feb. 19, Channel 4 aired an interview of an illegal alien from Mexico who has lived in El Paso since 1974 with three or four children and no husband. She was very happy about the amnesty. She showed much joy over becoming "legal," yet she apparently does not think enough of her "chosen country" to learn to speak the language in 12 years. The newscast also said that 100,000 illegals in El Paso would apply for amnesty. And I am asked to believe that they do not get free housing, food, education, health care, etc., and they do not take jobs away from citizens. Could it be the old fable about the "money tree" is true? If you believe all that, you'll believe anything. Yes, our country was built by "immigrants," mine included, but they came through the legal quotas. They came for a better life, they brought skills we badly needed, they worked hard and took care of their own. There were no "free programs" to depend on. They did not rely on the taxpayer. They were proud to learn the language of the country they chose: English. They didn't expect or demand people to learn their language so it would be easier for them. Does it sound like I am prejudiced against illegals and amnesty? You bet I am. To all people who live in the United States: Give America the courtesy of learning and speaking her language. — El Paso To my mind, the letter writer's concern is precisely one shared by many proponents of official English legislation. One of the principal motivations cited by proponents of such legislation is that it will help (or force; choose your own verb) those who do not already speak English to get about the business of mastering it more quickly. The justification for this view is that significant numbers of recent immigrants are, in contrast to previous generations, not learning English.

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It is this putative justification which will be discussed here: Whether large numbers of immigrants actually are not learning English, and whether the objective of insuring that people who do not now seem to be learning English actually do learn English will be met by the proposed legislation. In this examination, I will discuss data from two sources. First to be presented are data gathered recently in El Paso concerning opportunities for learning English and the response to those opportunities by members of the non-English-speaking population. 1 The second source of data includes investigations of language maintenance and language shift conducted by me and others in various locations in the Southwest, especially in South Texas. That this information comes from El Paso and the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas is particularly important, insofar as proponents of official English seem especially concerned about population ratios. They mention frequently the fact that by the year 2000 the majority of California's population will consist of members of ethnic and/or linguistic minority groups. 2 Thus, El Paso and the Lower Rio Grande Valley provide a good test case for the unstated assumption that when over 50% of the population is of minority ethnic/linguistic background, the position of English will somehow be threatened.

2. English-as-a-Second-Language Opportunities in El Paso El Paso is a city where Spanish has a major presence. The population of c. 480,000 is more than 60% Hispanic. The immediately adjacent Mexican city of Ciudad Juárez has a population of c. 1,000,000. With the possible exception of the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas, about which more will be said later, this should be the place, if such a place exists, where there should be some resistance to the learning of English It is immediately apparent, however, that ESOL (English for speakers of other languages) programs are thriving in El Paso, even when the scope of the survey is limited to programs not designed either for school age children, who are required by law to attend school and presumably have no choice about learning English, or for university students. The emphasis hereafter will be entirely on programs for adult learners who enroll by choice. ESOL programs are offered by the El Paso Community College, the school districts, the churches, and a coalition of these and other groups

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which exist for the teaching of basic literacy as well as oral proficiency in English. El Paso Community College offers a number of ESOL programs. Some are pre-TOEFL/pre-academic programs for foreign students and are thus outside our consideration; the figures I cite do not include those students. 3 In programs ranging from the most basic of literacy skills up to pre-college ESL, EPCC enrolls approximately 3,000 students each semester in ESL instruction. Most of these students are people who have either immigrated to the U.S. after the age when secondary school would have been appropriate, or who arrived in El Paso at the age of 16 or 17, attended public high school for a year or so — often in an ESL curriculum — and then continued studying English at EPCC. For most of these students, financial aid is possible, and, in fact, necessary. EPCC officials report that about 90% do receive some sort of assistance toward a cost of over $200 for the equivalent of a 12 credit hour load. At $200 per semester, I doubt there is any truth to the cynical suspicion that they are attending school just to receive financial aid. Both of the major school districts have Adult Education programs. El Paso Independent School District has Adult Education programs which meet both evenings (twelve locations) and during the day (three locations). The classes are funded at a ratio of 55% from state funds and 45% from federal funds, and are free to the students. There are approximately 4,000 — 4,500 students registered each year in these programs. The district is not at all picky about the actual residence of students, in the sense of district boundaries. In fact, EPISD cooperates with the smaller districts in the area (Clint, Fabens, Canutillo, Socorro, San Elizario) to include their residents in the Adult Program. Some of the Adult Education courses are designed with the GED as the ultimate goal, and include subjects other than ESL, but district officials say that almost all who register in the program take ESL at some point. The other major district in the city, the Ysleta Independent School District, has a similar program. Enrollment there has been running at a minimum of 1,600 students, typically with 1,400 enrolled in ESL as well as basic literacy. The district official to whom I spoke said that enrollment always outstrips available classes, and that as soon as registration closes for each six-week session, a waiting list for the next session forms immediately. Another avenue to English is provided by churches. Many churches have organized, thriving, and well-regarded ESL/Basic Literacy programs. Enrollment figures for these programs are more difficult to obtain,

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for this is a more diffuse group of programs than those offered by the schools. However, from the fact that the larger programs have approximately 200 enrollees per year, 4 it can be estimated that the total number served by these programs is in the area of 1,000. Whatever the precise total, it is certain that significant numbers of students are learning English in church-sponsored programs. I can say, anecdotally, that as Chairman of the Department of Languages & Linguistics at the University of Texas at El Paso I constantly receive requests for graduate and advanced undergraduate students to teach in these programs. Finally, there is Project LEA, a loose coalition of groups involved in basic literacy instruction. It is important to realize that in El Paso it is impossible to separate the acquisition of English from the acquisition of basic literacy skills, and that to do one is almost necessarily to do the other. Figures on Project LEA enrollments are also hard to collect, but there are significant numbers of students involved. The most recent estimate from Project LEA itself is that approximately 300 students are served per year.5 Moreover, Project LEA trains tutors who work in other community literacy/ESL programs, and, although it has trained approximately 300 tutors since its inception in 1986, there is still a shortage. A number of conclusions can be drawn from these facts and figures. The most compelling is that very large numbers of non-English speakers are taking advantage of every opportunity to learn English. The picture painted by advocates of official English — of large numbers of immigrants, especially Hispanics, refusing to learn English — seems quite untrue. Despite the variety of programs, the significant problem in El Paso at present seems to be a lack of teaching capacity rather than a lack of demand. That this should be the situation in a city with a Hispanic majority located immediately adjacent to a large Mexican city with a population which is double El Paso's is particularly significant in evaluating the allegation that official English legislation is necessary because immigrants are refusing to learn English.

3. Language Maintenance and Language Shift on the Rio Grande The claim that immigrants are refusing to learn English can also be evaluated using information of a different sort. Studies of language

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203

maintenance and language shift show an inexorable shift from Spanish to English. This means that, due to pressures from education, the media, commerce and the workplace, speakers are acquiring English, and, moreover, losing Spanish. This pattern of language shift has been documented the length of the Rio Grande, from Albuquerque (Bills and HudsonEdwards 1980) to the Lower Rio Grande Valley of South Texas (Amastae 1982), which, in general, has a large Hispanic majority (80%). Language shift to English is indicated by every single measure there is of language relationships in a bilingual context. Among these measures are age (the younger the informant the more likely he/she is to speak English better than Spanish), birth order (younger siblings are more English-dominant than Spanish-dominant), and, most importantly, socioeconomic status (SES). English dominance — defined by both preponderance of use and feeling of greater fluency — tends to rise with SES. These phenomena can be illustrated briefly with tables from Amastae (1982), which reports data from an investigation of students from Pan American University (Edinburg, Texas), fully one-third of whom had come from families of migrant background, and over one-third of whose parents were born in Mexico. Of the sample (nearly 700 respondents), 74% had learned Spanish first and 14% had learned both Spanish and English simultaneously. Table 1 shows ratings of language capability. Clearly, despite the overwhelming presence of Spanish, these students feel English to be their stronger language, particularly in reading and writing. In general, language skill ratings correspond to patterns of language use. A newcomer to the Lower Rio Grande Valley (or to El Paso, for Table 1. Self-Reported Language Capability Ratings by Hispanic Respondents Language Ability

None

Slight

Speak English Understand English Read English Write English

.8% .8 1.5 1.5

3.2% 2.3 1.9 5.7

Speak Spanish Understand Spanish Read Spanish Write Spanish

.9 .6 3.2 4.3

Source: Amastae (1982: 266)

6.6 4.3 12.0 17.2

Elementary

Intermediate

Advanced

Native

38.6% 31.8 30.9 40.0

36.9% 41.6 41.3 32.2

20.0% 23.1 24.2 20.1

-

14.3 9.8 17.6 16.3

46.2 41.5 35.8 37.1

21.1 29.5 20.8 16.1

11.1 14.3 10.7 9.0

— — -

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that matter) is amazed at the amount of Spanish spoken. Is this impression necessarily an indication that people don't know English? Reports of language usage from South Texas, seen in Table 2, show clearly that such is not the case. Several trends are evident here. One is an obvious separation of the home domain from the rest. The home domain is clearly one in which Spanish is the dominant language. In addition, there appears to be a generational differentiation, since Spanish is used more with grandparents than with parents, and relatively little with siblings. Similarly, the neighTable 2. Language Usage for Hispanic Respondents, by Domains Domains

Only Spanish

Mostly Spanish

Both

Mostly English

Only English

Home, Home, Home, Home, Home,

31.2% 43.7 75.3 80.5 7.8

22.2% 23.7 14.8 13.1 7.8

27.2% 22.2 6.4 3.3 40.6

14.4% 8.0 1.8 1.5 31.6

4.4% 2.8 1.8 1.5 12.2

10.4 5.0 3.0

15.2 7.4 3.6

40.9 36.1 35.1

25.0 33.5 37.1

8.6 18.0 21.1

Elementary school, outside class High school, outside class University, to friends University, to acquaintances University, to biling. profs

8.4 5.2 2.2 .6 2.7

14.4 7.5 9.5 3.8 6.7

33.7 40.1 41.5 30.3 30.5

24.8 32.7 32.7 46.6 35.8

18.6 14.5 14.1 18.7 24.3

Work, to fellow employees

2.6

9.0

36.9

37.1

14.4

Church Confession Language leader uses Prayer

8.5 8.5 16.2 7.6

15.8 4.6 14.2 6.5

29.1 8.8 28.8 18.9

29.6 27.8 18.1 26.9

17.1 50.3 23.5 40.0

Visiting Mexican border Visiting Mexican interior

41.1 56.2

35.2 30.1

19.7 9.8

2.8 2.8

1.3 1.0

3.6 2.8 2.0 2.2 1.4 1.6 4.0

4.6 4.6 3.6 1.0 .4 2.2 2.2

29.0 29.0 23.0 10.8 10.6 11.0 5.2

32.6 32.9 34.9 33.3 36.1 35.0 30.6

30.2 33.3 36.5 52.8 51.6 52.0 57.9

to parents frome parents to grandparents from grandparents to siblings

Neighborhood, to friends Shopping in neighborhood Shopping downtown

Watching tv Listening to radio Movies Reading newspapers Readings books Readings magazines Writing to friend Source: Amastae (1982: 267)

Official English and the Learning of English

205

borhood domain seems to show a shift from the greater use of Spanish with friends to a lesser amount in neighborhood shopping, and a still lesser amount in shopping outside the neighborhood. In the school domain there is a comparable shift from greater use of Spanish in elementary school to lesser use of it at the university. In no domain other than home can Spanish be said to be the dominant language, judging from these data. All other domains show a preponderance of "Both Languages Equally," "Mostly English," or "Only English" usage. These patterns of language hardly support the claim that large numbers of Hispanic immigrants are not learning English. Additional perspective can be found in attitudinal factors. Table 3 shows responses to questions concerning the utility of the two languages. Clearly, these data do not reveal either inability or refusal to acknowledge the necessity of English. Table 3. Practical Benefits of Each Language, Hispanic Respondents

Most Most Most Most

advantageous advantageous advantageous advantageous

language language in Southwest language outside Southwest language in getting a job

Spanish

Both

English

%

%

%

11.5 24.5 2.2 1.6

60.2 66.8 31.8 52.3

28.2 8.7 65.8 46.1

Source: Amastae (1982: 269)

In short, the data show that, as a group, Hispanics in the Southwest are indeed following exactly the path of other groups. They are learning English, and, to a large extent, they are also losing Spanish. Of course, the process is often obscured by continued immigration, and things are in general a lot more complex than the picture I have presented here. For one thing, as pointed out in Amastae (1982), the loss of Spanish, while unmistakable, is not always total, and appears to have a corrective swing. Interested readers may consult the earlier paper for further details.

4. Conclusion Not every immigrant sets out immediately and successfully to learn English. There are plenty of people in El Paso and elsewhere who have not acquired English, despite having been in the U.S. for some time.

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Amastae

Nevertheless, it is important to address two claims made explicitly and repeatedly by the proponents of official English legislation: 1) large numbers of immigrants are "refusing" to learn English,6 and 2) legislation establishing English as the official language would rectify the situation. A relatively quick survey of the El Paso situation paints a very convincing picture that extraordinarily large numbers of immigrants are learning English as quickly as they can, often at some financial cost, always at some cost in time and effort. Every program administrator I have talked to bemoaned nothing so much as the lack of funding and staff to serve the overabundance of demand for these programs: If large numbers of Hispanics are refusing to learn English, where is this demand coming from? In the lower Rio Grande Valley, I suspect the situation in community ESL programs is the same — though I don't have direct data on it — and this in a location where the population is 80% Hispanic, far more than even El Paso. What I do know is that my own study of language maintenance and shift, as well as a follow-up by Mejias & Anderson (1984), shows that language shift is occurring. This, too, is evidence that Hispanic immigrants are no different from previous immigrant groups. There are, to be sure, people — plenty in fact — who do not speak English. In attempting to ascertain the reasons why, it is important to distinguish between recent immigrants and those who have been here for some time. It is only the latter who should be discussed in this context. It is a central claim by many that not knowing English excludes immigrants from the principal economic and political life of the country. This is true enough, but far too simplistic. There is actually a vicious circle in which lack of English is not a prime cause of exclusion, but only an intermediate cause. The prime cause of lack of English is economic and social marginalization and/or isolation. Those who have, despite several years of residence in the U.S., not acquired English tend to be those who are most isolated from the mainstream. Their isolation is not, ultimately, the result of lack of English, but the cause of it. It is no accident that studies around the world show that maintenance of a minority language is often greatest in situations of the greatest isolation and oppression. One thinks of such languages as Sephardic Spanish, which has survived for centuries in the most adverse circumstances. 7 The focus of this article has been on the evidence that is available concerning one particular claim in favor of official English legislation. In the debate concerning official English, each claim and argument must be

Official English and the Learning of English

207

subjected to rational and empirical scrutiny of the highest order. With respect to the claims that many immigrants are refusing to learn English, I have not so far found this sort of rational and empirical argument from proponents of the legislation, the very group who should be able to offer clear evidence that so-and-so many immigrants fall into this category. Instead, what I find is anecdotal and emotional outbursts, like those in the letter cited above. Even materials published by U.S. English evade the issue of evidence. Stanley Diamond's history of California's Proposition 63 (this volume, eds.), for example, does not advance arguments which contain any sort of evidence. After accusing the opposition of turning debates on Proposition 63 into a "mockery of rational discussion and reasonable argument," Diamond's next sentence is "Let's now list some of the reasons voters gave for supporting Proposition 63." What follows is a list of voters' worries, including the one dealt with here, expressing a generally negative view of immigrants. Another sort of evidence proponents of this argument could provide would concern the question of whether the situation now really is different from that in earlier periods — whether previous generations of immigrants really were as well motivated (not to mention as irrepressibly funny) as Hyman Kaplan in their acquisition of English. Did greater numbers of immigrants in earlier generations really learn English faster? No evidence on the question has been presented. Secondly, proponents of this legislation should be able to demonstrate exactly how such legislation would change the situation that allegedly exists. Given the vague language of many proposals, it is hard to imagine that anything much would happen that is not already happening to the learning of English. Simply declaring English the official language would not automatically increase funding for the sorts of programs I have mentioned, nor would it diminish the sense of isolation that many immigrants feel. To the contrary, it would be more likely to increase the isolation, and, paradoxically, retard the acquisition of English. With respect to this one claim for the benefits of the official English, the burden of proof still clearly rests with the proponents. Notes 1. Thanks are due to Mr. D o n Vickers (EPISD), Mr. Tito Marinez (YISD), and Mr. Dennis Brown and Dr. Jim Burke (EPCC) for assisting me in gathering this information. 2. This opinion was expressed by Bev Hermon, Arizona State legislator, at the March 17 — 19, 1987, conference on Official English and the Border States, held at Arizona State University, Tempe.

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3. Test of English as a Foreign Language — a test widely used to assess the English of foreign students applying for admission to U.S. colleges and universities. 4. Thanks to Marianne Phinney of the St. Clements program for this information. 5. Thanks to Osvaldo Grijalva for this information. 6. Take, for example, the statement: "Tragically, many immigrants today refuse to learn English." a view expressed by Mr. Ed Tisdadt in an opinion expressed in the El Paso Herald Post, March 26, 1987, in an statement entitled "Does the United States need a law to make English its official language? Yes." 7. See, for example, Gilmer's 1986 study of Judeo-Spanish in Turkey.

On the English Proficiency Act* The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

1. Introduction The English Proficiency Act, S. 629, introduced on March 3, 1987, by Senators Simon, Dixon, Moynihan, Bentsen, Matsunaga, Inouye, McCain, Cranston, Bradley and me, is substantially similar to a bill that I introduced in the 99th Congress. A companion bill to the present Act, H.R. 579, was introduced in the House by Representative Matthew Martinez (D-CA). The goal of this Act is to help those adults and outof-school youths whose first language is not English to achieve literacy in English. A 1986 survey on English proficiency in New Mexico, entitled "Study of Literacy in New Mexico" and conducted by the New Mexico Forum on Education, argues that the most significant predictive factors of illiteracy are the number of school years completed and a non-English language background. The bill's targeted population of adult and outof-school youth of Limited English Proficiency (LEP) consists of those who have limited ability in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding English and whose native language is not English or who live in a family or community environment where a language other than English is the dominant language. Full achievement of literacy is an essential means to greater opportunity and participation in our nation.

2. Illiteracy Among Limited English Proficient Groups in the U.S. The U.S. Department of Education, in its 1986 Update on Adult Illiteracy, estimates that the illiteracy rate among LEP groups is 48%, compared to only 9% among those whose native language is English (U.S. Department of Education 1986). The overall illiteracy rate for all U.S. adults is 13%. Studies have found that among the fastest growing minority — the Hispanic community — the illiteracy rate is as high as 56%. 1 The illiteracy

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The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

rate for non-Spanish speaking adults whose native language is not English is also high: 41%. Another cause for concern to be found in the figures in the Update on Adult Illiteracy is the strong correlation between illiteracy in the primary language and illiteracy in English. Eighty-six percent of those persons whose primary language is not English indicate that they are illiterate in their native language as well. These figures show LEP populations to be disproportionately represented among our nation's illiterate population.

3. English-as-a-Second-Language Opportunities for Adults Contrary to conventional wisdom, Limited English speakers are interested in learning English. An Education Week article of November 5, 1986, reports that thousands of prospective students, many of them recent immigrants, are being turned away from adult English language classes (Blake 1986). Whether in Los Angeles, Houston, New York City, or Albuquerque, adult education officials report too few classes for too many students. The article describes that education officials in Los Angeles were unable to serve roughly 40,000 adults seeking English language instruction in 1986 — more than twice the number turned away in 1985. New York City reported that 6,000 were on waiting lists for English and that many more had been lost due to lack of record keeping. The situation is often particularly bad in non-urban areas. My state of New Mexico reports that while there is greater opportunity for adult learners in urban areas, the rural communities are suffering from little or no English classes at all. More than 75% of New Mexico's population lives in rural areas where literacy services are limited or non-existent according to the 1986 "Study of Literacy in New Mexico." Phil Felix of the Adult Education division of the New Mexico Department of Education states that 60 rural communities applied for adult education services in 1986, but were refused due to lack of funds. The Simpson-Rodino Immigration and Naturalization Act enacted by the last Congress will increase the number of non-English speakers seeking language instruction. 2 Between 2.6 and 6 million undocumented aliens now residing in the United States will become eligible for naturalization if they entered the U.S. before 1982. Learning English goes handin-hand with naturalization, and our current service providers do not appear to be equipped to handle the influx of these prospective students. It would be unfortunate if the lack of English classes becomes a barrier

On the English Proficiency

Act

211

toward citizenship — a result contrary to the purposes of the immigration bill. Ironically, many individuals feel that the best way to address this situation is to declare English the official language of the United States, rather than advocating more English language programs. Recently, an official English constitutional amendment was introduced in the New Mexico state legislature. Not surprisingly, it was severely criticized by state leaders and educators and overwhelmingly defeated by the Legislature. I do not believe that dictating that English be our state or national language will insure English proficiency. If we follow that simple formula, then no one takes responsibility for expanding English classes, improving language instruction and training, and increasing program funding. A genuine first step to insure English proficiency is to provide access to English classes.

4. LEP Populations in New Mexico The English Proficiency Act has real meaning for my home state, because, to lower its current 14% illiteracy rate, New Mexico must address the special needs of its LEP population. According to the 1986 literacy study by the New Mexico Forum on Education, the illiteracy rate in the state has not changed substantially since the 1930s. Unlike a state such as California, which has a large immigrant population, New Mexico has a large population of native-born LEP speakers. According to the 1980 Census (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1980). Hispanics in New Mexico make up 37% of the total state population, and American Indians, 9%. In these two groups New Mexico finds the largest number of its LEP speakers. Naturally, schools are assumed to have major responsibility for literacy instruction, yet we continue to lose too many of our young people from our schools. A July, 1986, report ("The education of Hispanics: Status and implications" 1986) finds that the lack of appropriate services for LEP children contributes heavily to English illiteracy among Hispanics. Nation-wide figures from the Department of Commerce show that Hispanics have the highest dropout rate, 45%-50%, of any major subpopulation in the U.S. (U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census 1984). In New Mexico, figures from a state Department of Education's November, 1987, drop-out study show New Mexico's annual high school

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The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

drop-out rate was 8.0% for 1986 — 87. Among the minority populations in New Mexico, Native American students have the highest drop-out rate at 12.0%, followed by Hispanic students at 9.0%, and the lowest rate is for Anglo students at 6.4%. What these figures do not tell us is what the drop-out rate would be over a four year period, which I believe would be a more accurate assessment of how many students remain in school. Intervention for these "at risk" students in New Mexico and across the country poses an even greater challenge to schools and parents alike. This bill recognizes the higher drop-out rate among Limited-English youth by targeting literacy services to out-of-school youth. Equally targeted in the English Proficiency Act are LEP adults. According to the New Mexico Department of Education, 22% of New Mexico's total population, or 282,447 persons, are either not in school or have not graduated from high school or earned an equivalent diploma. Of this total, close to half have eight years or less of formal education. Adult basic education typically tries to meet the needs of the adult portion of this group, but it served only 20,500 adult New Mexicans in fiscal year 1986. This legislation will allow more communities to have literacy services to provide for the large portion of our adults who are Limited English speakers.

5. The English Proficiency Act and its Supporters The English Proficiency Act would establish within the Office of Adult Education of the U.S. Department of Education a grant program for the operation of English literacy programs for eligible recipients, which may be community-based organizations, local educational agencies, triballycontrolled schools, institutions of higher learning, public libraries, or prisons. The programs supported by these grants would be no more than three years in length. Demonstration programs are also authorized to develop improved approaches and techniques for educating LEP Americans. The bill also would establish a clearinghouse to gather and disseminate literacy training and educational materials for the LEP population. It authorizes $50 million for each of fiscal years 1988, 1989, and 1990. This amount annually would serve 142,857 Limited English speakers. The 1980 Census estimates the total LEP population aged 14 and over is 3,422,592. Thus, the $50 million would still reach only 4% of the eligible population.

On the English Proficiency Act

213

It is certainly my intent that this legislation include those minority populations that meet the definition of Limited English Proficient — including the Hispanic community, American Indians and Native Alaskans, and Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. The demographic trends of our nation anticipate that by the year 2000, one out of every three Americans will be a member of a minority group. If we fail to address the special educational needs of theses groups we deny ourselves and these individuals a more productive future. The English Proficiency Act is supported by more than 35 educationrelated and minority organizations. These organizations include the American Civil Liberties Union, the American G.I. Forum of the United States, the American Jewish Committee, the American Jewish Congress, the Asian Pacific American Bar Association, Asian Americans for Equality, Aspira of America, the Association for Community Based Education, the Center for Applied Linguistics, the Children's Defense Fund, Chinese for Affirmative Action, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, the Cuban National Planning Council, the Indochina Resource Action Center, the International Reading Association, the Japanese American Citizens League, the Joint National Committee for Languages, the League of United Latin American Citizens, the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the Mexican American Women's National Association, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, National Asian Pacific Democratic Council, the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the National Association for Bilingual Education, the National Center for Urban Ethnic Affairs, the National Coalition of Title 1/ Chapter I Parents, the National Community Education Association, the National Council of La Raza, the National Education Association, the National Hispanic Bar Association, the National Indian Education Association, the National Italian American Foundation, National PTA, National Puerto Rican Coalition, the National Puerto Rican Forum, the Native American Science Education Association, the Organization of Chinese Americans, Inc., the Organization of Pan Asian American Women, the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Educational Fund, and Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages.

Notes * During the legislative process, the English Proficiency Act was modified and renamed the English Literacy Grants Program. In April, 1988, it became law as part of the Augustus F. Hawkins-Robert T. Stafford Elementary and Secondary School Improve-

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The Honorable Jeff Bingaman

ment Amendments and the Adult Education Act. In the 1990 budget request for the Department of Education, $0 funding was proposed for the program. It could still be funded if Congress so decides. For further discussion, see de la Rosa (1989). 1. An "Adult Performance Level Study," for example, was carried out at the University of Texas at Austin in 1975. See, also, National Council of La Raza 1986. 2. For the text of this law see the Immigration and Nationality Act Amendments of 1986, Statutes at Large, vol. 100: 3655..

The Official English Movement and the Role of First Languages Elizabeth A. Brandt

1. Introduction Discussions of the issue of developing an official English language policy in the United States are curiously void of references to scholarly research on language, language policy, and bilingualism. This is particularly apparent in the popular media, where it appears that most participants are unaware of any of the research that bears on the issues they publicly discuss. Scholars should never be so naive as to believe that research evidence "speaks for itself," and they should not disdain communicating with the public. For scholarly research to have any impact on major policy decisions, our voices must be heard in public. This paper reviews relevant research studies in English as a Second Language (ESL), bilingualism, cognitive psychology, psycholinguistics, sociolinguistics, and education which address major issues raised by the proponents of official English.

2. English Language Instruction and Language Loyalty in Arizona An issue commonly raised by official English proponents is that there are large numbers of speakers of other languages "out there" who are stubbornly refusing to learn English. What is the evidence for this proposition in Arizona? Evidence could be adduced in a variety of areas. One would be a lack of enrollment in English as a Second Language or bilingual classes; another would be a pattern of class cancellation from lack of enrollment. It must be remembered that American Indian languages and Spanish are the original indigenous languages in Arizona and much of the West. Widespread use of English in Arizona is quite recent. Portions of Arizona

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Elizabeth

A. Brandt

north of the Gila River came under the jurisdiction of the United States in 1848 by the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo and the remainder in 1854 via the Gadsden Purchase. For many American Indian groups, extensive contact with English did not begin until after the Second World War. Many Indian tribes are either officially (Navajo, Tohono O'odham, Yaqui) or unofficially in favor of the continued maintenance of their native language, but they are equally concerned that their children develop a high level of English language proficiency. All of the Indian languages spoken in the United States are endangered, including Navajo, the language of the second largest tribe in the United States, but one which is spoken by perhaps no more than 60% of Navajo people (Platero 1986). At the individual level, many parents have made a conscious decision not to transmit a language other than English to their children because of their hopes for academic success for their children. (See Benally and McCarty, this volume, eds.) For Hispanics, Spanish language loyalty is much more varied, since Hispanic communities do not exist as governments or sovereign entities as individual tribes do. Available research evidence strongly indicates, however, that the Spanish language is not being maintained in the United States, especially in the Southwest (see articles in Barkin, et al. 1982; also Adams, Amastae, this volume, eds.). In an attempt to answer the question of whether there are large numbers of individuals refusing to learn English, data were compiled from a variety of sources for this paper. In Arizona, meeting the need for instruction in English below the adult level is the responsibility of the public schools, which, under state law (Arizona Revised Statutes 15 — 751 — 756), must assess each student's language proficiency in English and in the student's native language and must provide either a bilingual program or an ESL program if the child is Limited English Proficient (LEP) until sufficient proficiency in English is achieved so that such instruction is no longer necessary. Although provision of such services is mandated in Arizona, less than half of low-achieving Limited English Proficient language minority students are, in fact, currently receiving such instruction (Mendoza 1986). The first report of program services offered to students under the new law, covering the 1984 — 85 school year, found that 84% of all students had English as their primary language and 90,228, or 16%, were identified in the 1984 — 85 school year as having a primary language other than English (Arizona Department of Education 1986). Of this number 31,563, or 34%, were classified as LEP students. For the 1985 — 86 school year, English was the primary language of 83.83% of all students; Spanish the primary language of 11.38%; Indian

The Official English Movement and the Role of First Languages

217

languages the primary language of 3.32%, with Asian and other nonIndian languages accounting for 1.06% (Arizona Department of Education 1987). The 1985-86 figures show a total of 96,674 students in Arizona with a primary home language other than English. Of these, 38,747 students were assessed as Limited English Proficient (Arizona Department of Education 1987: 46). Thus, about 40% of children whose primary language is not English are classified as Limited English Proficient. The majority of LEP students are concentrated in the large urban districts of Maricopa and Pima counties (Phoenix and Tucson, respectively) and in lower grade levels. Arizona school districts provided service to 35,388 LEP students, leaving 3,359 students unserved. The figures reported here actually represent a sizable undercount, since one large school district did not report at all and 54% of all districts did not reassess the language proficiency of their LEP students as required by state law. These students are concentrated in kindergarten and the first grade. There are 45 different language categories or codes which can be reported. Figure 1 represents the languages in percent spoken by this group of students in Arizona. There has been an increase of over 6,446 students in Arizona schools over the 1985 — 86 school year. By the 1987 — 88 school year, 16% (or 102,062) of Arizona's K-12 students had a home language other than English (Arizona Department of Education, 1989). Any school district with ten or more LEP students in kindergarten or any grade in any school must provide either a Bilingual Program or an

B |

Spanish Navajo j Asian/Non-Indian languages

73.5% 15.5% 6.6%

•

Apache

2.2%

•

Papago

0.6%

Hopi

0.5%

Other Indian languages

1.2%

Figure 1. Arizona's Non-English speakers, by Percentage Source: Arizona Department of Education, 1986

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Elizabeth A. Brandt

English as a Second Language Program. Arizona State Law (ARS 15 — 754) provides a choice of four distinct allowable program options: 1) a K-6 Transitional Bilingual Program; 2) a 7 —12 Structured Bilingual Program; 3) a K-12 Bilingual-Bicultural Program; and 4) an English as a Second Language Program (Arizona State Department of Education 1985: 1- 4).1-2 In the 1984 — 85 school year, many schools offered more than one model because of the differing needs of their students, although 78 school districts reported not implementing any model. At least 58 school districts were in violation of state law in this respect since they had identified LEP students, but provided no programs for them (Arizona State Department of Education 1985: 15). The most popular program options are ESL programs, followed by Individual Education Programs. School districts with fewer than nine LEP students must either provide one of the programs described above or an Individualized Educational Program which will meet the cultural and linguistic needs of the LEP students. This program option is defined by ARS 15 — 74 as: Individual Education Program — a systematic, individualized program of instruction designed to ensure equal educational opportunities for the student by promoting English language development and by sustaining normal academic achieve- ment through the use of the pupil's primary home language for subject matter instruction, to the extent possible. Under the supervision of a certified teacher, primary home language instruction may be given by paraprofessionals, community members, or pupils with proficiency in the primary home language serving as tutors. (Arizona State Department of Education 1985: 15) Although Arizona has one of the most far-reaching laws in the United States dealing with the assessment and provision of services for language minority children to ensure that they become proficient in English and that their language and academic skills are correctly assessed (Arizona Revised Statutes 15 — 755), even after the third year of implementation, large numbers of schools are still out of compliance and failing to serve the needs of young children for English instruction. Official English legislation will have a significant impact upon these programs since only ESL and Transitional Bilingual Education programs are permitted by the language of Arizona's official English law, not Bicultural and Structured Bilingual programs (see note 1). What about adult needs for English? In Arizona, there were 508,000 adults who lacked a high school diploma in 1987. The Division of Adult Education, Arizona State Department of Education, has responsibility

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219

for GED High School Equivalency preparation programs, the GED testing programs (at 45 testing centers state-wide), citizenship programs, English as a Second Language, and Adult Basic Education. Students in basic English as a Second Language courses use them to develop skills that make English a primary or principal language and to develop language arts skills such as literacy. It is important to realize that many students may be illiterate in their first language as well as in English. The courses have been taught utilizing the native language to move to the use of English as a primary language. When a student achieves a higher degree of proficiency, he or she moves to the advanced level. Courses such as these are prohibited under current legislation, because of the use of the native language. There were 6,095 adults enrolled in entry level basic ESL programs in Arizona in Spring, 1987, and 3,237 students enrolled in advanced levels. By ethnicity, the figures are found in Table 1. Table 1. Ethnicity of Students Under Jurisdiction of the State Division of Adult Education, Arizona State Department of Education White Black Hispanic American Indian Asian total

570 84 7,063 27 1,588 9,332

Source: Arizona Department of Education, Statistics on Adult Education, Basic Education, and ESL, 1987

As can be seen from this table, Hispanics make up by far the largest number served. Dr. Gary A. Eyre, Director of the Division of Adult Education, Arizona State Department of Education, has estimated that his office was able to serve less than 10% of the need in the state for educational services due to lack of funding. (Funds are provided by both state and federal governments.) The students in these classes are well aware of the status of English. Adults who wish to take English courses are often unable to find a place in such courses. ESL courses offered through the Maricopa Community College District for adults in the Spring of 1988 had to be increased and enrollments doubled. Waiting lists are found for many classes. As can be seen from the data for both children and adults, there are unmet needs for effective English instruction for language minority

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populations. In addition, the numbers of young language minority children are increasing, with the greatest percentage of increase in the major metropolitan areas of Phoenix and Tucson. There is no large group of individuals who are adamantly refusing to learn English. In fact, the need for English instruction and the desire for it is paramount among language minority populations. Neither school districts charged with delivering services to the young nor the adult education agencies are currently able to fulfill the demand for such services.

3. Is Bilingual Education Divisive and Dangerous? Proponents of official English policies often discuss the divisiveness and dangers of bilingual education. The Canadian case of conflict between linguistic minorities is often evoked as an example of the results of bilingualism. In fact, the cause of political separatism and social tension in Canada was the denial of language rights and the denial of just treatment for cultural and linguistic minorities. Since the enactment and expansion of the federal Official Languages Act which guarantees the right of French speakers to equitable participation in the civil service, there has been no true support for political separatism. As Magnet ("Canadian Perspectives on Official English," this volume) shows: "It is the refusal to respect linguistic differences which leads to political difficulties in Canada, not the other way around." There is a sizeable body of data on the history of bilingual education in the United States on the outcomes of various teaching methodologies, on theories of bilingualism, and on theories of first and second language acquisition and learning. All of this data can help us evaluate the claims of official English proponents. Often, it is argued that prior waves of immigrants did not have bilingual education and still acquired English, but this view is patently false. Bilingual education and ESL instruction were common from the 1800s on. In my own family, my grandmother, who was born in Indiana of German speaking parents in the last century, attended German-English bilingual schools and churches. Ohio had a sizeable bilingual program for Germans who arrived after 1848 (Faber 1987). In 1869, Wisconsin organized foreign language instruction to attract Norwegian students to public schools. New Mexico did the same for Spanish students in 1884. Classes in English were organized on a voluntary basis all over the country for immigrants and taught by female

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school teachers — who were not paid for this service. Americanization programs were found in most large cities during the 1930s. After World War I, twenty-one states enacted laws which made English their official language and barred the teaching of other languages in schools, especially German, due to sentiments against Germany's role in the war. I learned very little German as a child though members of my family on both sides spoke the language. When I asked my oldest cousin why we had never spoken German in our family, he told me that the family decided the feelings against Germans were too strong and that any indication of German language knowledge or use might result in attacks and beatings. After members of the family had been assaulted, my family chose not to speak German, except in very private contexts. Although the U.S. Supreme Court declared the official English laws of many states unconstitutional in 1923 in the Meyer vs. Nebraska decision, they continued to be official, if unenforced, policy. As a consequence of these state policies which eradicated language proficiency in many European and Asian languages, the U.S. was woefully unprepared linguistically during the Second World War and thereafter. Such concerns contributed to the passage of the National Defense Education Act which funded programs and students in order to develop a national capacity in foreign languages at the level of higher education after this capacity had been eradicated at the levels where it already existed. Since the 1920s and 1930s, the U.S. has experimented with official English legislation, oscillating between bilingual and ESL instruction, official English policies, and then policies to remedy the effects of such legislation. We are currently attempting to improve instruction in English and foreign languages. The federal government has recently funded a national research center for this purpose located at UCLA.

4. Opposition to Bilingual Education in Official English Movements Considerable opposition is directed in the official English movement against programs in bilingual education. Much of this opposition is based on a misunderstanding of the nature of bilingual education and the role of the first language in the acquisition of a second, in this case, English. A common view is that there is a linear relationship between English

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exposure and English fluency — the more English exposure, the more English learning. This common sense view, while plausible, is not supported by the research evidence. Steve Krashen, a leading second language researcher, argues that the only causal variable in second language acquisition is the need for comprehensible input (Krashen 1981). Other variables work only when comprehensible input is present. Comprehensible input does not mean simple exposure to the second language; rather, it is the provision of context and support to help the learner understand the message transmitted in the second language. Critical to the process is interaction with a speaker. Most classrooms today contain very little interaction between teacher and student or among students. It is critical that students move from the known to the unknown and be able to find a value for what they already know. Many language teaching methods have also been shown to be very ineffective. These include "submersion" or sink-or- swim classes, grammar drill, repetitive drills (the audiolingual method), and grammar-translation. Translation of material in bilingual classes has also been shown to be ineffective because learners simply listen to the language they know for the information. Huge numbers of ESL classes rely upon grammar drills for the teaching of English, one of the most ineffective methods for language teaching. In addition to method, a number of other factors come into play when learning a second language, such as individual differences and motivation. Krashen argues that a major constraint on second language acquisition and learning is the "affective filter." According to his affective filter hypothesis, language learners who are put on the defensive and are made anxious dislike those who speak the language. They develop a mental block which prevents them from using input from the second language. There is significant evidence for this "affective filter hypothesis" in Arizona. In fact, there used to be laws against teaching in languages other than English in Arizona. One such law was repealed in Arizona as recently as the early 1970s. The prohibition against other languages did not lead to increased achievement or English acquisition on the part of language minority students. Students, in fact, were severely punished for speaking their native languages in school, even during recesses or in dormitories in Indian boarding schools. Factors such as this led students to hate school. School runaways and dropouts were frequent among Indian and other language minority children. According to one teacher on the San Carlos Indian Reservation, punishment for speaking Apache consisted of chaining students to the desk with leg irons. One prominent

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Navajo educator when asked about the best thing he had done in his life stated, "I ran away from school. That should count for something." We have significant amounts of experience with "high affective filters" which are created in students by policies such as these. We know that such punitive policies do interfere significantly with the development of proficiency in English in school settings. We have created a significant legacy of school failure over generations for Hispanics and American Indian children by school-based English-only policies and ineffective methods for teaching English. I can think of no reason to reintroduce policies which have already been shown to be a national disgrace.

5. The Effect of a Minority First Language on School Achievement Other major questions of concern include the following: What impact does the use of first language have on school achievement? What impact does the use of the first language have on language proficiency in the first language and in English? Does first language fluency affect student achievement, lead to greater student dropout, or impair English language proficiency? These views are widely held, often by school administrators and sometimes even by colleagues. There is, however, a body of research that demonstrates that the use of the first language improves academic performance. Rosier and Farella (1976), for example, in a study conducted at Rock Point School on the Navajo Reservation, found that instruction in Navajo with a transition into English reading skills after Navajo reading skills had already been established (around mid-second grade) made a dramatic difference in student performance and achievement. Students in this school had been two years behind national norms in spite of six years of intensive English instruction. When Navajo literacy and language development was continued for several years, they were able to make a transfer from the skills in Navajo to English and their performance improved until they were above U.S. norms, even though they received considerably less instruction in English than they had before. This is not an isolated finding. Hirst (1986) analyzed the mathematics, language and reading achievement scores of Indian Chapter I students on the standardized California Achievement Test in seven elementary schools — three contract schools under local community control and

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four Bureau of Indian Affairs schools under the control of the BIA Phoenix Area Office over a four-year period (1980 — 84). Local community control was touted as a means of bettering the school experience for Indian children and as a way of increasing achievement and retention. Hirst's analysis hypothesized that students in such schools would have higher scores, but this was not the case. After testing the effect of variables such as teacher/teacher aide tenure, administrator tenure, school tenure as a contract school, and the primary language of the teacher/teacher aide, only the language variable had any effect upon student scores in reading and language: If the teacher/teacher aide spoke the first language, the students scored significantly higher in reading and language. (None of the tested factors affected mathematics scores. The local control variable had no effect upon achievement. Scollon (1981) found similar patterns in his study of Alaskan Native students and teachers. Similarly, Renker and Arnold (1988), in a study on Makah, an American Indian language spoken in Washington state, found that school involvement with Makah language and culture increased Makah language proficiency by 12% compared with preschoolers. On the basis of their community language survey they found a positive effect for English as well. Ninety-two of the students with Makah proficiency were judged to speak English "very well" compared to students non-proficient in Makah whose English "very well" rating was only 62%. Two independent school evaluations (Leap and Cissna 1984; 1985), as well as a later reservation language survey, showed that the introduction of Makah language in school had a positive effect upon Makah students' achievement on standardized tests. Language Arts scores on the California Test of Achievement showed an increase of eighteen points. Prior to the introduction of Makah language instruction, children showed a "performance gap" between their scores and those of non-Makah children. After five years of Makah instruction in school this gap had been reduced by 83.6%. The dropout rate of Makah students also decreased slightly. These sorts of results are not limited to Indian communities. A recent large-scale evaluation study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education to determine the effectiveness of the English immersion method found similar results for Hispanic students. Critics of bilingual education have argued that the way to improve English proficiency is to immerse students in English. The reasoning is that the more English instruction the students have, the greater their proficiency should be. The Department of Education, under Secretary William Bennett, argued that bilingual education has failed and favored greater "flexibility" in instructional

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methods such as English as a Second Language (ESL) and immersion for Limited English Proficient (LEP) children (Fiske 1985; Hertling 1985). A four-year study (Crawford 1986: 10) was conducted comparing 4,000 students in kindergarten, 1st grade, and 3rd grade under three different program types: Immersion classes, "early exit" or transitional bilingual education, and "late exit" or bilingual maintenance programs. The amount of English used in each condition was carefully monitored with English used 90% of the time in the immersion classes, 67% in the early exit classes, and 33% in the late-exit programs. These immersion programs were different from the "submersion" programs of the past. The instructors were often fluent in the children's native language and the instruction was geared to the student's English proficiency level. Immersion programs have been quite successful with middle-class language majority students in Canada who are acquiring a minority language (French), but some researchers have seriously questioned whether the Canadian experience can be transferred due to the differing factors such as culture, social class, and status of majority vs. minority languages in the U.S. First-year results of the four-year study showed, in fact, the opposite of the initial hypothesis; they found that the larger the native language instruction component, the better the students performed in English. The English immersion students' performance was worst in English language, indicating that the greater the exposure to English, the poorer the students' performance. Apparently as a consequence of such politically explosive findings, the study was cancelled. Cummins (1981) has a theoretical explanation for the findings showing a strong connection between first language instruction and improved achievement in English and other areas. He proposes the Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP) Model of Bilingual Proficiency in contrast to the Separate Underlying Proficiency (SUP) Model upon which methods such as immersion or ESL are based. The SUP model assumes that there is a separate proficiency in each language and, therefore, content and skills learned in one do not transfer to a second language. If we want to increase proficiency in the language, we provide greater input in that language. Cummins (1981: 23) states regarding the SUP model: "However, despite, its intuitive appeal, there is not one shred of evidence in support of the model." This appears to be the case even in more recent studies such as the Department of Education study discussed above. The CUP model argues for a unitary model of proficiency underlying both languages so that experience with either language increases the common language proficiency, assuming that the person has adequate motivation and exposure to both languages in or out of school.

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He refers to this as the Interdependence Hypothesis (1981:29). Evidence of the sort presented above supports this model. While we have focused on positive studies that support a relationship between instruction in the first language and enhanced achievement and language proficiency, there are studies that show negative consequences of bilingualism for students in situations where their first language is being replaced by a more prestigious one. To explain these findings, Cummins (1981: 39) postulates the Threshold Hypothesis which states that there are two threshold levels: If low proficiency is attained in both languages, there are likely to be negative cognitive effects; if the first threshold is obtained, with native-like control in one language, then negative effects can be avoided but positive cognitive benefits may not be present. If the second threshold is attained, with high levels of proficiency in both languages, then positive cognitive benefits will be achieved. Collier (1987) reported a series of findings which also support the model of Common Underlying Language Proficiency. Her data confirm Cummins (1981) earlier findings that the development of cognitive-academic proficiency in English takes a minimum of four years and may take eight years or more as measured by standardized tests for the most advantaged Limited English Proficient students. Her work also confirms that fluency in a first language can assist students in acquiring a second lan- guage. She shows that continued development of young children's first language cognitiveacademic proficiency between the ages of four and twelve significantly increases their cognitive-academic proficiency in the second language. For secondary students, her data show that students are most in need of content area classes in their native language while they learn English. If these are not provided they fall further and further behind in content studies. These data support the provision of content area classes teaching the second language as soon as possible, as well as the provision of content area classes in the native language. From her data one could argue for accelerated content areas classes for advanced students in ESL; students can ill afford the fourto-eight years it will take them to acquire English, without exposure to content area courses. Collier's work has focused on the most advantaged students; those who have little or no formal schooling or whose schooling has been interrupted are an even greater challenge. To return to the questions posed at the beginning of this section, we are now in a position to answer at least some of them. Because the development of cognitive-academic language proficiency is a very slow process of fourto-eight years, it is critical that students receive content area instruction in the first language while they are learning English — or at least that content

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area courses be used to teach English — since children cannot afford to wait for years before learning the rest of the curriculum. The student's first language should be incorporated into schooling because it has positive effects on overall language proficiency, increases first and English language proficiency, improves achievement on standardized tests, and may prevent some student dropout. This is most critical for students in the secondary years. Regardless of political persuasion, it would be hard to find an educator or legislator opposed to increasing standardized test scores, raising English proficiency and lowering the dropout rate. The data show that the development of language fluency in a second language is a lengthy process taking a minimum of four years and often more than eight. Students who have formal schooling in a first language are able to transfer their skills to a second language. If schools are unable to provide schooling in a child's first language, then community and parental resources should be used to provide continuing first language literacy development and vocabulary, so that children's cognitive and academic skills continue to develop. First language fluency does not seem to cost students achievement or to impair English language fluency. In fact, the research evidence supports the view that providing additional development in the student's first language increases English proficiency, if the student has achieved a minimal threshold in at least one language. For these findings to have any impact on the educational community, on the Indian and Hispanic communities, on decision-makers, on and those directly responsible for language planning efforts, they must be known and disseminated. The political decisions that affect the future of the nation should not be made without access to research findings on the topics of consideration. The provision of language fluency in English and the development of an informed and able citizenry able to function in the high level tasks demanded by today's technological world cannot be met by pursuing or mandating language policies that have already proved themselves to be ineffective in the past. Notes 1. The Program Options for Limited English Proficient Students Under ARS 15 — 754 (Arizona State Department of Education 1985: 14) are as follows: 1. K-6 Transitional Bilingual Program — an organized program of instruction which is conducted in kindergarten programs and grades one through six in which participating pupils receive instruction in and through English and the primary home language of the students. The principal goal of a Transitional

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Bilingual Program is to increase the English language proficiency and academic achievement of the pupils in order to transfer them to all English instruction when they meet the reassessment criteria as prescribed in ARS 15 — 753, subsection C. 2. 7 — 12 Structured Bilingual Program — a language learning program for grades seven through twelve consisting of a structured bilingual program to promote English language proficiency and academic achievement through the use of the pupil's primary home language for instruction in the elective and non-elective content courses required for graduation. 3. K-12 Bilingual-Bicultural Program — for kindergarten programs and grades one through eight or for kindergarten programs and grades one through twelve consisting of a system of instruction which uses two languages, one of which is English, as a means of instruction. It is a means of instruction which builds on and expands the existing language skills of each participating pupil which will enable the pupil to achieve competency and literacy in both languages. This instruction shall include the history and culture of this State and the United States, as well as customs and values of the cultures associated with the languages being taught. 4. English as a Second Language Program (ESL) — a formal ESL program consisting of: a. Daily instruction in English language development including: i. Listening and speaking skills ii. Reading and writing skills. iii. Cognitive and academic skill development in English b. A plan to develop an understanding of the history and culture of the United States as well as an understanding of customs and values of the cultures associated with the primary home language of the pupils in the program. 2. State Board of Education Rule R7 —2—306 requires that the primary home language of all students shall be identified upon enrollment forms and on the home language survey. A child's primary language will be considered to be other than English if the language spoken most often in the home is not English, if the language spoken most often by the student is other than English or if another language was acquired first. Once such a determination has been made, all such students must have an oral language proficiency assessment test approved by the State Board given to assess the English proficiency of the students. If they fall below the publishers cut off score for fluent English proficient they are then classified as LEP students if they are in grades K - l . Students in grades 2—12 may be screened by the achievement level on the English reading comprehension subtest of the state pupil achievement testing program. If they score at or below the 40th percentile, then they will be given an oral language proficiency test and in addition will be assessed in their primary language. Limited English proficient students shall be provided a program as prescribed in ARS 15 — 754 and the State Board of Education's course of study pursuant to R7 —2 —301—302. Students may be reassessed at any time, but must be tested for reclassification to fluent English proficient no less than every two years. (State Board of Education Rule R7 —2 —306.)

Official English and the Urge to Legislate* Betty Lou Dubois

1. Introduction When Americans perceive a problem, their inclination is to turn to the law. There are, of course, valid reasons to rush to legislate: A law helps to specify proper citizen conduct (Davis et al. 1962), and, in complex societies, law is a primary educative institution (Tapp and Levine 1980). Sometimes, solving problems by legislation actually does work, as in the case of the recent New Mexico infant seat belt law. That law succeeded for three reasons: 1) it is difficult for even the most ardent supporters of individual liberty to argue against saving babies' lives; 2) in many areas — Las Cruces, for example — the economic burden was removed for the poor; and 3) the action required for conformity to the law is simple and unambiguous. The result has been heartening: A 20% reduction in trafficrelated infant deaths in the first year. As is well known, however, solutions are rarely so simple. Large multigroup societies, which are cemented by Durkheimian organic (group interdependence) rather than mechanical (shared values and beliefs) solidarity, increasingly need laws and other controls to solve their conflicts (Davis et al. 1962). Yet, the very complexity of society increases legal problems, since the presence of manifold groups results in manifold perceptions of problems, and — hardly mentioned so far in the official English debate — implies the need to enforce proper conduct, i.e., the provision and application of sanctions as a means of assuring compliance. In a large multi-ethnic nation, law can be regarded as a "set of resources for which people contend and which enables them to promote their own values and interests against those of others" (Turk 1980). The group which successfully obtains legal resources gains power of several kinds: Coercive, economic, political, and ideological. Parsons (1980) enumerates four basic problems associated with legal systems: 1) 2) 3) 4)

the basis of rights; the meaning, or interpretation, of a rule in particular circumstances; the consequences of (non)conformance with associated sanctions; the jurisdiction, or application, of laws.

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2. The Perceived English Language Problem in New Mexico The background for official English within the Parsons four-point framework is the perception of an English language problem — even crisis — in the state of New Mexico, as reported in a variety of sources, including the Las Cruces Sun-News, the New Mexico State University public radio station, and, to a lesser extent, the New Mexico State University student newspaper, The RoundUp. Perceptions are both latent and manifest, and although the latent ones are exactly those which are not mentioned openly and publicly, they are nonetheless real. Latent perceptions of the problem involve in the first instance old fashioned, traditional prejudice, exacerbated by reactions to recent immigration, both legal and illegal. In New Mexico, it is generally understood that the problem chiefly concerns Spanish speakers (Las Cruces Sun-News February 6a, 1987, 1A; Las Cruces Sun-News, February 15, 1987 5A; Las Cruces Sun-News, February 22, 1987, 5A), to such an extent that other recent immigrant groups are scarcely mentioned (although editorials and some of the letters in the student paper mentioned above, it is pleasing to observe, discuss the issue on a more abstract, generalized level). Further, the problem implicitly concerns only Spanish speakers of Mexican provenance, as illustrated by the letter writer who reminds readers that "the U.S. won the war with Mexico. Remember the Alamo?" {Las Cruces Sun-News, February 15, 1987, 5A). With the current wave of immigration is coupled a perceived economic threat, although it is not at all clear to what extent immigrants are competing with residents for jobs and at the same time contributing to the national economy, or are merely increasing welfare costs. Another, more-or-less latent, perception arises from unfortunate examples from around the world of language strife; specifically, examples of former language minorities coming to power and doing unto others what those others had previously done unto them. In Belgium, for example, an oppressed language minority (Flemish), now a majority, is partially replacing a language of wider communication (French) with a language of lesser communication. Closer to home is the experience of Canada, where a minuscule portion of a minority language group once resorted to terrorism and where, when later the more than 99% law-abiding francophones gained control of Quebec, they deofficialized English, provoking the flight of capital and business from Montreal and coming perilously close — egged on by le grand Charles — to separation from

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Ottawa. New Mexicans are accustomed to bumper stickers urging them not to "californicate" their state; that is, adopt official English legislation. They would not want to "quebeckicize" it either, but some fear the Belgian and Canadian experience without realizing that the United States is neither Belgium nor Canada, and that linguistic separatism is not inevitable here, no matter how many people speak how many languages. The manifest content of the rationale for official English in New Mexico is ludicrously simple. The representative who proposed the amendment invoked "an incident in which one of her employees had been sold a highpriced vacuum cleaner by a Spanish-speaking salesman. The man signed a contract in English, which he could not read, and only interventions by the attorney general helped the man get out of the deal" (Las Cruces Sun-News, February 6b, 1987,1 A.). The representative assumes that if this person had known English he would never have signed the contract. However, have not WASPs fallen victim to legal jargon? Another difficulty with the legislator's rationale is the assumption that the resolution is "a way to force newly arrived immigrants to learn English..." (Las Cruces Sun- News, February 6b, 1987, 1A). In assuming that people can be forced to learn English or any other language, the legislator manifests a common shortcoming of the law, which typically ignores the "volitional, emotional, and unconscious aspects of mentation and concentrates on the capacity to know..." (Weihofen 1979: 14). People who have no genuine opportunity to acquire a language in a natural setting stay out of situations where it is required, as documented — in a literature now too vast for citation — in observation of Turks in Germany, Finns in Sweden, and so on. However, the touching American faith in the law is exemplified by several letter writers, who, while stating the problem sympathetically ("... inability to function well in the English language limits the population in its endeavors to function as part of the American business scene." Las Cruces Sun-News, March 15, 1987, 5A) apparently see no solution except the legal one. It is against this tapestry of covert and overt perceptions of a problem that the New Mexico official English amendment was proposed.

3. New Mexico Official English in the Parsons Framework 3.1. The basis of right Generally, "right" refers to the source of a law: The issue of whether it originates in a legally and justly constituted legislature. New Mexico's

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legislature meets the test of legality, having been established through a valid state constitution, and that of justice, having been redistricted in accordance with the principle of one person/one vote. In addition the proposed New Mexico official English amendment would have the highest possible authority as a provision of the Constitution, not a mere statute. 3.2. The meaning of the rule in particular circumstances What looks simple on first reading becomes complicated at deeper levels, for "[legal] intent can never be identical with the law as experienced" (Turk 1980). Examination of quite recent experience shows that people can disagree on whether it is English that is being used, if not in a given situation, then at least by a given speaker. Many language professionals remember that only fifteen to twenty years ago, Black English was widely regarded as "not really English," a misconception which a generation of linguists of the stripe of Labov, Wolfram, and Shuy worked hard to refute. Unfortunately, in their deep desire to legitimize Black English, some researchers have said — I have heard it during the last few months — that Blacks have their "own language." It is not only Blacks who suffer from differential language perception. The pejorative terms "Tex-Mex" and "border slang" are common in the Southwest. Quite recently, I heard a public school teacher repeat the old "can't speak either language" put-down of a Chicano child. So, an apparently poor, uneducated Chicano, even if an English monolingual, may be perceived as not speaking English. France is undergoing a somewhat similar official language ferment, in which a proposed law would require a French test for those who seek naturalization. In the fall of 1986, I myself heard French people say that many/most French university students could not pass the test — that is, could not really speak/write French — a staggering view of what it means to know French. In the United States, on the other hand, standards would probably be quite relaxed for Anglos and for members of middle and upper classes, and even for immigrants, such as, say, Russian ballet dancers or Polish physicists, and, let us not forget, for home grown politicians. In the 1986 Chicago mayoral primary, candidate Jane Byrne needed the Hispanic vote and was reported therefore to have "learned Spanish." She sounded as if she had been taught rather well to parrot a few phrases — shades of Kennedy before the Berlin Wall — but Hispanics were amused rather than impressed (National Public Radio 1987). There is no simple answer to the question of what it means to know, to speak,

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or to use a language; i.e., unequivocal interpretation of an official English requirement would not follow as the night the day. Perhaps, in states where there is official English, un- and underemployed linguists could be hired for a Language Squad: Following up on 911 calls, they could rush out to make spot determinations of which language was being used. If code switching is factored in, we have material for thousands of jobs and eons of controversy. There could also be a new university major, Forensic Linguistics, to provide expert testimony in criminal trials, with prescriptivists serving the prosecution and nonprescriptivists the defense.

3.3. The consequences of (non)compliance There has as yet been little mention of sanctions in the debate over official English, either positive or negative, but without them the proposed official English is a linguistic paper tiger. Currently, New Mexico is constitutionally a bilingual state, even if in a very limited way. The proposed official English amendment opens the possibility of passivenegative sanctions: Withdrawal of Spanish-language ballots and interpreting services in courts

3.4. Jurisdiction The problem of jurisdiction involves Fishman's classic sociolinguistic questions of who speaks what language or variety of language to whom under what circumstances. For example, if I called a County Agricultural Extension agent and said: "Buenos dias" and he used the same phrase in reply, would one or the other or both or neither of us be in violation of a constitutional duty under the amendment?

4. Official English as the Cause of Conflict Discussion so far points to problems underlying a proposal which appears unequivocal on the surface. As stated earlier, one function of law is to forestall conflict by providing a standard of conduct. Regrettably, the study of law as power brings the realization that law does not lead away from conflict, as is sometimes assumed, but toward it. Law intensifies old conflicts and introduces new ones, and inevitably so, when it concerns social and cultural change (Turk 1980). This would be the case particularly

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with official English, which would abolish the constitutional status of Spanish in New Mexico. A prime example of new conflicts arising from attempts to solve old ones follows on the implementation of the new federal amnesty for illegal aliens. The law was intended to solve status problems, but has had the unintended consequence of promoting a fairly new legal specialty: Immigration consulting, with all its possibilities for unethical practices. So, a New Mexico state senator has proposed a state Immigration and Nationality Law Practices Act (asserted to be supported by federal authorities and touted as model legislation for other states), which would create a right to sue for anyone victimized by unscrupulous consultants (Las Cruces Sun-News, March 10, 1987, 5A). However laudable in intent, this New Mexico act would create a whole new arena of litigation, which is not really what the citizens of New Mexico need. A further, perhaps ultimately more serious, danger is that, if the official English mechanism should really work, denial of the reality of minority language groups would shift the conflict to nonlegal contexts, thereby fostering cynicism, evasion, and frank defiance of law (Turk 1980).

5. Defeat of Official English Happily for New Mexico, the proposed official English amendment described here was unanimously defeated in committee on February 6, 1987 {Las Cruces Sun-News, 1A), partly through the efforts of Governor Carruthers, who, before the vote, pronounced himself in favor of all New Mexicans learning two languages to increase national productivity. He remarked: "I wish I knew Spanish better than I do.... Had I had Spanish as a young student, it would be very helpful to me in my job" {Las Cruces Sun-News, February 6a, 1987, 1A). New Mexicans should not shift their attention elsewhere in relief, because one skirmish does not win the war. Right to Work legislation has been introduced into every New Mexico long legislative session for more than twenty years and had its best chance for passage in the spring of 1987. Official English may be put on the same schedule.

6. Alternatives to Official English Legislation If the perception that a portion of our population lacks adequate proficiency in English is accurate, then the solution, as New Mexico United

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States Senator Jeff Bingaman rightly observes, is not to legislate an official language; rather it is to provide instruction for speakers of other languages. Senator Bingaman suggested a positive rather than a negative remedy in the proposed English Proficiency Act (announced on March 3,1987), which would provide $50,000,000 annually to localities, to attack "the problem of illiteracy, particularly among those who use English as a second language." (See Bingaman, this volume, eds.) In principle, I would much rather see federal money go to schools than to the Strategic Defense Initiative, the Bradley tank, or the B1 bomber. But I fear for the fate of speakers of other languages. Will first and second language speakers be put in the same reading circles? If not, will the same old tests be used to separate them? Will reading instruction be turned over to those same folks who, by doing phonics, sight words, basal readers, and standardized tests of subskills, have manufactured reading problems for native English speakers? I acknowledge that I am far more successful at pointing out problems than solving them, but there is no pat, simple, obvious solution. In place of — or rather, as a supplement to — Senator Bingaman's very necessary legislation, what would I suggest? As an educator, I would naturally first look to educational solutions. Generally, I say that linguists have failed miserably at educating citizens to understand the principles of language acquisition and language variation and the function of language and language variety in personal and social identity. This failure stems in part from the schizophrenia of linguists who talk a good line about eliminating value judgments from the study of varieties but fail to follow through to logical conclusions. Yngve, for example, asserts: "In the last century prescriptivism was thrown out in favor of scientific descriptivism" (1986: 8), maintaining that an "ideal" has been substituted. In fact, that is no more than a quibble over terms, since straight linguists like transformationalists simply concealed their prescriptivism through a "scientific" description of written academic English in order to make statements that begin "The English language... " (Coates 1986: 5 — 6). As long as teachers at all levels of instruction attend more to form than to content, old values will be maintained. My suggestions are the following: 1) Public schools must provide for effective English as a second language (ESL) instruction by trained teachers, eliminating the nightmare of throwing surplus teachers into the breach despite their certification and desires. Schools have to eliminate absurd textbooks and expensive aids, gadgets, and kits which induce meaningless

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classroom activities — the power of the educational-industrial complex, in short. Schools have to eliminate invalidly conceived and unreliably administered standardized testing, which, for example, screens Spanish-speaking children for the whether-weather distinction, which many of their Anglo teachers cannot hear. ESL teachertraining programs should reject textbooks which confine themselves to exercises, in favor of those which cover sociolinguistics, psycholinguistics, and language acquisition. Training in these fields will teach them more accurately about the nature of language. 2) Where bilingual education is a possibility, its entire rationale needs to be rethought. A program which is based on a deficit theory, which holds that minority and lower socioeconomic class children are incapable of making complete sentences to express logical thoughts, a program which has a compensatory theoretical basis in some presumed student lack, rather than strength, will inevitably work to the disadvantage of those it seeks to help. 3) For ESL and bilingual education, teacher selection needs to be more stringent. In two fields where language development is so obviously at issue, personnel need themselves to have reached a high degree of what is referred to as essay-text literacy (Gee 1986).

7. Conclusion Part of my self-esteem depends on a faith that education makes a difference. Certainly, it does on an individual scale: One does not become a nurse without attending nursing school or a teacher without university. Right now, I am deeply pessimistic about the ability of the American educational system as presently structured — despite the obvious good will and efforts of many good people — to respond effectively to what is perhaps a short term language problem, but a long term fundamental social problem. Right now, I fear that a whole generation may be lost. However, schools should not be blamed exclusively, since it is clear that they mainly reflect rather than create attitudes and values. I am convinced that proficiency in English is necessary, but not sufficient, to solve the real social problem: Prejudice, which is not the exclusive property of a single group. Note * I would like to thank Professors L. Mays, J. Rogers, and R. Farrell of New Mexico State University for their suggestions for readings in the Sociology of Law.

The Navajo Language Today* AnCita Benally and T. L.

McCarty

1. Introduction The status of the Navajo language today is paradoxical. It remains a strong and vibrant language in many contexts, yet it is threatened by rapid extinction because of disuse. Navajo continues to hold spiritual, social, philosophical and creative meaning for the majority of the Navajo Nation. Those involved in education, politics, and business find considerable practical use for it. Many speakers also prefer to speak Navajo in their everyday affairs. They are better able to communicate in Navajo than in English, even though they may have learned English at an early age. At the same time, in each successive generation an increasing percentage of the population prefers English. The 1980 U.S. Census recorded approximately 160,000 Navajos throughout the country. 1 By 1987, the Navajo population had climbed to about 210,750, with 162,000 people living on the reservation, 23,300 living in towns bordering the reservation, and 24,650 living off the reservation, generally in large urban centers. Of Navajos five years and older and living on the reservation, nearly 93% in 1980 identified Navajo as their primary language. Considering the remoteness of the reservation and the relative rarity of non-Navajos on the reservation until very recently, this high a percentage is not surprising.2 Navajo provides its speakers with a sense of nationhood; they are well aware that they are different from other people and that they are members of one of the few remaining Indian tribes whose language is very much alive. Speakers of Navajo take tremendous pride in this fact. Yet, conflicting with this pride are the tribe's vigorous efforts to educate Navajo young people in English, the dominant language of American culture. Many leaders see English as the key to the tribe's economic future. As a result, they have initiated business ventures with off-reservation enterprises in the hope that outside jobs will upgrade the standard of living of tribal members. Some improvements have already resulted from these efforts. Examples of such improvements include the introduction of television and other media, as well as much better transportation.

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These developments, in turn, have brought Navajos into even closer contact with speakers of English. Young children, therefore, are exposed to English at a much earlier age than was true even ten or fifteen years ago. Their exposure to English and the need to speak it well are increased by social, educational and economic pressures and opportunities arising from contact with the outside world. Thus, today, more and more children enter school as monolingual English speakers. Again, however, their language background presents a paradox. For, while English is the language spoken in the homes of these children, they are simultaneously identified as Limited English Proficient (LEP). Their difficulty in using English is sufficiently great that they are denied equal educational opportunities and, ultimately, life opportunities as well. In short, Navajo continues to have purpose and meaning in everyday life for the majority of tribal members. For many it is the only language spoken. Yet, increasingly, Navajo is in a life-and-death struggle with English for survival and relevance in a rapidly changing society.

2. Historical Background Just as with other Indian tribal languages, Navajo has been shunned by the Anglo-American education and political system. Stories abound of young children in boarding schools being forbidden to speak their language and being severely punished for doing so. The American education system has actively sought to eradicate Navajo and other Native languages. Programs which aimed at "civilizing" the Indian — including the Navajo — by christianizing them and teaching them to speak only English forcibly removed children from their families and homes at an early age. The result of this removal for many tribes was language extinction; for others, the relevant domains of use contexts for the language diminished greatly. In the case of Navajo, the hardships and horrors of boarding school life left a firm resolve in many parents' minds that their children would not face a similar fate. This resolve has frequently meant teaching children English at home, even at the expense of the ancestral language. At the same time, isolation and a large population have helped perpetuate the Navajo language. It has only been in the last twenty years that English has made a significant impact on the Navajo Nation. This impact is largely due to the passage of federal and tribal legislation encouraging educational and economic development. As late as 1970 it was rare to

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find a Navajo who did not speak the language, and it could generally be assumed that all Navajos were fluent (Melvin Deer, personal communication). Several trends underlie the increasing impact and influence of English. Many young people have, in recent years, graduated from high school and gone on to college. The results are twofold: First, many of these individuals choose to work and live off the reservation (and in many instances they have chosen not to teach their children Navajo); second, some have married outside the tribe, making it difficult, if not impossible, to maintain language in the home. Broader forces are also at work. As mentioned above, the Navajo Reservation today is not as isolated as it once was. Remote communities now are accessible by paved roads, telephone, radio and television. The distribution of electricity to these remote communities has done much to introduce English to traditional Navajo homes. Many communities also now have their own schools, and these have attracted non-Navajos, who often speak only English. Where once there were only Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools, there are now many public schools. Both the schools and their personnel have affected Navajo communities, creating new contexts for the use of English, and introducing modern amenities and a value and concept system very different from that of the Navajo. These new forces present a strong challenge to the Navajo language.

3. Language Use Quite often, even in very remote communities, small children grow up speaking only English. This may occur even when everyone else in the household speaks Navajo. English seems to have become a high-status language. Some children speak both languages, but when they know someone understands English they will speak only English to them. In such cases, it is only when children know they are addressing a monolingual Navajo speaker that they speak to them in Navajo. These children clearly demonstrate fluency in Navajo, yet they show a strong preference for English. Despite this preference, many Navajo children have been assessed in school as LEP, and do not communicate effectively in either language. The perplexing and problematic nature of children's language use is

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complicated by the diversity of modern Navajo communities; children from the more traditional, remote communities tend to speak Navajo more often and more fluently than those from less remote areas. Among adults generally, individuals over thirty can and do speak Navajo more than English, especially if they live on the reservation. The more educated and affluent use English more frequently. However, among professionals, Navajo is quite prestigious. Adults over forty prefer Navajo. Perhaps because of their upbringing, language, especially Navajo, holds great importance for these individuals. In the past, non-Navajos who conducted any kind of business with Navajos found learning the Navajo language a necessity. Merchants and employers needed the language for financial success. Missionaries found it imperative to impart their religious messages. Neighboring tribes learned the language and used it as a lingua franca in trade. Today, however, English has become the primary language of business and crosscultural communication, leaving little reason for non-Navajos to learn Navajo. Among Navajo speakers themselves, both Navajo and English are used to varying degrees. As stated above, those more educated and career-oriented generally use English more frequently; those with less education and with stronger ties to traditional culture prefer Navajo. And, interestingly, it seems that the male tribal members tend to use Navajo more. It can be safely assumed, though, that all speakers who live on the reservation use at least some Navajo. While the percentage of predominantly Navajo-speaking households has declined in recent years, Navajo continues to have an impact on daily life on the reservation; in political, social and religious gatherings it plays a major role. Kin and clan relations are defined in Navajo terminology. The success and effectiveness of political leaders depends — as it always has — on effective use of the language. Ceremonial events, including the relatively recently introduced Native American Church — as well as both traditional and some Christian rituals — are conducted in Navajo. Economically, Navajo is a critical asset that can guarantee success. Thus, not speaking or understanding Navajo on the reservation is a genuine disadvantage to non-speakers, making economic, political and social success hard to achieve. In some cases, Navajo has become the language of greater prestige, marking success and distinction on the reservation. Navajos who have

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truly succeeded are bilingual and bicultural. They can express themselves in two languages and can take advantage of opportunities both on the reservation and in the broader society.

4. Political Need Navajo is an absolute necessity for participation in political life. The politician who cannot or will not speak Navajo greatly reduces his or her chances for political success. The vast majority of Navajos prefer to hear political discussions and speeches in Navajo. In fact, the Navajo word for leader translates as 'orator'. Navajo leaders are expected to be great orators. Traditionally, leaders come into power and maintain their power by the ability to sway constituents through oratory. 3 No national leader has yet been elected who did not use Navajo well. The majority of tribal council members speak Navajo fluently. Local Chapter meetings are usually conducted in Navajo. Tribal Council sessions take place in Navajo with English translations, unless it is known that all in attendance understand Navajo. Leaders discuss the most important issues in Navajo, and individual Council members virtually always discuss issues informally among themselves in Navajo. English is used when there are non-Navajos present at meetings. Even in these cases, however, informal discussions often ensue in Navajo. Occasionally, highly technical information about new inventions or new ideas is presented in English, but, to communicate adequately, the information must ultimately be presented in Navajo. Navajo is thus crucial to the political process. More and more young leaders are finding that they must know and use Navajo. All political leaders are very much aware that to be effective and credible, they must be fluent and skilled in their use of the tribal language.

5. Economic Need While non-Navajo business people find less need to learn and use Navajo personally, they acknowledge that it is a considerable asset. On local radio stations it is not uncommon to hear advertisements in Navajo. The Bashas' supermarket chain in Arizona, for example, asks whether applicants can speak Navajo, Pima or Spanish. Businesses in border towns such as Gallup, Flagstaff, Holbrook, Winslow, and Farmington

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employ large numbers of Navajo speakers. Some Navajo customers would be at a loss without these employees. According to the Navajo tribal statistics office, Navajos have a significant impact on the economy of border towns, particularly Gallup and Flagstaff. 4 With few on- reservation businesses, large numbers of people do their shopping, as well as the selling of handmade rugs, jewelry and similar items, in these towns. Some of these towns would not exist without Navajo customers. Again, a paradox exists. Navajo is needed to sell to the Navajo consumer, but many of these consumers will use English when they get to town. On the other hand, for vendors to sell, they must advertise in Navajo. The message, it appears, must be heard in Navajo, so businesses cater to this linguistic demand.

6. Social Need Navajo continues to articulate the critical ties of matrilineal kinship and clanship that underlie all social relations in Navajo society.5 The use of Navajo in social gatherings, however, varies. In more urban reservation areas, English can be frequently heard. The type of social gathering also influences the extent to which Navajo is used. Gatherings of a religious or political nature tend to foster the use of Navajo, as these functions intrinsically require expression in native terms. Humor is an important part of Navajo socialization. Telling jokes and exercising humor through language is a skill that is almost a prerequisite for being socially successful. As in all languages, certain kinds of humor are language specific. Puns are a particularly important type of Navajo humor. These can, of course, only be understood in Navajo. To be an effective leader, a speaker must be skilled in story telling. Well-told stories are icebreakers in tense situations or where there is conflict. The most effective medium for a leader, whether political, social or spiritual, in the control of any of these situations, is through oratory. Oral skill remains very important to Navajo society. Being able to express oneself creatively through language is a prestigious indicator of intellectual ability. Those who can and do speak Navajo and yet can converse as freely in English are greatly admired. Bilingual and bicultural people have made it: They can understand and participate in Navajo culture and take pride in it, and, at the same time, the outside American

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culture poses no threat to them, causes them no confusion. The bilingual individual is able to fully comprehend meaning and negotiate opportunities in a wide range of contexts.

7. Spiritual Need Navajo language and Navajo religion cannot be separated; they are intimately intertwined. Navajo religion must be practiced in Navajo. Prayers, chants, stories and symbols all are bound by Navajo interpretation. Because these are rendered meaningless — or at least meaningless in their deepest and truest sense — when translated, it can truly be said that the Navajo language will exist as long as there are Navajos who practice their religion. At present, the number of practitioners, including ritual specialists or medicine men, shows no indication of declining. Navajos feel strongly that without the language one cannot understand the intricacies of the religion. From this perspective, then, the state of the language would appear to be healthy indeed.

8. Legal and Educational Status of the Navajo Language The status of Navajo received a tremendous boost during the administration of Navajo Tribal Council Chairman Peterson Zah. A major resolution, passed with full support from Mr. Zah, mandated the teaching of Navajo language and culture in all schools, whether private, parochial, BIA, or public. A Bilingual Education Office was established in the tribal Division of Education. Monies were appropriated to develop a curriculum for Navajo language, history, and culture and an official tribal education policy addressing this curriculum. Mr. Zah himself advocated bilingual education and encouraged the teaching of Navajo in the schools. The State of Arizona also recently passed legislation making it mandatory to provide bilingual or English as a Second Language services to students assessed as LEP who have a non-English language background. This legislation, though currently a mandate only for Arizona public schools, has spurred interest in bilingual programs in Arizona BIA schools, since personnel and students frequently transfer between school systems on the reservation. The law's associated requirement for teachers to earn specific university credits toward a bilingual or English as a Second Language (ESL) endorsement has also created a positive pressure

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for the full integration of Navajo language and culture in children's school experiences. While the effects of this legislation and the tribal mandate have yet to be fully realized, they nonetheless provide a foundation for the systematic and continued growth of the Navajo language and the cultural experiences it represents.

9. Conclusion The previous sections have outlined, in general terms, the dimensions and contexts surrounding Navajo language use today. For the most part those contexts involve oral Navajo. It is important to note, however, that Navajo has been a written language with a standardized orthography at least since the BIA began its native language publishing efforts over 50 years ago. Since then, numerous schools and other agencies have been actively involved in producing and using Navajo teaching materials. Many schools both on and off the reservation, explicitly strive to graduate students who are bilingual, bicultural and biliterate. Yet, the status of Navajo as a written carrier of culture remains tentative. Simultaneously, though oral Navajo thrives in traditional communities and in the context of modern social, religious, and political life, its vitality has been challenged by the growing articulation of the Navajo Nation with the broader, English-speaking society. According to the coordinator of the tribe's Bilingual Office, the Navajo Nation has the choice of strengthening its language now or abandoning it. To be strengthened, the language must have continued relevancy in the lives of its users. Schools can provide a nurturing environment for the strengthening process but this ultimately depends on reciprocal support at the family, community, and tribal governmental levels. Perhaps more importantly, for individuals and groups at each of these levels to be effective in strengthening the Navajo language, they must find, in the larger society, positive intercultural attitudes and policies that promote the maintenance and growth of America's indigenous language resources. Notes * For their assistance, we would like to thank Ron Faich, Statistics Office, The Navajo Tribe, Window Rock, Arizona; Paul Platero, Ph.D., Window Rock, Arizona; and Laura Wallace, Navajo Bilingual Office, The Navajo Tribe, Window Rock, Arizona.

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1. The 1980 census recorded 158,633 Navajo, the second largest American Indian tribe with 11% of the Native American population (Cherokee is largest, with 232,080; U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census 1988a: 3). 2. The number of Navajo speakers has been estimated at between 60% and 80% of the tribe. Dillon Platero, Headmaster of the Navajo Academy, gives the lower estimate; Gary Witherspoon, former director of the Navajo Language Institute gives the higher. E. Brandt, in a study of dropout rates, gives the even lower estimate of 50% (Brandt 1988: 322, 328). 3. For example, in a recent major struggle for the leadership of the Tribal Council, the defense of the incumbent, Peter McDonald, was presented in Navajo. 4. There are a number of studies on the economic impact of the Navajo on towns surrounding the reservation. See, for example, Navajo Nation (1988). 5. For a discussion on Navajo kinship terms and Navajo world view as expressed in the Navajo language, see Witherspoon (1977).

American Indian Language Policy Ofelia Zepeda

1. Introduction On February 2, 1987, the Intertribal Council of Arizona, an association of nineteen Indian tribal governments, made an official statement opposing the designation of English as the official language of Arizona: The Indians of Arizona are the descendants of the first people in the Americas. The many Indian languages spoken in Arizona are an integral part of the tribal culture, much of which is passed from generation to generation by a primarily oral tradition that includes legends and stories. These are living languages, used daily by Indian people in their homes, in business and in public and governmental affairs.... Efforts to force the Indian people of Arizona to communicate in English, a language generally foreign on this soil until recent times, is a direct attack on the Indian culture and Indian people. Indian people recognize the importance of learning other languages, including English, in order to better communicate with others. However, we consider the proposal before the legislature which prescribes English as the official language of Arizona an attempt to destroy Indian cultures and the freedom on which the country was founded. (Intertribal Council of Arizona 1987) On the same day, the Tohono O'odham Tribal Council announced their own position against official English, which emphasized the linguistic diversity that exists historically in the state (Tohono O'odham Nation 1987). The Tohono O'odham statement notes that the etymology of Arizona can be traced back to an O'odham phrase, al So.sonaj, 'little springs'. It also states: "In spite of cruel and harsh treatment by 'speak English only' proponents of society, including schools, churches and government agencies, the Tohono O'odham Tribal Council has persevered, like other tribes, and has retained its cultural and, most importantly, its linguistic identity." The Tohono O'odham statement calls attention to the fact that the Tribal Council is striving to develop the language by promoting not only its spoken form, but also its written

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form. This development will make it more difficult for the language to experience any further setbacks engineered by those whose vision and sensitivity are limited. The statement made by the Tohono O'odham Tribal Council reflects the opinions and experiences of a number of other tribes in Arizona, including The Hualapai, The Hopi, The Havasupai, The Pima, The Navaho, The Yaqui and The Apache. All of these tribes have been subjected to one or another form of linguistic and cultural suppression. In some instances, tribes have collapsed under the dominant culture. Others have survived as independent entities, but have come away with a great deal of scarring on their linguistic and cultural veneer. It is these tribes that are ready to speak up against the efforts to legislate English as the official language of the state. Presently, the tribes of Arizona are grappling with the reality that any official English legislation will affect them greatly. They are coming to understand that the issue of official English is not just a political and economic issue between Hispanics and certain speakers of English, nor is it just an economic issue between Asian entrepreneurs in California and speakers of English, even though this is the picture depicted in the media. Indian populations are now realizing that they are clearly in the picture: Indigenous linguistic groups are caught in the middle.

2. Tribal Language Policies and their Status In Toward a language policy for Navajo language education: Background considerations and recommendations, Dr. William Leap states that "[a] policy contains both a statement of goals as well as an indication of desired outcome. A policy recognizes that some problem area exists and constitutes the first step taken by a governing body in response to it" (1983: 2). He further states that "a policy, in this instance a language policy, contains an optimistic, hopeful, forward-looking flavor;... it is a statement of vision in that it describes the kinds of things people want to see happen" (1983: 3). These visions are then at some later time made reality by means of tribal codes and legislation. To date, of the over 500 tribes on the North American continent, only four have written and adopted an official tribal language policy document: The Cheyenne, the Southern and Northern Ute, the Yaqui, and the Tohono O'odham. The impetus for these language policies is based on certain educational and linguistic needs of the tribes.

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The language needs vary greatly from tribe to tribe: For some the problem is retention and maintenance; for others, it is restoration of the ancestral language. But for all of these language groups the language policy includes the existing educational system as a vehicle for the language, whether it is restoring, retaining, or maintaining it. This overt integration of language maintenance or restoration with the education system is based on the premise that the children (who spend a large percentage of their waking hours in school) will be the receptacles of the language education that will perpetuate the linguistic growth of that community. All of these language policies strongly advocate bilingual education, in which two languages are used to transmit information. The intent is thus very different from the bilingual education program proposed by proponents of official English, where the native language is used only as a means to assist non-English speakers to make the transition into English. Leap says of tribal language policy: It offers a powerful mechanism for asserting their rightful leadership functions in this area of Indian Education. Among other things, a language policy: a) identifies the language related needs areas which the tribal membership and the government want to see be addressed, whenever language education services are made available to the tribe; b) indexes the specific actions which must be taken (or must be carefully avoided), to guarantee respectful treatment of the tribal language tradition to be maintained; c) indicates from the tribe's point of view and in the tribe's own words, the amount of importance tribal membership places on language fluency — ancestral language, English language and otherwise; d) states the guidelines the tribe will use when developing languagerelated programs and service opportunities for its members; and e) states the guidelines which non-tribal entities are to employ when they are developing language related programs and service opportunities for tribal membership. A tribal language policy is a formal communication not only to the tribal members, but to outside entities. (Leap 1983: 6)

3. American Indian Language Policies and their Implications The official tribal language policies currently in place have certain major implications at the tribal, state and national levels, primarily in the field of Indian education. A tribal language policy at the tribal level provides direction for implementing more comprehensive education plans in the area

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of bilingual/bicultural education and provides for the development of such curriculum for reservation schools. The tribal language policy also provides for more direction from the tribal council on issues dealing with tribal language literacy. More precisely, it provides for activities such as the promulgation of tribal literacy development among tribal members, and the establishment of or the recognition of an official tribal orthography. At the state level a tribal language policy should complement the State Board of Education's Indian Education Policy, thereby enhancing certain specific requirements such as services for children with limited English proficiency. At the national level the policy provides direction for academic improvements in the education system. And perhaps most importantly, it makes a tribal statement in support of a national and international policy encouraging the survival of indigenous tribal languages and cultures.

4. Tribal Language Policy: Tohono O'odham and Yaqui In 1984, the Yaqui Tribe of Arizona followed the pattern of the Northern and Southern Ute and established an official tribal language policy. The policy statement of the Yaqui is in the same vein as those of the Ute. The philosophy statement of the Yaqui is as follows: The Yaqui language is a gift from Itom Achai, the Creator of our people and, therefore, shall be treated with respect. Our ancient language is the foundation of our cultural and spiritual heritage without which we could not exist in the manner that our Creator intended. Education is the transmission of culture and values, therefore, we declare that Yaqui education shall be the means for the transmission of the Yaqui language and spiritual and cultural heritage. We further declare that all aspects of the educational process shall reflect the beauty of our Yaqui language, culture and values.It shall be the policy of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe that no member of the Tribe shall be coerced by any outside non-Yaqui tribal authority or system to deny or debase the Yaqui language. (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 1) Further, the Yaqui language policy states the conditions of the status of the Yaqui language: The Yaqui language is the indigenous language of the Pascua Nation. Since time immemorial Yaqui has been, and will continue to be, our

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mother or native tongue which is the natural instrument of thought and communication. The Yaqui language is the national language of the Pascua Yaqui Nation in a political, social and cultural sense. The Yaqui language is the official language of the Pascua Yaqui Nation and may be used in the business of government, legislative, executive and judicial, although in deference to, and out of respect to speakers of Spanish and English, both Spanish and English may be utilized in official matters of government.... Be it known that the Spanish language shall be recognized as our second language and the English language shall be recognized as our third language. (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 4) In 1986 the Tohono O'odham (Papago) Tribal Council also established an official tribal language policy. The O'odham also makes clear in their statement of philosophy that language is the gift from the creator and, "...no other tribe can claim it. It is what makes us Tohono O'odham. ... our Tohono O'odham himdag 'way of life' demands respect and maintenance by all those who claim it" (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 3). It further states that: ...with respect for our first language the Tohono O'odham Nation declares the Tohono O'odham language as the official language of our people. The Tohono O'odham language is to be used as the official means of oral communication at any and all tribal councils, and all district, village, committee and board meetings as well as in any and all tribal and community functions and activities throughout the Tohono O'odham Nation. Other languages may be used as deemed necessary. (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 3)

5. A comparison of Yaqui and Tohono O'odham language policies Both of these tribal policies make the point that the language of the people is a gift from the Creator, that language is an integral part of being a tribal member. The point is also repeated in both documents that the native language is the first language of the people and will be officially recognized as the first and the official language of the people. These two tribal policies also address other common language planning issues in their policies. The following paragraphs will delineate both policies' procedures and objectives in brief summaries.

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5.1. Authority and Responsibility The Tohono O'odham policy derives its authority solely from an internal document, the Constitution and Bylaws of the Papago Tribe comprehensive Education Plan for the O'odham Tribe. The Yaqui policy, on the other hand, states: The authority of the Pascua Yaqui Nation to establish language and culture policies is further derived from the following: The constitution and laws of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe and its corporate Chapter; the Indian Self-Determination Act; The American Indian Religious Freedom Act; the Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978; the Education Amendment of 1978 Act; the Archaeological resources protection Act of 1979; and all other Supreme Court decisions, Federal Statutes and Executive Orders recognizing the sovereign powers of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 2) The Yaqui document thus derives its authority from both within tribal law and from Federal documents. Similarly, the Yaqui policy stipulates that the Department of the Interior is responsible for funding the implementation of the tribal language policy; this assumption is based on previous acts and public laws. The Tohono O'odham makes no stipulations.

5.2. Value or Status of the Language Both tribes make statements regarding the role of the language in the community. The O'odham state: "Our language has been used throughout our people's existence to convey thoughts, ideas, and feelings. The Tohono O'odham Nation declares that all Tohono O'odham parents, guardians, elders, and adults are the first and initial teachers of the Tohono O'odham Himdag" (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 3). The Yaqui express similar attitudes about their language, stating: "We declare that the Yaqui language is a living and vital language that has the ability to match any other in the world for expressiveness and beauty. Our language is capable of lexical expansion into modern conceptual fields such as the fields of politics, economics, mathematics and science" (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 4).

5.3. Sanction of an Official Orthography Both language policy documents declare their respective languages as the official language of their tribe. The Tohono O'odham declare the writing

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system developed by Albert Alvarez and Kenneth Hale to be the official writing system. No official orthography was defined in the Yaqui language policy document; however, in 1985, the Yaqui Language and Culture Commission and the Tribal Council identified and approved an official writing system. 5.4. Practitioners/Eminent Persons/Elders Both tribes emphasize the importance of tribal elders as the traditional educators of the tribe who should be officially recognized as such. The Yaqui policy puts it as follows: "It shall be the policy of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe to encourage the utilization of the tribal elders/eminent persons to the greatest extent possible in providing Yaqui language and cultural instruction to our children" (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 5). 5.5. Bilingual/Bicultural Education Both tribal language policy documents recognize the importance of teaching with and about tribal language in the schools. The Tohono O'odham put it succinctly: "It shall be the policy of the Tohono O'odham that all educational systems shall establish and operate educational programs using bilingual/bicultural practices" (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 5). The Yaqui document declares: "It shall be the policy of the Pascua Yaqui Tribe to vigorously advocate Yaqui language instruction for the Pascua Yaqui students in off-reservation schools and, as facilities become available, to require such instruction at the village and pueblos in all grade levels beginning in pre-school through the 12th grade" (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 6). Both tribes also see the need for better qualified teachers on the reservation. The Tohono O'odham policy states: The Tohono O'odham realizes the educational needs and, therefore, declares that all educators within the Tohono O'odham Nation be the most qualified professionally and culturally to meet these education needs. The Tohono O'odham Nation, through the Papago Education Committee/Board of Directors, shall establish education codes and standards which will guide the process and development of appropriate curriculum for the Tohono O'odham. Such a process will enable teachers to focus more effectively on these educational needs. (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 5)

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The Yaqui specifically refer to higher institutions such as colleges and universities role in providing services to train teachers to teach Yaqui children. They further state, The Yaqui Language and Culture Commission shall provide training guidelines and consultation to cooperating institutions regarding Yaqui learning styles, appropriate teaching strategies, Yaqui protocol, values, ethics and world view as well as, other linguistic and pertinent cultural matters that will prepare the potential teacher of Yaqui children with competence to teach. Teacher competency guidelines shall become a part of the Pascua Yaqui Education Code. (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984: 9)

5.6. Research and Studies by External Sources Both tribal policies are specific on matters pertaining to research and data collection by external sources. The Tohono O'odham state, With respect for the sacredness and spirituality of the Tohono O'odham Himdag, the Papago Education Committee/Board of Directors, by the authority from the Papago Tribal Council and the Law and Order Code of the Papago Tribe, Chapter 6, Ordinance Number 02 — 82, shall approve all individuals and/or organizations who wish to conduct research, scientific investigations, and any other form of studies of and about the Papago people. Procedures shall be established by the Committee for tribal approval of projects researching, examining and/ or exploring the Tohono O'odham Himdag 'way of life'. Procedures shall include copyright ownership as they relate to documents on the Tohono O'odham. (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 4) The Yaqui also layout specific recommendations regarding copyright of publications and reproductions of ceremonial artifacts. The Yaqui, unlike the Tohono O'odham, further call for the establishment of a Yaqui Language and Culture Commission, and outline the composition and the role and function of this commission. In general, this commission will serve as the "planning, screening, and review body for all issues relating to the Yaqui language, history, culture and tradition including instruction...." (Pascua Yaqui Tribe 1984:10). Thus, all the goals set by the Yaqui language policy shall be overseen and provided for by this commission.

5.7. Legal Applications and Policy Amendments The Tohono O'odham make specific statements regarding the document since the legal and binding tribal language policy for the tribe is written

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in the Tohono O'odham language. The statement reads, "In all cases, the Tohono O'odham text of this language policy shall be used to establish its meaning. Translation of this policy in other languages may be provided by the O'odham Education Department, but such translations shall have no legal effects" (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 5). The Yaqui language policy is written in English and is the only version extant. The Tohono O'odham policy also includes a statement on amendments to the policy, stating: "The language policy of the Tohono O'odham may be revised, updated, and/or amended at any Papago Education Committee/Board of Directors meeting by a two-thirds (2/3) vote when at least nine members are present. Any policy amendments must meet with approval of the Papago Tribal Council" (Tohono O'odham Tribal Council 1986: 5). The Yaqui policy places responsibility for amendments and maintenance with the Yaqui Language and Culture Commission, although final approval lies with the Yaqui Tribal Council.

Notes on the Tohono O'odham and Yaqui Nations Tohono O'odham In 1985, the Papago Tribe officially voted to change their tribal name from Papago to Tohono O'odham. From here on, the tribe will be called Tohono O'odham or O'odham. The new name is the name by which the people call themselves: Tohono 'desert', O'odham 'people': 'Desert People'. The Tohono O'odham (Papago) Nation is located in southern Arizona. The reservation land base for the tribe is approximately 2.8 million acres. The population is estimated to be around 24,000 O'odham, spread among various reservation communities. Tohono O'odham belongs to the Piman branch of the Uto-Aztecan language family. The most closely related languages include Pima, Lower Piman, Northern Tepehuan and Southern Tepehuan. Presently, the Tohono O'odham population consists of mono-lingual speakers of Tohono O'odham, adults and children; bilingual speakers in O'odham and English; some young speakers of English and some O'odham; and some young speakers with only English. Also, depending on the area, there are speakers of O'odham, Spanish, English, and, to some extent, Yaqui. The Tohono O'odham Tribal Council adopted the Language Policy of the Tohono O'odham and an official writing system in 1986.

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Yaqui The Pascua Yaqui community is located west of Tucson Arizona. Other Yaqui communities in Arizona include; Yoem Pueblo (Marana), Bario Libre (Tucson), Guadalupe (Tempe), as well as less well-defined communities in Scottsdale, Phoenix, Yuma and Sommerton. It is estimated that there are approximately 5,000 Yaqui Indians in Arizona spread among these various communities. Yaqui belongs to the branch of the UtoAztecan Language family called Cahitan or Taracahitan. The languages most closely related to Yaqui include Tarahumara, Mayo and Guarijio. The present-day Yaqui include adults who are bilingual in Yaqui and Spanish or are tri-lingual in Yaqui, Spanish and English. The younger population consists primarily of speakers of some Yaqui, Spanish and English; or of Spanish and English only. The Pascua Yaqui Tribe adopted the Language Policy in 1984. One year later they adopted an official orthography.

V. LEGAL PERSPECTIVES ON LANGUAGE POLICY

Introduction The papers in this section were written by lawyers and judges, all of whom specialize in constitutional law. The general issue addressed is: Are there constitutionally protected language rights, and how should such rights, if they do exist, be balanced against the need for social order? The lead article by Zall and Stein reflects the opinion of proponents of official English that English is de facto the official language of the United States and that it should be so recognized de jure, so that the language rights of English speakers will be secure. They argue that the federal government is now forcing people to use languages other than English through, for example, legislation on bilingual ballots. The articles by Weinstein and Trasvina address the issue of whether language rights are guaranteed by the constitution. Both find that language is protected only as a way of guaranteeing other rights or of promoting protection against racial and ethnic discrimination. They discuss the amendments under which such rights, as they relate to language, are protected. Weinstein describes what it would be like if language choice was constitutionally guaranteed. He also considers the possibility that official English legislation itself is unconstitutional. The article by Trasvina emphasizes the protection of voting rights. The article by Moran describes some of the legal history of bilingual education, one of the most hotly contested issues in the official English movement. Her concern is that official English legislation will limit the types of programs that are legally available for providing English instruction. Maintaining flexibility in addressing bilingual problems is also considered by Weinstein and Trasvina to be a crucial element in the protection of rights. In his article, Magnet considers the issue of language rights in a broader context. He compares the United States and Canadian constitutional systems and finds that the emphasis on individual rights in the United States leads to different language policies than one would get in a system that emphasizes the protection of collective rights. He argues that the proponents and opponents of official English need to clearly understand what their goals are with respect to individual and collective rights, if the official English debate is to have an optimal resolution. In the final paper of this section, Fidel expresses the concerns of the judiciary, who have too hard a time dealing with the consequences of

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legislation which is unclear in its intent. He argues that judges cannot and should not be expected to determine the goals of the drafters of official English legislation. He would prefer that they fully understand their goals as they draft the legislation — or that they not legislate on the issue at all. The recent Arizona campaign and the earlier California one have demonstrated that the courts will be involved in deciding the intent of such legislation. The Attorney General's office in California has declared its official English legislation as symbolic in intent. In Arizona, the opponents and proponents have argued extensively over the meaning of the phrase "to act in a language other than English," each side giving a very different interpretation of what "act" means. Does it, as the proponents claim, refer only to acts that are contractual in nature? Or, following the argument of the opponents, does it encompass all activity performed in the course of the normal work of an employee of state or local government? These are explicit examples of the issues that Fidel raises. On January 25, 1989, the Arizona State Attorney General issued the opinion that the law is constitutional, but will not affect the way the government operates: "It does not prohibit the use of other languages when they are reasonably required in the day-to-day operation of government" (Stanton 1989 A: 1). The first suit was filed two days after the election (Collier and Sowers 1988), and in October, 1989, is still unresolved.

Legal Background and History of the English Language Movement* Barnaby W. Zall and Sharon McCloe Stein

1. Introduction In the post-bicentennial era, most Americans recognize that a small number of institutions in American society are the foundation of this pluralistic nation. These institutions, though few in number, are very important, for they allow us to celebrate diversity, to disagree without enmity, to govern without repression, and to tolerate differences without fear. A shared belief in democratic values, for example, allows us to accept the election of persons with whom we disagree. Not every country shares this advantage. Without these institutions, many Americans believe, this country would descend into internecine rivalries. One of these basic institutions is our tradition of a common language, a tradition which must be maintained if we are to remain a unified people without enforced conformity. Many languages are spoken in this country, but everyone also speaks English. An English-speaking person can go anywhere in the United States and both understand and be understood by those living there. One of the reasons for the success of the official language movement is the recognition by virtually all Americans of the value of English as our common language. Although English is recognized as the jurisprudential, political, social, and legal norm, it has not been widely recognized de jure as the official language of the country. Americans are now learning that our common language, without statutory protection, is vulnerable to attack. Throughout our history, English has been the common language of the United States. The vast majority of Americans view our tradition of a common language as one of our most important unifying bonds. Courts and legislatures have continually reaffirmed this tradition. Twice in this century our language policies have been the subject of significant legal action. Shortly after World War I, a movement to prohibit the teaching of foreign languages was quickly stifled by the courts as an

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unconstitutional infringement of parental and individual rights. This brief episode of attempted language regulation was followed by a long period characterized by a return to the consensus on use of English. In the last quarter-century federal and state governments, ostensibly to protect language minorities, have forced languages other than English on an unwilling American people. Laws requiring bilingual/bicultural education and bilingual voting procedures, among others, have altered the role of English as the official language of American government. In private settings, such as private employment and contracts, additional government policies have forced persons to use languages other than English. This on-going governmental intervention has caused significant public concern. As a result, a grassroots movement — the "English as the official language" movement — has sprung up to remove government from private language choice and to re-establish English as our official language. The official language movement, sometimes erroneously characterized as racist, xenophobic or "English-only," is, in large part, a modern reaction to government interference. The official language movement resists government actions which regulate a private right: Language choice in private situations. More accurately, the official language movement opposes government actions which would weaken or ignore the role of English in our society. This grassroots effort has had overwhelming success in voter initiatives and state legislatures.

2. English and Assimilation: A Social Contract English plays two major roles in American society: As our common language and as our de facto official language. The distinction between a "common language" and an "official language" is crucial to understanding the debate concerning language policy in the United States. International law defines a common or national language as "the language of a social and cultural entity which is in widespread use in a country"; in contrast, an official language is "a language used in the business of government (legislative, executive, administrative and judicial) and in the performance of the various other functions of the state." 1 In this country, one of the central characteristics of the common language is individual choice of language for private situations, but a commonly-understood language — English — for public interaction. This careful balance is one of the tenets of the official language movement. In

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1986, for example, proponents of California's official language initiative Proposition 632 declared that choice of language in private contexts must remain the individual's, while the language of government must remain English. The official language amendment in Arizona states, with certain exceptions, both that the government shall act in English, and that the government shall not require the use of a language other than English.3 Thus, the official language movement seeks to maintain a common tongue for all, without requiring all persons to speak only English. Traditionally, immigrants to the United States learned English — the language of their new home. Command of the English language was recognized as the key to upward mobility and success, not only for the immigrants themselves, but also for future generations. 4 This process of assimilation through acquisition of English skills grew up over our 200year history. Courts 5 and legislatures6 have continually recognized that the English language unifies a diverse and multilingual people. Moreover, entering the United States has traditionally meant entering into an unwritten covenant: 7 immigrants would learn the English language and would participate in the political system by becoming citizens and voters. In return, they would be welcomed as equals and temporary differences would be tolerated. It is this pact between the immigrant and his new land which has helped to sustain our pluralistic society for generations.

3. Legal Recognition Without Statutory Protection There is little question that English has been the de facto official language of the United States throughout its history.8 Some states have laws which require that government documents and publications be produced only in English. As Justice Mosk of the California Supreme Court noted: 9 The United States is an English-speaking country. Despite California's early Spanish culture, the language of our state government has long been that of the waves of American settlers who migrated here when California joined the Union. Although a declaration that all official writings shall be in the English language (former Cal. Const., Art. IV, § 24) was deleted as surplusage in the 1966 revision of our Constitution, section 8 of the Welfare and Institutions Code still provides, as do many of our codes, that "Whenever any Notice, report, statement, or record is required or authorized by this Code, it shall be made in

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writing in the English language." Justice Holmes declared a halfcentury ago "it is desirable that all citizens of the United States should speak a common tongue" Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 412 (1922) (dissenting opinion). And this court recently recognized that "The state interest in maintaining a single language system is substantial..." Castro v. State, 2 Cal.3d 223, 242 (1970). Guerrero v. Carlson, 512 P.2d 833, 835 (Cal. 1973), cert, den., 414 U.S. 1137 (1974) Despite a growing number of programs which require the use of another language in a particular setting,10 most government functions are still conducted in English. In the absence of government intervention, the American tradition of English as the common and de facto official language should continue unchanged. Unfortunately, because there are no overall statutory protections for the use of English, English as our common language is vulnerable. Twice since the turn of the century, government has interfered with our language customs. The first was a prohibition, quickly reversed by the Supreme Court, against teaching foreign languages to children. The second we face today: Government is acting as arbiter of language choice by forcing English-speaking persons to use languages other than English. In both cases, the deviations from traditional language patterns have occurred when government intervened to dictate that individuals must use a certain language in aspects of private life.

4. Laws Prohibiting Foreign Language Instruction Struck Down At the turn of the century, several states had laws prohibiting the teaching of languages other than English to young children.11 In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), the U.S. Supreme Court struck down these laws as a violation of individuals' rights.12 The Court found prohibitions on teaching foreign languages "attempted materially to interfere with the calling of modern language teachers, with the opportunities of pupils to acquire knowledge, and with the power of parents to control the education of their own." 13 At least partly in response, some states amended their laws to affect only official language usage and thus, only government conduct. For example, Nebraska amended its constitution to limit specified government activities (official language usage), to English: The English language is hereby declared to be the official language of this state, and all official proceedings, records and publications shall

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be in such language, and the common school branches shall be taught in said language in public, private, denominational and parochial schools. Art. I, § 27, Neb. Const. Until 1964, there were few other challenges to the established language norm. Neither state nor federal governments attempted to control private language choice and there was little public discussion on the issue.

5. Federal Intervention Today Beginning in the Civil Rights era, Congress enacted a barrage of federal laws dictating both official and common language choice. These laws originally proscribed specific objectionable actions but gradually evolved into government requirements that languages other than English be used in a wide variety of settings. For example, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, as amended, prohibited discrimination based on national origin. Initially, national origin meant the nationality of a person's forebears and did not include language. Gradually, however, the concept of national origin was expanded to include language. 14 In Garcia v. Gloor, 618 F.2d 264 (5th Cir. 1980), cert, denied, 449 U.S. 1113 (1981), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit rejected a contention that an employer's English-only workplace rule constituted impermissible discrimination on the basis of national origin.15 Although the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals had considered and rejected its language policies in Garcia, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission nevertheless promulgated language "guidelines" stating that a workplace rule prohibiting speaking languages other than English would be presumed invalid as national origin discrimination, 45 Fed. Reg. 85632, 85636 (1980), codified at 29 C.F.R. § 1606.7 (1986). Recently, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ignored Garcia,16 and cited with approval the EEOC guidelines, Gutierrez v. Municipal Court (CV 85-2172-RG) (9th Cir. issued January 27, 1988). Similarly, the Voting Rights Act was expanded from a prohibition against discrimination against Puerto Rican voters, 17 to an affirmative requirement that certain states and local governments encourage and assist Limited English Proficient persons during elections.18 One scholar has suggested that the expansion of the Voting Rights Act was premised on political opportunism, flawed information and ideology, rather than on a real need for protective legislation.19

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Not every federal law, however, began as a prohibition. Some began as mandates. The Bilingual Education Act of 1968, P.L. 90 — 247 (Jan. 2, 1968), 81 Stat. 816, 20 U.S.C.A. 880(b), was intended to address the needs of Limited English Proficient students by requiring schools to provide special assistance. This concept was emphasized by the U.S. Supreme Court in Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974).20 The result of the expansion of this program, in some cases, has been contrary to the Lau decision: Educational authorities isolated Limited English Proficient students from English-language instruction and from their English-speaking peers for years.21 In other cases, English-speaking children were placed into non-English-speaking classrooms in order to provide role models — without considering the effect on the Englishspeaking children.22 Education is one area, however, where public pressure has made a difference. Recent amendments to the Bilingual Education Act23 allow greater flexibility to parents and school districts in determining the most appropriate teaching methods for Limited English Proficient children.24

6. A Grassroots Response The debates over language policy in the United States currently focus on English as the official language: Whether English will retain its special status, and the extent to which government will function solely in English.25 Increasing federal power over the official language used by state or local government, as in the case when the federal government requires bilingual ballots or bilingual education, has aroused substantial concern among Americans who believe that government should not foster languages other than English as the common or official language. Although a federal constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States is pending, most of the debate has been concentrated at the state level.26 As of this writing, fourteen states27 have given a measure of legal protection to English as the official language by either statute or constitutional provision: Five in 1987.28 In 1986, 36 states considered official English measures. Initiative measures are pending or being circulated in three states in early 1988.29 These initiatives circumscribe government's power to ignore or violate our official and common language traditions. A proposed initiative in Arizona, for example, not only declares English to be the official language

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of the state, but it also explicitly forbids the state government from interfering in an individual's choice of language.30 In California, Proposition 63, an official language amendment to the state constitution, was passed by 73% of the voters in November 1986, including majorities of voters from every ethnic and racial group. The California constitutional amendment 31 provides that English shall be the official language,32 and that the legislature may not enact any law which diminishes or ignores the role of English as the common language of the state. 33 The government is also required to take steps to preserve and enhance the role of English as the common language of the state.34 Perhaps most important, Californians now have a private right of action to enforce the new law.35 This may be the first time that a majoritylanguage person has a constitutional power to compel government to respect English as an individual right and has access to the courts to enforce that power.36 No longer may the state of California ignore Californians' rights to their common language. This new constitutional power is a return to the traditional language norm. During the campaign on the California initiative, opponents of the measure predicted dire results if the amendment passed.37 For example, critics claimed the new private right of action would generate thousands of lawsuits. No lawsuit has been filed under the official language provision since its enactment. This result is not unexpected since a 1984 Congressional study of similar laws across the country found no adverse effects from language protection statutes. 38

7. Conclusion The official language movement is a populist, grassroots effort which has had significant success in enacting legislation designating English as the official language of various states. The real impact of the official language movement, however, may be in its stimulation of a national debate on language policy and the government's role. English has always been the de facto official and common language of the United States. Government attempts to interfere with language choice, or to force languages other than English on the American people, have always been fiercely resisted. The official language movement is, under this view, a response to the rapidly-increasing level of government intervention into choice of languages since the 1960s.

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The principal goal of the official language movement is to halt the erosion of English in public life. Proponents advocate legal recognition and a return to the laissez-faire language policy which has served our pluralistic society so well. This movement should be viewed as an effort to maintain two unifying American institutions: Our common and "official" language — English. Notes * Barnaby W. Zall is a lawyer in private practice in Washington, D.C. Zall is the author of California's Proposition 63 and several other official language provisions. Sharon McCloe Stein is a professional law clerk in the Law Offices of Barnaby Zall. Although Zall is the general counsel to U.S. English and other official language organizations, this article represents the authors' personal views and does not necessarily represent the official policies of any organization. 1. Study of the Problem of Discrimination Against Indigenous Populations at 1 nn.7 —8, U.N. Doc. E/CN.4/Sub.2/476/Add.6 (June 17, 1981). 2. Now Article III, § 6, Cal. Const. 3. Proposition 106 (now law), §§ 3(a), (b). 4. See, for example, Abramson 1980: 150—160. 5. Guadalupe Organization v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 587 F.2d 1022 (9th Cir. 1978) (government has a "legitimate" interest in encouraging its citizens to speak a common tongue). 6. For example, in 1986, Georgia passed an official language statute which reads: Whereas, the reliance of a society on a single language facilitates the exchange of ideas, feelings, beliefs, and information and facilitates the full integration of all its members; and Whereas, the English language is the basic language of commerce, education, and official business in this state,; and Whereas, it is only fitting and proper that we recognize the continuing, unifying role that the English language plays in the stability and cohesion of the lives of the people of this state and nation. Be it resolved... that the English language is designated as the official language of the State of Georgia. Georgia State Act no. 70 (1986). 7. See generally, Bikales and Imhoff 1985. 8. Despite many claims, no court has found a constitutional right to use other languages. Only one case has found a constitutional ground for a "right" to use a language other than English: United States ex rel. Negron v. New York, 434 F.2d 386, 391 (2nd Cir. 1970), held that the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution required a translator for a criminal defendant. Frontera v. Sindell, 522 F.2d 1215 (6th Cir. 1975), for example, rejected a constitutional challenge to English-only civil service examinations. Even Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 290 (1922), often cited as support for tolerance for other languages, actually was a "parental rights" case, dealing with the ability of a state to stop children from learning other languages. See, below. Other bases for claims of "rights" stem only from federal statutes passed during the civil rights era. See, below. For example, Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974), which

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held unlawful a failure to teach English to Limited English Proficient students, was based on the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. In fact, state courts have usually found state interests in operating exclusively in English. See, e.g., DaLomba

v. Director

of the Div. of Employment

Sec., 337 N . E . 2 d

687, 689—90 (Mass. 1975) ("English is the official language of this country and of this Commonwealth.") and cases cited therein; Alfonso v. Board of Review, 444 A.2d 1075 (N.J.), cert, den., 459 U.S. 806 (1982) (requirements of reasonable notice are satisfied by notice in English) and cases cited therein; Belanger v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. Co., 426 N.Y.S.2d 140,142 (N.Y. 1980) (proceedings required to be in English to avoid translation problems and costs); Guerrero v. Carlson, 512 P.2d 833 (Cal. 1973) cert, den., 414 U.S. 1137 (1974) (welfare termination notices not required to be in languages other t h a n English); Jara v. Municipal

Court for the San Antonio Judicial Dist. of Los

Angeles County, 578 P.2d 94 (Cal. 1978) (no constitutional right for court-appointed interpreters for represented civil litigants); Valdivia v. Chicago & Northwestern Transp. Co., 409 N.E.2d 457 (Ill.App. 1980) (official language statute required litigant to provide English translation for Spanish-language affidavit); Loehde v. Glos, 106 N.E. 940 (111. 1914) (official documents must be in English so English-speaking person need not seek help in understanding them); Stein v. Meyers, 97 N.E. 295 (111. 1911) (abbreviations may not fit judicial English language requirements). 9. For example, the California laws cited by Justice Mosk required exclusive English language usage. Other states, such as Nebraska, Virginia, and Illinois, had similar requirements. None of these official language requirements was ever successfully challenged. 10. As noted in footnote 8, there are no constitutional "rights" to use foreign languages in most contexts; these programs are based on statute, and not constitutional guarantees. Several federal laws require or permit use of languages other than English. The Court Interpreters Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1827(d) (1982) requires the use of interpreters in all civil or criminal litigation "initiated by the United States in a United States district court." Federally-funded migrant and community health centers must use languages other than English. 42 U.S.C. §§ 254b(f)(3)(J), 254c (1982). Similarly, federal alcohol abuse and treatment programs must use languages other than English. 42 U.S.C. § 4577(b) (1982 & Supp. 1985). The Voting Rights Act requires certain elections and election materials to be in languages other than English. 42 U.S.C. § 1973aa (1982). The Bilingual Education Act, 20 U.S.C. §§3221-3261 (1982), requires certain types of educational instruction to be given in languages other than English. In addition, several states provide statutory authority for programs to provide services in languages other than English. California, for example, has one of the most sweeping statutes: Every state agency...directly involved in the furnishing of information or the rendering of services to the public whereby contact is made with a substantial number of non-English-speaking people, shall employ a sufficient number of qualified bilingual persons in public contact positions to ensure provision of information and services to the public, in the language of the non-English-speaking person. Cal. Gov't Code § 7290 (West 1980). 11. For example, Iowa Acts 1919 c. 198: Section 1. That the medium of instruction in all secular subjects taught in all of the schools, public and private within the state of Iowa, shall be the English

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12. 13. 14. 15. 16.

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21.

22.

That all subjects and branches taught in the elementary schools of the state of Ohio below the eighth grade shall be taught in the English language only. Session Laws of Nebraska 1919 Ch. 249: Section 2. No person, individually or as a teacher, shall, in any private, denominational, or parochial or public school, teach any subject to any person in any language other than the English language. Section 3. Languages other than the English language may be taught as languages only, after a pupil shall have attained and successfully passed the eighth grade.... 262 U.S. 390 (1923), and Bartels v. Iowa, 262 U.S. 404 (1923). Id. at 262 U.S. at 401. See, e.g., Barker v. Ohio Dept. of Public Welfare, 628 F.2d 980 (6th Cir. 1980) (worker discriminated against on basis of national origin because of foreign accent). Garcia has been followed by other courts. Jurado v. Eleven-Fifty Corp., 813 F.2d 1406 (9th Cir. 1987). Gutierrez, ignoring Garcia, was decided only a few months after Jurado, supra, footnote 15, also from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, had explicitly reaffirmed Garcia. Given these differing interpretations within and between circuit courts of appeals, the U.S. Supreme Court will probably have to determine the extent to which the EEOC language guidelines are valid regulations on businesses. In Katzenbach v. Morgan, 384 U.S. 641 (1966), the U.S. Supreme Court held that the bilingual ballot provisions of the Voting Rights Act were a constitutional exercise of federal power over the states. In Texas, for example, the state is required by the federal government to send letters describing all constitutional amendments to all voters with Hispanic surnames. No such assistance is given to English-speaking voters. Thernstrom 1988: 3 - 6 2 . As Justice Douglas stated: "Teaching English to the students... who do not speak the language is one choice. Giving instructions to this group in their native language is another. There may be others." Id. at 565—566. The Lau decision was taken by some to mean that school systems must maintain students in their native languages. At the end of the Carter Administration, the Department of Education proposed regulations, called "the Lau Guidelines," (45 Fed. Reg. 52052, Aug. 5, 1980) to compel extensive bilingual/bicultural education for nonEnglish speaking students. The Lau Guidelines were denounced by the Reagan Administration and were never promulgated. Testimony of Rudolph Troike, Director of Office For Educational Policy Research, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign before the Illinois State Board of Education Policy and Planning Committee, October 7, 1982: 4., "(These) studies have suggested that five to six years is the optimum time for students to remain in a program in order to realize their full potential." "Bilingual Education Issue Stays Alive," Filmore [CA] Herald, March 7, 1985, at 1; see, also, Office for Civil Rights, U.S. Dept. of Education, San Francisco Regional Office, Docket No. 0 9 - 8 6 - 1 1 0 4 (1986).

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23. School Improvement Act of 1988, H.R. 5, 100th Cong. 2nd Sess., § 7002(b)6. 24. In many ways, the emerging trend in bilingual education — to return control over educational choices to parents — is similar to the effort earlier this century to protect parental choice of language in the classroom. See, e.g. Meyer v. Nebraska, supra. 25. The principal goal of the official language movement is to halt encroachment against English as the official language of the United States. 26. Note, "Official English": Federal Limits On Efforts To Curtail Bilingual Services In The States, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1345 (1987). 27. Arkansas, California, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. (Since Zall and Stein wrote their article (1987), the three referendem states of Arizona, Colorado and Florida have been added to the list, making the total seventeen, eds.) 28. Arkansas, Mississippi, North Carolina, North Dakota, and South Carolina. 29. Colorado, Arizona, and Florida (all passed, eds.). 30. Proposed amendment to Constitution of Arizona, supra, footnote 3, § 3(b). 31. Now Article III, Section 6, Cal. Const. 32. See Article III Section 6 (b), Cal. Const. 33. See Article III, Section 6 (c), Cal. Const. 34. Id. 35. See Article III, Section 6 (d), Cal. Const. 36. In the absence of a statutory or constitutional provision protecting English-speaking persons' rights to use English, the only remedies available to a person who felt discriminated against because he or she spoke only English would be to try to fit within one of the traditional civil rights or constitutional provisions, such as discrimination on the basis of race or national origin. In Miami, for example, two black women successfully relied on racial discrimination remedies when they were fired for not knowing Spanish. Miami Herald, August 17, 1987, 15; Moyers, "CBS Reports: Whose America Is It Anyway?" September 3, 1985. Recently a federal court declared that it would not consider complaints by Black supervisors that their employees were insulting them in Spanish (thus hurting discipline in the workplace — a valid business necessity to govern language usage in that workplace). The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit recently said: The supervisors' feelings toward the use of the Spanish language may reflect a prejudice toward the use of a tongue that they do not understand, and also may indicate a bias against Hispanic-Americans. Unfortunately, monolingual persons may be threatened by the speaking of a language that they themselves cannot speak. Gutierrez, supra, slip op. at 1051, n. 14. 37. Note, "Official English": Federal Limits on Efforts to Curtail Bilingual Services in the States, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1344, 1347. 38. The English Language Amendment: Hearing on S.J. Res. 167 Before the Subcomm. on the Constitution of the Senate Comm. on the Judiciary, 98th Cong., 2d Sess. 181 —214 (1984).

Is Language Choice a Constitutional Right?: Outline of a Constitutional Analysis* James

Weinstein

1. Introduction The question addressed below is whether language choice is a right guaranteed by the United States Constitution. It is a simple question. But one knows better than to expect simple answers from lawyers, even in response to simple questions. Take, for instance, the person who asks a group of professionals what two plus two equals. The accountant says, "four"; the mathematician says "It depends what base you want it in"; and the linguist says "It depends on the social context." But the lawyer says, "What do you want it to be?" The answer to the question posed above is similar; the answer is yes and no. Yes, there is a constitutional language right and no, there is not. No, in the sense that there is no right, as such: There is no freestanding right to use or to receive communications in a particular language. Yes, in the sense that there is a constitutional right to communicate, and under some circumstances to receive communications in languages other than English. But this right to send and receive communications exists solely by virtue of other constitutional rights. Thus, this language right is made up of bits and pieces of other constitutional rights; it is the Frankenstein monster of constitutional rights. Consider the following example of how language rights are, in fact, protected indirectly under our Constitution. What if one wanted to conduct a meeting in Spanish or Old Norse? Could the government punish us or prohibit us for doing so? The answer is clearly no. The government could not do that because of the First Amendment right of free speech.1 This is as good a time as any to explain something about rights under the United States Constitution. For the most part, federal constitutional rights are rights against government, be it federal, state, or local government; they are not rights against individuals. If an individual wanted to

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keep me from speaking, that would not be a constitutional violation. It might be illegal — it might violate a statute or common law — but it would not raise a federal constitutional issue. It is only when government acts, that, for the most part, the United States Constitution becomes involved.

2. First Amendment Protection Coming back to the First Amendment protection, more than 60 years ago the Supreme Court of the United States recognized that a law prohibiting the teaching of a foreign language to children who had not passed the eighth grade was unconstitutional. 2 A few years later, the Court said that a law that prohibited merchants from keeping their books of account in Chinese was unconstitutional. 3 Technically, these cases were not decided under the First Amendment, but under a type of jurisprudence that has been discredited.4 But these cases are still good law and have been reinterpreted in modern times by the Supreme Court as First Amendment cases.5

3. Due Process and Other Constitutional Protections There are other parts of the Constitution that indirectly protect language rights. For instance, the provisions of the Constitution that prohibit the deprivation of life, liberty, or property without due process of law,6 can come into play where language issues are involved. Thus, due process demands that a criminal defendant who does not understand English be supplied by the government with a translator. 7 On the other hand, courts have also held that the failure to provide Spanish translation of social security forms, even social security forms that are essential to obtain benefits, is not a deprivation of property without due process.8 So, although there is some protection of language rights under the due process clauses, there is not a world of protection. A very important provision of the Constitution that has the effect of creating language rights is the equal protection clause.9 This is the part of the Constitution that forbids racial and ethnic discrimination. Given the intimate connection between language and culture, laws aimed at language can oftentimes be just hidden ways of trying to discriminate against people on the basis of race or ethnicity. Thus, a law that is intended to discriminate on the basis of race or ethnicity would be

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unconstitutional, even though the law on its face refers to language, not to racial or ethnic groups as such. Back in the 1920s, the official English movement was quite open about its racial and ethnic biases. In Meyer v. Nebraska, for instance, the state tried to defend the law prohibiting language instruction to children as follows: The Legislature has seen the baneful effects of permitting foreigners, who have taken residence in this country, to rear and educate their children in the language of their native land. The result of that condition was found to be inimical to our own safety. To allow the children of foreigners, who had emigrated here, to be taught from early childhood the language of the country of their parents was to rear them with that language as their mother tongue. It was to educate them so that they must always think in that language, and, as a consequence, naturally inculcate in them the ideas and sentiments foreign to the best interests of this country. 10 The purpose of the law at issue in Meyer was clear. Unfortunately, some who support modern day official English share this xenophobia, but are much more adept at disguising their discriminatory intent. And sometimes courts are not sensitive to the real animus behind laws that prohibit the use of languages other than English. A good example is a case in which a Hispanic was fired for violating an English-only regulation by speaking Spanish on the job. He said one sentence in Spanish and was fired for doing so. The court held that was not discrimination on the basis of national origin under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act.11 Other courts have been more sensitive. In one case, a tavern had a rule that customers could only speak English at the bar; if a customer wanted to speak Spanish he had to sit at the back of the tavern. The tavern owner tried to justify this rule on the grounds that some customers did not like to hear people speaking Spanish at the bar. Fortunately, the court saw this English-only policy for the blatant discrimination against Hispanics that it was.12 Similarly, courts have ruled that discrimination by employers on the basis of accent is national origin discrimination. 13 The last three cases I have mentioned are not technically constitutional cases because they involve private action, the actions of employers or tavern owners; but they do show the intimate connection between discrimination against language and discrimination on the basis of national origin or ethnicity. There is, however, a recent case decided by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit that rests squarely on constitutional grounds. This case held that an investigation of voter fraud

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by the United States Attorney aimed solely at foreign-born voters who requested bilingual ballots might be unconstitutional racial and ethnic discrimination. 14

4. The Nature of a Freestanding Constitutional Language Right Having finished my survey of how use of languages other than English can be constitutionally protected, not as such, but indirectly by other constitutional guarantees, the question now becomes: What would be the difference if we, like Canada, had an expressed guarantee of language rights; or, if the courts were to find such a freestanding constitutional right? I think the difference would be considerable. It would be far different from the indirect protection we have now. It would be different for the following reasons: As we have seen, laws which single out non-English are not per se unconstitutional; they are bad only if they can be seen as part of the scheme of racial or ethnic discrimination, or if they impinge on some other fundamental liberty such as freedom of speech. Thus, under the present state of the law there is no constitutional right to general bilingual education in the public schools.15 There is, as Professor Moran states in her paper (this volume, eds.), a statutory right to a bilingual education under certain circumstances.16 Perhaps there is a limited constitutional right, too, under very limited circumstances.17 But there is no general right to a bilingual education. Schools are conducted in English, there are English courses, but there is no general right to have courses or instruction in other languages. However, if a freestanding constitutional language right were recognized, there would be a powerful, if not compelling, argument that government has to treat other languages equally in the school context. At minimum, government would have to treat other languages equally unless there was a good reason for not doing so. In addition, if important government services were provided in English, there would be a strong claim that these services would have to be provided in other languages as well. Under the current state of the law, there is no requirement that languages be treated equally; only that people not be discriminated against because of their ethnic origin. For instance, we have seen that at least one court has held that there is no requirement that social security forms be printed in Spanish. In another case, the United States Court of Appeals held that the Constitution does not

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require that a city that gives a test in English for a carpentry job must give a Spanish version of the test.18 A freestanding constitutional language right would probably change the results of these cases.

5. Should There be a Freestanding Constitutional Language Right? The last thing to be addressed here, briefly, is: Should there be a freestanding language right rather than this indirectly protected language right described above? I have some reservations in saying that there should be. I think it preferable to continue to protect language rights indirectly, through other constitutional and statutory provisions, but with much more vigor, and with many more teeth in ferreting out racial or ethnic discrimination. To give an indication of some of the problems that would be created by reading into our Constitution a fundamental language right, consider the following example. If such a right means that Spanish-speaking persons can demand general bilingual education in public schools, or can demand Spanish versions of social security forms, do members of smaller language groups, such as Greeks or Koreans, have a similar constitutional right to forms in their language or to bilingual education? If the Constitution requires government services in Spanish, I am hard pressed to see why other linguistic groups are not entitled to the government services in their languages as well. If, on the other hand, the language rights area is not completely constitutionalized, but the legislatures and administrative agencies are left some flexibility, then there could be bilingual education in various languages where needed. Similarly, local communities could decide to provide government services in several languages besides English without having to do so in every conceivable language found in the community. It seems to me that such flexibility is desirable.

6. Conclusion Where then does this leave us with regard to the constitutionality of official English amendments to state constitutions? If the right to use and receive communications in the language of one's choice on an equal basis with English were a freestanding federal constitutional right, then any

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such provision in a state constitution would be unconstitutional. But as we have seen, the courts have never recognized such a freestanding language right. Does this mean that official English Amendments are therefore constitutional? Not necessarily. Looking at the constitutional question now from the other way around, I believe that denying flexibility to legislatures or to administrators to deal with language issues could create constitutional problems. There may be a constitutional difference between 1) an agency, after looking at a problem, concluding that it will not give forms in a particular language, and 2) that same agency being prevented by an across-the-board rule from even considering the problem. Such a lack of flexibility could be unconstitutional. It might take an extension of present constitutional doctrine to reach that result, but I think the underpinnings are there. There is precedent in the race discrimination area that lends support to such a theory. For instance, in Hunter v. Erickson,19 a city charter amendment required that any fair housing ordinance passed by the city council be subjected to a popular referendum, while all other city ordinances became effective without such a referendum. The Supreme Court held that the city charter amendment violated the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. Similarly, in Reitman v. Mulkey20 the Supreme Court found unconstitutional an amendment to the California Constitution that prohibited the state legislature and all state agencies from enacting laws or ordinances prohibiting racial discrimination in the housing market. 21 To answer the question whether an official English provision is or is not constitutional, the specific provision would have to be examined. If it is merely a "cheerleading" provision, making English the official language like proclaiming the robin the state bird, then there is no federal constitutional problem. But if it disempowers the state legislature and all state agencies from responding to the needs of linguistic minorities then I think there is a fair presumption that what has motivated that provision is a desire to disempower the minority groups themselves. In that case, the official English provision may well be unconstitutional. Notes * This paper is based on a presentation made at a conference on Official English and the Border States, in Tempe, AZ, March 27, 1987. 1. "Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech..." U.S. Const, amend. I. This provision applies as well to state and local government by virtue of the fourteenth amendment. See Gitlow v. New York, 268 U.S. 652 (1925). 2. Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390 (1923).

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3. Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 271 U.S. 500 (1926). 4. Meyer was decided under a constitutional theory that held that the due process clause of the fourteenth amendment created certain substantive rights that the states could not infringe. The rights found by the Court in this era were primarily economic and property rights, which the Court invoked to strike down legislation that the Court thought inimical to laissez-faire capitalism. See, e.g. Lochner v. New York, 198 U.S. 45 (1905), after which this constitutional era is named. Occasionally, however, as the Meyer decision shows, the Court would use the due process clause to protect personal liberties as well. 5. See Griswold v. Connecticut, 381 U.S. 479, 482 (1965). 6. With respect to the federal government: U.S. Const, amend. V ("No person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."); with respect to state and local governments: U.S. Const, amend. XIV § 1 ("No state shall... deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."). 7. See United States ex rel. Negron v. New York, 434 F.2d 386 (2d. Cir. 1970). 8. Soberal-Perez v. Heckler, 717 F.2d 36 (2d. Cir. 1983). 9. U.S. Const, amend. XIV, § 1 ("No state shall... deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws"). 10. 2 U.S. at 397-98. 11. Garcia v. Gloor, 618 F.2d 264 (5th Cir. 1980). 12. Hernandez v. Erlenbusch, 368 F. Supp. 752 (D.Or. 1973). 13. See, e.g., Berke v. Ohio Dept. of Pub. Welfare, 628 F.2d 980 (1980). 14. Olagues v. Russoniello, 797 F.2d 1511 (9th Cir. 1986) (en banc), ordered vacated as moot, 108 S. CT. 52 (1987). 15. See, e.g., Guadalupe Org., Inc. v. Tempe Elementary School Dist. No. 3, 587 F.2d 1022 (9th Cir. 1978). 16. See Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974) (relying on Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964). 17. See id. 414 U.S. 566 ("We do not reach the Equal Protection Clause argument which has been advanced but rely solely on § 601 of the Civil Rights Act of 1964..."). 18. Frontera v. Sindell, 522 F.2d 1215 (6th Cir. 1975). 19. 393 U.S. 385 (1969). 20. 387 U.S. 369 (1967). 21. A theory similar to the one advanced here is discussed in Note, " O f f i c i a l English": Federal Limits on Efforts to Curtail Bilingual Services in the States, 100 Harv. L. Rev. 1345 (1987). The soundness of the extension of the Mulkey¡Hunter approach to official English amendments is a question that requires further investigation and analysis.

Bilingualism and the Constitution John Trasvina

1. Introduction Is language is a fundamental, constitutional right? This is an important issue in deciding how all languages must be treated under the laws, especially if language is tied to another constitutional or legal right (see, also, Weinstein, this volume). In the area of voting, I maintain that language is not a fundamental right. Since bilingualism and bilingual services are a means by which fundamental rights are protected and a means by which fundamental rights are enforced, the issue is not bilingualism purely for the sake of bilingualism, but bilingualism to insure that rights are extended to all Americans and that language is not a barrier to equal protection under the law.

2. Early Language Legislation in the U.S. Historically, language legislation has been used to bar access to the political and legal system. In the 19th century, literacy tests were used in the Jim Crow South against Blacks. They were devised to keep Blacks from utilizing their newly-won constitutional rights. Over the years the Congress has looked at the literacy test question. When the Congress voted in the 1960s to bar literacy tests, and then extend that ban nationwide with the 1975 amendment of the Voting Rights Act, it was with the understanding that the right to vote is the most fundamental right because it preserves all other rights. Suffrage brings people into the political process and makes them part of a democratic forum. The use of language as a barrier to the exercise of those rights goes back to the 19th century, and it has continued into the twentieth century. In 1906 came the first literacy requirements for naturalization, which were, of course, geared against Eastern and Southern Europeans. At the turn of the century also came the rise of the Americanizer movement and the Anglo conformity movement. In the 1920s, right after World War I,

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twenty-one states in the Midwest passed laws either making English the official language of the state, as did Nebraska, or barring the teaching of other languages in the classroom. This type of legislation was struck down in the Meyer v. Nebraska case (262 U.S. 390). Justice McReynolds, the author of the Supreme Court opinion, wrote, "The protection of the Constitution extends to all — to those who speak other languages as well as to those born with English on the tongue." The case following that, Nebraska District v. McKelvie, dealt specifically with the Nebraska Act of 1921 which said, much like the official English bills of today, that English was the official language of Nebraska, and that all official state proceedings had to be in the English language. That bill was as popular as some of the bills are today. It passed the Nebraska legislature; it was upheld by the Nebraska courts; it went clear to the United States Supreme Court before being barred from enforcement. It is interesting to note that Nebraska did not repeal the law; the Supreme Court said it violated the Constitution, but only barred it from being enforced.

3. Language Policy as a Protection for Fundamental Rights Today, I think we are back to the viewpoint that language does not reach the level of a fundamental right — it protects the fundamental rights but it is not a fundamental right in and of itself. For example, there is no constitutional right to native language instruction. When Kinney Lau's attorney went to the Supreme Court (Lau v. Nichols), his attorney, Ed Steinman, did not ask for bilingual education per se, and the U.S. Supreme Court decision specifically notes that no one single method of instruction was urged upon the Court by the plaintiffs. Some students will need no native language instruction whatsoever because their native language is English, the target language for bilingual programs. To provide native language instruction in addition to English to speakers of other languages may be administratively burdensome or impossible in some circumstances. The Congress, in considering the Voting Rights Act of 1975, looked at the circumstances of Hispanics, Asian Americans, American Indians, and Aleuts in this country. In the process, they also recognized a long history of English-only provisions, of prohibitions against speaking Spanish in the schools, even the outright punishment of a child who spoke Spanish on the playground, and, in general, of discrimination in education. Based upon this voluminous record, Congress passed the bilingual

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election provisions of the 1975 federal Voting Rights Act. Bilingual election services were intended to incorporate people into the political process because a person who votes may get further involved in his/her community and the societal mainstream. While non-English or limited-English speakers can vote on election day, for the other 364 days having a bilingual ballot does not help them. The other 364 days they still want to learn English, they still want to become proficient. The argument that we have heard from official English advocates before Congress and elsewhere has been that, for some reason, bilingual ballots discourage people from learning English. The analogy to that would be, if you could get a ride to the polls on election day, then you are not going to want to buy a car for the rest of the year. In 1982, Congress considered whether the Voting Right Act of 1975 should be extended and looked closely at how the bilingual provisions worked in practice. The record of bilingual ballots indicated they were costeffective. In Los Angeles, bilingual services amounted to just 1.9% of all election costs, and they were available to a Hispanic population which at that time numbered between 20% and 25% in Los Angeles. In San Francisco, where I am from and where I served on the City Elections Commission for four years, the bilingual election provisions cost .0016% (sixteen ten thousandths of one percent) of the city budget. Of the tax bill for the average homeowner, just three cents of that bill every year went to provide bilingual ballots. The record on bilingual election services demonstrate that they increased participation. New Mexico, with a long history of bilingual election services, has the best record of Hispanics elected to statewide offices, state legislative offices, in both of the major parties. The highest rates of participation come when you have this means of access, but the Voting Rights Act has appropriate limits. The Congress did not extend bilingual ballots everywhere. It did not do so for the same reasons it did not extend nationwide the protections for Black voters, because it would have been unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme Court, in Katzenbach v. Morgan, made the distinction between the federal role in elections and the state role in elections. States traditionally control the election process but where there is a clear record of electoral and other types of discrimination, then there is a need for a federal role because it is a national responsibility for all voters to have an equal vote. Electoral discrimination against Hispanics and Asians and naturalization discrimination against those groups exists to a higher degree than the types of discrimination against other language groups; therefore, the federal Voting Rights Act protects Hispanics, Asians, American Indians, but not other language

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groups. However, the states really are the ones who control elections. For example, Massachusetts has French, Italian, and Greek bilingual services, and Maine has French bilingual services because in those states those are the groups that need such services. State officials have made a decision that it is appropriate for their state and for their voters to have those types of services. So, bilingualism is not an end in itself but a means, used where necessary to ensure that the rights of non-English speakers will not be abridged just because they are not proficient in English. Unfortunately, official English advocates, even our former President, do not understand that bilingualism is only a means. In March, 1987, in Columbia, Missouri, President Reagan spoke on bilingual education and he said, "If they're going to be in the United States, they have to learn our language. Teach them English." For some reason, he does not understand that bilingual education is the means by which students learn English. The official English supporters are pushing for a federal constitutional amendment and state constitutional amendments. I see in that at least an implicit admission that the official English doctrine violates the constitution. That is why advocates need an amendment to advance their cause. In my view language is not deemed a fundamental right under the Constitution, but bilingualism may be used to guarantee access to things which are considered fundamental rights, such as voting. While official English supporters state that their bills are not intended to take away rights protected under the Constitution, in fact their bills do little to protect the bilingual services needed to secure these rights. By making their proposals in the form of constitutional amendments, they placed in legal jeopardy the statutes which utilize bilingual services to afford bilingual rights to non-English speakers. For example, there is a 6th Amendment constitutional right for a court interpreter for a criminal defendant, but that same constitutional right does not extend to a witness to a crime or a victim of a crime. If official English means all government proceedings must be in English only, then governmental activities not mandated by the federal constitution, such as court interpreters for victims and witnesses, are threatened. Moreover, the availability of bilingual 911 emergency services, also provided by state statute, but not constitutionally mandated, will also be challenged. There is not a constitutional right to a 911 bilingual operator, but states have recognized the need for their existence and then have provided them by statute. The vast majority of bilingual services, then, will be up-for-grabs under the official English bills which purport to protect rights under the Constitution.

Language and the Law in the Classroom: Bilingual Education and the Official English Initiative Rachel F. Moran

1. History of Bilingual Education Policy Picasso once remarked about his portrait of Gertrude Stein: "Everybody thinks she is not at all like her picture. But never mind, in the end she will manage to look just like it." 1 I want to argue here that the architects of bilingual education policy have in many ways behaved like legislative Picassos, assuming that reality will inevitably come to resemble the regulatory framework that they have painted. These decision makers have assumed that by controlling curricular choice, they can reconstruct social reality. These efforts began in 1968 when Congress enacted the Bilingual Education Act, the first piece of federal legislation devoted exclusively to the needs of non-English-proficient and Limited-English-Proficient children.2 Witnesses attempted to justify the Act on a number of grounds. Some focused primarily on the educational process, arguing that bilingual education would rectify the low achievement levels and high dropout rates among Hispanic students. 3 Others attempted to justify the Act on broader grounds. They contended that in the long term, by improving educational outcomes, bilingual education would increase Hispanics' participation in the economic, political, and social life of the nation. 4 Some went even further and contended that bilingual education would ultimately enhance this country's relations with Latin American countries. 5 Despite this broad-ranging rhetoric, the Bilingual Education Act was actually a rather modest grant-in-aid program. It contained no clear statement of purpose and did not even define what a bilingual education program was (Ravitch 1983: 273). Moreover, the Act was consistently underfunded. During the first two years after its passage, no funds were allocated for use under the Act; thereafter, from 1970 to 1973, appropriations always fell well below authorized expenditure levels.6

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Because the Act did not contain a clear statement of purpose and because so few funds were appropriated under it, its initial effect on local educational practices was quite small. Because of the Act's limited impact, bilingual education advocates continued to press for additional federal protections. These efforts culminated in the United States Supreme Court's decision in Lau v. Nichols7 in 1974. In Lau, the Court concluded that English-only instruction effectively excluded Chinese-speaking children in the San Francisco Unified School District from any meaningful participation in the educational curriculum. Relying heavily on a 1970 memorandum in which the Office for Civil Rights extended title VI's protection to linguistic minority students, 8 the Court concluded that English-only instruction was impermissible under title VI; the civil rights of Chinese-speaking children in San Francisco had been violated.9 While the Court found that title VI required more than English-only instruction, it refrained from ordering any specific remedy. Instead, it sent the case back to the district court to give the school board an opportunity to apply its expertise in designing programs for non-English-proficient and Limited-English-Proficient children.10 By enacting the Equal Educational Opportunity Act of 1974, Congress explicitly endorsed the Court's approach in Lau.n Confronted with this renewed federal commitment to bilingual education, school districts pressured Congress for more funding under the Bilingual Education Act and urged state legislatures to pass their own bilingual education acts. These efforts succeeded. Congress increased the authorized annual expenditures under the Bilingual Education Act.12 More importantly, the amounts actually appropriated began to approximate authorized spending levels.13 Various states also enacted their own bilingual education acts, and monies were allocated under these provisions. 14 As the federal government's financial commitment to bilingual education increased, Congress became concerned about exercising greater control over these expenditures and monitoring programs more carefully. In the 1974 amendments to the Bilingual Education Act, Congress more clearly endorsed programs that relied heavily on native-language instruction, such as transitional bilingual education and bilingual-bicultural education. 15 Even more significantly, the Office for Civil Rights, having earned the Court's approval in Lau, issued guidelines to assist local districts in complying with the decision. The Lau Guidelines16 represented the most comprehensive federal effort to advise local schools about how to meet linguistic minority children's needs. The Guidelines covered everything from identifying non-English-proficient and Limited-English-

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Proficient children and assessing their language needs to providing their parents with notice of school activities.17 Significantly, the Guidelines embodied an expressed preference for transitional bilingual education and bilingual-bicultural education. Under the Guidelines, English-as-aSecond-Language programs, which minimize classroom use of a child's native language, were deemed unacceptable for elementary school children; however, they were potentially appropriate for mature secondary students who had little time to learn English before graduation. 18 In addition to trying to exert more control over the curriculum for linguistic minority students, the federal government began to monitor and evaluate bilingual education programs more closely. These efforts culminated in the American Institutes for Research (AIR) evaluation of bilingual education programs, which was released in 1978.19 This study received considerable publicity in part because it was extremely comprehensive — at least in terms of the number of programs examined — and in part because it had been commissioned by the United States Office of Education. The AIR evaluation dealt a devastating blow to bilingual education advocates because it found that federally-funded programs for linguistic minority children had no significant impact on achievement in English and mathematics, although the programs did enhance nativelanguage proficiency. The study further indicated that because children were being retained in bilingual education programs after they were sufficiently proficient in English to participate in regular classes, the programs had substantial segregative effects.20 In fact, one witness at the hearings indicated that by some measures, Hispanics were more segregated than Blacks in the American school system.21 Disturbed by these findings, Congress immediately amended the Bilingual Education Act in 1978 to accord greater emphasis to English-acquisition and reduce the programs' segregative effects.22 Despite attacks on its methodology,23 the AIR evaluation cast serious doubt on any claim that available empirical evidence justified exclusive reliance on transitional bilingual education and bilingual-bicultural education. By highlighting pedagogical uncertainty, the AIR evaluation hastened the Lau enforcement regime's demise. The Lau Guidelines have now been withdrawn, and no similarly comprehensive provisions have replaced them.24 Today, the Lau enforcement regime is virtually moribund, although the decision that inspired these measures technically remains intact.25 As a consequence, there is little federal guidance for schools seeking to comply with Lam's requirements.

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2. Challenges to Bilingual Education Programs Rather than focus on the details of the Lau regime's collapse,26 I would like to discuss at greater length how federal intervention in bilingual education was challenged after the AIR study. Once the empirical justification for transitional bilingual education and bilingual-bicultural education was undercut, there were two ways to attack federal bilingual education policy. One focused on whether the federal government was an appropriate locus of decision making; the other sought to revise curricular choices for linguistic minority students. The first type of argument emphasized the need for greater local control and flexibility and called for decentralized decision making, or a new federalism. From this perspective, in the absence of conclusive evidence to support the use of transitional bilingual education and bilingual-bicultural education programs, the federal government could not justify its centralized control over the curriculum. If the federal government could not legitimately exercise such control, local schools should be allowed to use their own discretion in making educational choices for linguistic minority children.27 The second type of challenge generated demands for official English reforms at the federal, state, and local levels. Under this view, if the federal government continued to endorse bilingual education in the absence of any substantial empirical support, it must be motivated by a political, rather than a pedagogical, agenda. According to these critics, this agenda was maintenance of the Spanish language and Hispanic culture. Because this policy purportedly threatened national unity, a renewed commitment to English as a common bond among Americans was required. In keeping with this commitment, schools should use techniques that rely heavily on English, such as English-as-a-Second-Language or structured immersion programs, in educating linguistic minority students. 28

3. Flaws in the Challenges to Bilingual Education Policy Both the demands for a new federalism and for official English reforms are seriously flawed. Supporters of the new federalism claim that decentralized decision making is an appropriate response to pedagogical uncertainty; as an article of faith, they assume that local schools will do a better job of resolving uncertainty than will a centralized federal program.

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There are good reasons to question this assumption. After all, local schools typically have fewer resources with which to promote experimentation. They may also be more reluctant to shoulder the political risks of innovation in the schools.29 Despite these potential difficulties, proponents of the new federalism do not specify any safeguards to ensure that local schools respond effectively to linguistic minority students' needs. The new federalists also have adopted a somewhat ahistorical political perspective. They have completely disregarded past disputes between the schools and minority communities, turning a deaf ear to community members' claims that the schools have been traditionally indifferent, if not hostile, to their concerns.30 The new federalists therefore have not analyzed in any detail whether a wholesale return to local control will heighten community tensions. The official English movement's suggested reforms also suffer from troubling defects. The official English movement has contended that because there is no strong evidence for transitional bilingual education or bilingual-bicultural education, a new form of curricular control should be substituted. That is, local, state, and federal decision makers should endorse English-as-a-Second-Language or structured immersion programs. However, a careful examination of the evidence reveals that empirical data are equally equivocal as to these programs' efficacy.31 Because findings on English-as-a-Second-Language and structured immersion programs are mixed, a political, rather than a pedagogical, agenda must again be motivating the call for official English reforms. If local schools face communities that disagree vehemently with the official English movement's political viewpoint, school-community relations may become highly polarized. Schools will be less able to modify the curriculum in light of these hostilities. The education of linguistic minority children is likely to suffer as a consequence.32

4. Conclusion The challenge for decision makers addressing the needs of linguistic minority students is not how best to constitutionalize language choices. The challenge is to promote an educational process that permits schools to select programs they believe are pedagogically sound, implement them as effectively as possible, and respond flexibly to feedback on student performance. The educational process must also promote relationships

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of trust between schools and their communities. Community representatives and parents should feel comfortable dealing with school personnel because teachers and administrators share their interests, hopes, and aspirations for their children. To develop such a process, decision makers must cease behaving like legislative Picassos who use curricular choice to redefine social and educational realities. Instead, teachers, administrators, community representatives, and families must be given sufficient leeway to collaborate on workable pedagogical strategies. Through this ongoing process, school personnel will be free to produce a work of professional integrity, while parents, children, and community members will look upon this work and say it does them justice. Notes 1. J. Mashaw, "Positive Theory and Public Law" (Feb. 3 — 5, 1986) (unpublished manuscript on file with author). 2. Bilingual Education Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 9 0 - 2 4 7 , 81 Stat. 816 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. §§ 3221 - 3 2 6 2 (1981)). 3. See, e.g., Bilingual Education Programs: Hearings on H.R. 9840 and H.R. 10224 Before the Subcommittee on Education of the House Comm. on Education and Labor, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 264—66 (1967) (remarks of Dr. Frank Cordasco, Professor of Education, Montclair State College). 4. See, e.g., id. at 144 —47 (statement of Rep. Edward Roybal); id. at 245—47 (statement of Herman Badillo, President, Borough of the Bronx, New York City). 5. See, e.g., Bilingual Education: Hearings on S. 428 Before the Special Subcomm. on Bilingual Education of the Senate Comm. on Labor and Public Works, 90th Cong., 1st Sess. 252 — 54 (1967) (remarks of Chester Christian, Director, Inter-American Institute, University of Texas at El Paso). 6. The Act authorized $15 million in appropriations for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1968; $30 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1969; $40 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1970; $80 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1971; $100 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1972; and $135 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1973. Bilingual Education Act of 1968, Pub. L. No. 9 0 - 2 4 7 , 81 Stat. 816, amended by Pub. L. No. 9 1 - 2 3 0 , tit. 1, § 151, 84 Stat. 151 (1970). In 1967 and 1968, Congress appropriated no funds for use under the Act. In 1969, it appropriated $7.5 million; in 1970, $21.25 million; in 1971, $24.944 million; in 1972, $34.902 million; and in 1973, $35.104 million. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, the Budgets of the United States Government Fiscal Years 1969 — 75 (1967-1973). 7. 414 U.S. 563 (1974). 8. Identification of Discrimination and Denial of Services on the Basis of National Origin, 35 Fed. Reg. 11595 (1970). 9. 414 U.S. at 5 6 6 - 6 9 . 10. Id. at 564—65. For a more thorough review of the history of these developments under title VI, see Margulies (1981).

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11. 20 U.S.C. §1703(0(1982). See generally Moran (1987) (analyzing how the Equal Educational Opportunity Act embodied the Lau decision's approach). 12. Amendments to the Bilingual Education Act in 1974 authorized $135 million for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1974; $135 million for 1975; $140 million for 1976; $150 million for 1977; and $160 million for 1978. Bilingual Education Act of 1974, § 702(b)(1), Pub. L. No. 9 3 - 3 8 0 , § 105(a)(1), 88 Stat. 503, 504 (1974). In addition, the amendments authorized $7.75 million for technical assistance in the fiscal year ending June 30, 1976; $8.75 million in 1977; and $9.75 million in 1978. Id. § 702(b)(2). 13. Executive Office of the President, Office of Management and Budget, the Budgets of the United States Government Fiscal Years 1 9 7 6 - 1 9 8 0 (1974-1978). 14. E. Mosher, A. Hastings & J. Wagoner, Jr., (1979) 16. See generally R. Irizarry, Bilingual Education (1978) 45 — 128 (collecting data on state bilingual education legislation). 15. Bilingual Education Act of 1974, § § 7 0 2 - 7 0 3 , Pub. L. No. 9 3 - 3 8 0 , § 105(a)(1), 88 Stat. 503, 5 0 3 - 0 5 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. §§ 3222-3223). 16. Office for Civil Rights, Task-Force Findings Specifying Remedies Available for Eliminating Past Educational Practices Ruled Unlawful Under Lau v. Nichols (1975), reprinted in Bilingual Education 213 (K. Baker & A. de Kanter eds. 1983). 17. See generally Margulies, supra note 10, at 116 (describing how the Lau Guidelines were drafted and disseminated). 18. Office for Civil Rights, supra note 16, at III, reprinted in Bilingual Education, supra note 16, at 2 1 3 - 2 1 . 19. American Institutes for Research (AIR), Evaluation of the Impact of ESEA Title VII Spanish/English Bilingual Education Programs (1977 — 78). 20. Id. at vol. Ill, pp. IV-2 to IV-4. 21. Bilingual Education: Hearings on H.R. 15 Before the Subcomm. on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the House Comm. on Education and Labor, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 335 — 37 (1977) (remarks of Gary Orfield, Professor of Political Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana). 22. Bilingual Education Act of 1978, Pub. L. No. 9 5 - 5 6 1 , 92 Stat. 2268, 2 2 6 8 - 7 1 (codified as amended at 20 U.S.C. §§ 3222-3223). 23. See e.g., Intercultural Development Research Association, the AIR Evaluation of the Impact of ESEA Title VII Spanish/English Bilingual Education Programs (ERIC Ed. No. 1 5 1 - 4 3 5 , 1977); Cardenas, response i, in N. Epstein (1978) 7 4 - 7 5 . 24. K. Baker & A. de Kanter (1986). 25. Regents of the Univ. of California v. Bakke, 438 U.S. 265, 3 0 4 - 0 5 (1978); Margulies, supra note 10, at 130. 26. See generally Moran, supra note 11, at 330—31 (describing the demise of the Lau enforcement regime). 27. See, e.g., The Bilingual Education Improvement Act of 1983: Hearings on H.R. 2682 Before the Subcomm. on Elementary, Secondary, and Vocational Education of the House Comm. on Education and Labor, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. 22 — 23 (1983) (remarks of Terrel H. Bell, Secretary of Education). 28. See generally Leibowicz (1985) (analyzing recent efforts to make English the official language of the United States). 29. See Moran (1986) (critical analysis of the claimed relationship between local control and innovation). 30. See generally Leibowitz (1969) (describing English literacy requirements as exclusionary devices in education, voting, legal proceedings, and business regulation).

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31. General Accounting Office (GAO), Bilingual Education: A New Look at the Research Evidence 17 — 19 (Mar. 1987) (seven of ten bilingual education experts in a GAO survey stated that evidence on English-as-a-Second-Language and structured immersion techniques was too limited to conclude that they were particularly promising methods of educating linguistic minority students). (See also Brandt, this volume, eds.) 32. See generally J. Handler (1986) (describing the potentially harmful effects of adversarial school-community relations and arguing for a more cooperative model of decision making).

Language Rights as Collective Rights Joseph E.

Magnet

1. Introduction J'ai choisi commencer en français soulingnée mon point principale, c'est à dire qu'un droit d'utilisée un langue est absolument vide sauf qu'il implique un communauté linguistique qu'on peut comprendre. I began in French to underline my principal point, which is this: The right to utilize a language is absolutely empty of content unless it implies a linguistic community which understands the speaker and with whom that speaker can communicate. Language implies a sense of community, a mode of being in the world. In this sense language rights are not individual rights, nor can they be enjoyed by individuals simpliciter. Language rights are collective rights. They are exercised by individuals only as part of a collectivity or a group. Legal protection of language rights, therefore, means protection of that linguistic community, that community of speakers and hearers, vis-a-vis the larger community which would impinge upon it or restrict its right as a group to exist.

2. The Duality of Language Rights Language rights have a double aspect. They protect an individual's right with respect to the linguistic community and can be appreciated as a right of the individual exercisable in respect to the linguistic community. But language rights also, in a much more profound sense, protect the ability of that community, as a community, to participate within the larger mainstream society. That is the primary lesson that we learn from the successful multilingual countries around the world, particularly those states which have built strong nations out of diverse linguistic communities. There is a very important temporal aspect to language rights. Language rights must insure that linguistic communities are maintained as they evolve over time. To accomplish this, linguistic communities must have

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a sufficient concentration and develop an institutional infrastructure capable of blunting the grosser forms of discrimination against the community. Maintenance of a separate institutional structure is essential for linguistic minorities to resist assimilation. We know from the current body of research concerning languages in contact 1 that linguistic minorities tend to be assimilated at certain critical points — as members of the minority language group they begin school, marry, enter the work force, or interact with government.

3. Language Rights and the American Constitution If we consider these propositions from the point of American constitutional doctrine, we begin to have some insight into the very interesting and difficult points raised by Professor Weinstein in his paper (this volume). American constitutionalism is inspired by the great ideas of the 18th century philosophers. Essentially, American constitutionalism is founded upon ideas of the dignity of the person, of individual freedom to think, to express, to act, to develop an individual personality. American constitutional law accepts that the individual has freedom to accept new ways of being and to reject old truisms — to join new communities and to reject old communities. Implicit in this theory of liberal individualism and democratic values which inspires American Constitutionalism is the theory that speech is an individual right, a mode of self-expression, a mode of individual autonomy. This First Amendment doctrine, which Professor Weinstein refers to in his paper, is insecure as a foundation for language rights because language rights are not individual rights. Language rights do not protect the individual's capacity to express his or her ideas in his or her own way. Language rights are collective rights. They are intended to protect, not the right to speak or the content of speech, but the institutional forms, structures, and processes through which speech occurs. As such, language rights are designed to protect the participation of linguistic minorities in the machinery of government, in broadcasting in the media, in schools, in the public and private workplace. The American ideal of dignity of the person, which I mentioned above, is also manifested in the anti-discrimination principle. Briefly, the antidiscrimination principle holds that it is illicit for government to single out, segregate or attack the status of individuals because of group characteristics, like race, sex, age, national origin, or, perhaps, language (see

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Weinstein this volume). One important remedy for segregation, in violation of this principle, is forced integration. Courts have fashioned integrative remedies like busing, affirmative action in employment, and the like, with which American constitutionalists are quite familiar. Because of this tilt of the anti- discrimination principle, American constitutional doctrine totally rejects concepts of separate but equal. It is useful to consider this doctrine from the point of view of research on languages in contact. 2 That research is conclusive that total integration means total assimilation of weaker language groups. Linguistic minorities are viable only to the degree that there is territorial separation of linguistic communities and to some extent administrative segregation of bureaucratic entities serving those linguistic communities. Language groups have to be concentrated demographically in order to be viable. They have to be supported by an institutional network that gives their language significance and that endows it with an economic value. This implies, for example, segregated schools. Bilingual schools have been found by legislatures,3 courts, 4 and executive instrumentalities 5 in the multilingual countries of the world, including Canada, to be cauldrons of assimilation. Ultimately, linguistically integrated schools assimilate minorities and thereby extinguish linguistic minority rights. Linguistic minorities also require a degree of segregation in administrative entities and in the bureaucracy. Languages can be maintained only to the extent that they are endowed with an economic value.6 This means that linguistic minorities would require, as a condition of viability, economic development initiatives in the minority language. We can thus see from this discussion that the rights that have been referred to earlier, such as the right to a particular language in the criminal process, are not language rights. They are rights which are emanations of the grand 18thcentury ideals of human dignity. They have nothing at all to do with the preservation of linguistic minorities or with group development. We must conclude from this that American constitutional doctrine cannot accomplish these purposes, as discussed elsewhere in this volume.

4. Collective Rights and Language Rights The collective rights ideal operates in countries that eschew majoritarian principles. In fundamentals, the individual rights idea operating in majoritarian countries is to blunt the power of the state to interfere with individual autonomy. But in pluralist states, and in multilingual states,

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the individual rights thesis must be harmonized with group security. Pluralist states employ the collective rights thesis to protect the security and autonomy of cultural communities. In Canada, for example, the newly enshrined Charter of Rights builds on Canadian traditions of cultural pluralism and linguistic duality. Fully one-third of the provisions of Canada's new Charter deals with the collective rights of semi-autonomous Canadian communities. The thrust of these provisions is to devolve power on groups to greater or lesser forms of local self-government — of autonomy. 7 In New Brunswick, for example, the French community is entitled to homogeneous linguistic schools — segregated schools, to homogeneous linguistic school boards; segregated administrative structures to govern the schools; the right to communicate with the administration in either language; and segregated entities in the higher bureaucracy. In other words, New Brunswick is, to some extent, a dual state with separate English and French bureaucratic structures which impact upon the linguistic communities. An Act of the New Brunswick legislature8 recognizes, declares and implements the equality of the English and French linguistic communities, considered as groups. The theory of these kinds of provisions — of collective rights — is that groups require a degree of autonomy and segregation in order to develop in their own particular way, and in order to avoid assimilation. The groups must share state power in order to protect communal security. This is a consensus model of government, quite different from the majoritarian systems that characterize Britain and France. 9 Consensus government characterizes the pluralingual and pluricultural states of the world, like Belgium, Switzerland, and to some extent, Canada. The theory underlying all of this is that consensus forms of government can regulate ethnic and linguistic conflict successfully. Regulation of inter-group conflict is essential to the success and continuance of the pluralist countries.

5. The Goals of American Bilingualism Efforts I would like to ask this question: What is the goal of American bilingualism efforts? Is the goal of American bilingualism efforts language maintenance? Is American bilingualism policy directed to maintaining Hispanic communities of sufficient size, capable of functioning as monolingual enclaves within the larger English community? Or is the goal of American

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bilingualism policy to ease the pain of the Hispanic and other linguistic minorities as they are assimilated, as they disappear? What is American bilingualism policy trying to accomplish? This question is an urgent one. It is the first question that has to be asked about all of the language debate. But the question cannot be seriously debated until the Hispanic community itself sets the terms of debate by offering a vision of its place in the American mosaic. I have read through the literature offered by SALAD and LULAC in vain, trying to discover this self-image. That this image is not coherently articulated is hardly surprising given the defensive posture that the Hispanic community has had to assume because of the official English movement. If the goal of American policy were to be to maintain Spanish language enclaves, then American constitutional doctrine would be irrelevant. American constitutional doctrine can prevent grosser violations of human dignity such as being found guilty and punished by a criminal process that one does not understand. However, American constitutional doctrine has no means to establish, maintain, and protect the institutional network or the economic development initiatives which are the essential preconditions of survival for linguistic communities. If the goal of American bilingualism policy is maintenance of linguistic communities then the key would be building an institutional network — schools, school boards, media, bureaucratic structures, and the like, that are the lifeblood of linguistic communities. And, of course, economic development in the minority language would be crucial to this effort. Spanish would have to be imbued with an economic value. Children would have to think: "I can do that in Spanish; Spanish offers me opportunities," before the Spanish language would be secure. If the goal of American bilingualism efforts is not maintenance, but palliation, while Hispanics abandon their language and assimilate, then American constitutional doctrine is relevant. Bilingual programs, and bilingual education programs in particular, ought to be sharpened to eradicate the grosser forms of discrimination that have been found in a number of school districts. Voting rights need to be protected. The community, the linguistic minorities, need to be serviced to some extent in their own language as they interact with the administration in order to ensure that integration and assimilation is done in a fair, democratic, and painless manner. Official English or constitutionalizing English as the official language of the United States or of a State thereof, in any of the forms that it has been offered before the U.S. Congress and state

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legislatures is not terribly helpful to this process. The official English movement would sterilize many of the bilingualism programs that ease the pain of transition.

6. The Value of Language Diversity A last question that I would like to pose is this: Is language maintenance worth it? Is this an appropriate objective of American language policy? The international community of nations seems to think so. Article 27 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which former President Carter signed but Congress never ratified, provides that in those countries in which linguistic minorities exist, persons belonging to such minorities shall not be denied the right, in community with other members of their group, to use their own language. Article 27 and its precursors in the international system for the protection of minorities have been considered by international tribunals, particularly the permanent Court of International Justice. In the Minority Schools in Albania case, the Permanent Court of International Justice held that the characteristics which give a minority its special peculiarity and particularity must be maintained, without disadvantaging that minority vis-a-vis the majority (Permanent Court of International Justice 1934). In short, international human rights pays very high regard to the right of linguistic minorities to maintain themselves and to use their own language. This, I think, is just an efflorescence of human rights principles to which, not only the international community but particularly Canada and the United States pay high respect. In my view, dealing with the problems of linguistic difference in the Southwest, and in America generally, challenges Americans to deal with difference of a new kind. Linguistic difference cannot be dealt with in the same manner in which Americans have come to terms with racial or religious differences. Linguistic difference is a new phenomenon that Americans have to learn about because it requires a certain reformulation of concepts of integration, which flow from the equal protection clause, and a certain reformulation of American constitutional rejection of the separate-but-equal doctrine. Americans would be much admired in the world community if they could demonstrate an ability, not only to deal fairly with linguistic difference, but to profit from it. It would be a great achievement for Americans to instill in the Hispanic community a sense of belonging, of being able to make it in America without sacrificing that sense of community, that sense of belonging, which ultimately makes life so fulfilling.

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Notes 1. See, for example, C. Veltman (1983). 2. See generally, R. Lachapelle and J. Henripin (1980). 3. Schools Act, R.S.N.B. 1973, ch. S-5, as amended, sees. 3.1-3.3, 18.1; An Act Recognizing the Equality of the Two Official Linguistic Communities of New Brunswick, S.N.B. 1981, c. O-l.l, s. 2. 4. S.A.N.B. v. Minority Language School Bd. No. 50 (1983) 48 N.B.R. (2d) 361, 126 A.RR. 361 (QB). The Court found as a fact, upon extensive expert evidence, that the grouping of francophone and anglophone pupils under the same roof and in the same school system leads to linguistic interference, to the impoverishment of the first and second languages of the minority, and consequently to assimilation. 5. Commission on Declining Enrollments (1978); Commissioner of Official Languages (1978: 35) (Mixed schools are "little better than instruments of assimilation"). 6. See generally, J. E. Magnet (1986: 189). 7. See generally, J. E. Magnet (1988). 8. Supra., note 3. 9. See generally on this distinction, A. Lijphart (1977; 1984).

On Walling In and Walling Out The Honorable Noel Fidel

1. Introduction When I was asked to write about official English, out of memory, a shard of poetry popped into my mind, and it was this: "Before I built a wall, I'd ask to know what I was walling in and walling out and to whom I was like to give offense." I turned to the complete poem to see what more it had to say. Of course, it was the "Mending Wall" by Robert Frost. While it may be familiar to many, it is presented here in full, because much of what is within the poem is pertinent to this debate: Mending Wall Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast. The work of hunters is another thing: I have come after them and made repair Where they have left not one stone on a stone. But they would have the rabbit out of hiding, To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean, No one has seen them made or heard them made, But at spring mending-time we find them there. I let my neighbor know beyond the hill; And on a day we meet to walk the line And set the wall between us once again. We keep the wall between us as we go. To each the boulders that have fallen to each. And some are loaves and some so nearly balls We have to use a spell to make them balance: 'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!' We wear our fingers rough with handling them. Oh, just another kind of outdoor game, One on a side. It comes to little more:

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There where it is we do not need the wall: He is all pine and I am apple orchard. My apple trees will never get across And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him. He only says, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder If I could put a notion in his head: ' Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it Where there are cows? But here there are no cows. Before I built a wall, I'd ask to know What I was walling in or walling out, And to whom I was like to give offense. Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That wants it down.' I could say 'Elves' to him, But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather He said it for himself. I see him there Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top In each hand like an old stone savage armed. He moves in darkness as it seems to me, Not of woods only and the shade of trees. He will not go behind his father's saying, And he likes having thought of it so well He says again, 'Good fences make good neighbors.' (1949: 4 7 - 8 )

While the last line is the line that most people remember from the poem: "Good fences make good neighbors," the thrust of the poem is actually quite different: "Before I built a wall, I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out and to whom I was like to give offense." This is the question that we struggle with when discussing the official English movement. Professor Magnet ("Language Rights as Collective Rights," this volume) refers to this when he asks, in essence: What is the goal: What are we walling in, what are we walling out?

2. Symbolic Issues vs. Legal Issues Frost is asking the question on a philosophical and moral plane. When the issues raised by the official English movement become legal matters before the court, however, they must be addressed in a concrete and

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practical manner. When people come to court, they come in what we call cases and controversies: Both sides want to win; somebody is going to lose; and the judge has to decide who wins and who loses, and why. So, when we begin to talk about language rights or about official English from a judge's point of view, my point of view, I start to think, how would we decide winners and losers in a world with a right to a separate language; how would we work with official English? What are people trying to wall in or wall out with these conflicting positions? It is very difficult to know, and that is one reason it is frustrating to see a political fight develop over language rights. Language rights have symbolic significance for the parties to this debate; and symbols have enormous political importance, but cloudy and difficult legal significance. There are orthodoxies in the way, particularly over bilingualism. It is often difficult to find people with positions to defend being really candid about the practical effects of their positions. Bilingualism is a particularly good example of this, because we get into what Professor Moran (this volume) describes as "segregative effects" on the one hand, and what one might call "inclusionary effects" on the other. We have people asserting a right, based on cultural pride, to defend the value of the culture they come from, and, at the same time, asserting their right to be included in a majority culture in which English is a functional and practical necessity. So, the side of the debate a person might take depends on the orthodoxy being espoused at a particular time. One can easily imagine someone of a doctrinaire liberal political bent — someone who wanted to be in tune with people of the same bent — going into a Rip Van Winkle-like sleep at the time of Adlai Stevenson, waking up today, hearing about bilingualism and being able to make a perfectly good argument for either side of the debate. The first question this liberal individual might want to ask is, who are the proponents and who are the opponents so that I can know which side to ally myself with. One can imagine the same confusion on the part of a person of a doctrinaire conservative bent. When all of the different orthodoxies get in the way, it is very difficult to get down to the real practical facts of what works and what does not. The only way to find one's way in such a situation is to set doctrinaire arguments aside and determine the concrete goals one might want to achieve in the area of language rights. If the goal is to preserve cultural pride and the value of a linguistic heritage, while at the same time assuring

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open access to the majority culture, which is English-based, we can examine the practicalities of what programs work and what programs do not work in trying to achieve those goals. Right now we seem to have a political debate generated by the official English amendments that gets us nowhere in defining what works and what does not work and simply focuses us on inflammatory symbols.

3. Legal Implications of Language Legislation Let us consider the Arizona official English amendment for a moment. The initiative proposal to amend the Arizona constitution, Prop 106, says that the English language is the official language of the state and that no agency or political subdivision of the state shall make or enforce a law requiring use of a language other than English. It then asserts that the state may resort to other languages to accomplish certain enumerated objectives, such as "to protect public health or safety" and "to protect the rights of criminal defendants as victims of crime." How far does that take us? Apparently, if this initiative passes, we can still use interpreters in the courtroom. As a matter of fact, we have a U.S. Constitutional requirement to do so in criminal cases. But can we go further? Right now we have people getting court documents like subpoenas and summonses that require action within a certain time. Would we be violating the official English amendment if we established the practice of printing up those standard forms in English and Spanish to recognize the fact that a large number of people who receive them are Spanish-speaking and will not otherwise understand what they mean? What about the Industrial Commission notices that someone's benefits are being cut off and giving them 60 days in which to request a hearing? Will it become contrary to state law if this bill is passed to send those notices out in Spanish? Or is there a "public health or safety" justification? We have the practical problem of what this symbolic sort of gesture will mean, and how the courts will deal with it. On the other side, if we constitutionally enshrine the right of groups to maintain an autonomous, homogeneous, but separate linguistic culture, what does that entail? Do we then have to send out all such notices in Spanish and, as Professor Weinstein (this volume) suggests, in Italian, in French, in Serbo-Croatian, and in whatever other languages or dialects may be spoken so that people will have equal protection for their own linguistic group? Do we have to go farther and assure that gas bills are

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sent out in multiple languages, or utility bills, late payment notices from mortgage lenders, any notification that could result in the loss of a significant property right? Lawyers are hooked on analogy, so that one case leads to another, and a right in one clear setting can be asserted in more and more attenuated settings. The work of the courts could become quite difficult if we constitutionalize either side of this issue.

4. Goals of the Official English Proposition So we come back to the question of why. What is behind the effort? Why do we want this issue constitutionalized? What is the goal? Is our culture working adequately without constitutionalizing either side of the issue? — if not, will constitutionalizing the issue help to cure the problems? We have in the U.S. the notion of a melting-pot culture, a notion that has worked over many generations for a variety of groups, including such groups as Italians, Irish, Eastern European Jews — who were all described at the peak of their waves of immigration as inassimilable.1 But we have different histories for the Native Americans, for the Spanishspeaking people of the Southwest, and for Blacks; each of these groups has faced unique problems of assimilation and maintenance of a culture. We have, nonetheless, this impetus, which comes from within all of these groups themselves and from the primary culture as a whole, to learn English, to learn it as a way in, as an entree; we see the process at work over generations. If this process is not working for some groups, why is it not working, and what do we want to do about it politically? We are having a hard time determining the goals of language-rights initiatives even though these goals are the issues that underlie the debate.

5. Conclusion What I want to say from a judge's standpoint is this: If the political culture cannot determine the goal, if it does not understand the goal, if it does not know itself what it is trying to wall in or wall out, and if instead it simply conducts an emotionally charged battle over symbols, and if it does so by posturing over orthodoxies, then do not expect the legal system to sort it all out in a consistent, coherent, and cohesive way.

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Note 1. There is nothing new about the xenophobic nature of this debate. Benjamin Franklin, who had many things to his credit, unfortunately made this statement in 1751 about the German community in Pennsylvania: "Why should the Palatine bores be suffered to swarm into our settlements, and, by herding together, establish their language and manners to the exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a colony of aliens who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them?" (Quoted in Karst 1986.)

Appendix I: Amendments, Initiatives, Resolutions

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Resolutions

A. Federal Official English Proposal: H.J. RES. 656 100th Congress, 2nd Session Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States establishing English as the official language of the United States. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES SEPTEMBER 15, 1988 Mr. Shumway introduced the following joint resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. JOINT RESOLUTION Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States establishing English as the official language of the United States. Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United Sates of America in Congress assembled (two-thirds of each House therein), That the following article is proposed as an amendment to the Constitution if ratified by the legislatures of three-fourths of the several States: ARTICLE SECTION 1. The English language shall be the official language of the United States. SECTION 2. Neither the United States nor any State shall require, by law, ordinance, regulation, order, decree, program, or policy, the use in the United States of any language other than English. SECTION 3. This article shall not prohibit any law, ordinance, regulation, order, decree, program or policy 1) to provide educational instruction in a language other than English for the purpose of making students who use a language other than English proficient in English, 2) to teach a foreign language to students who are already proficient in English, 3) to protect public health and safety, or 4) to allow translators for litigants, defendants, or witnesses in court cases. SECTION 4 The Congress and the States may enforce this article by appropriate legislation. B.

Federal Alternative Proposals

B.l. Federal Alternative Proposal: S.J. RES. 379 100th CONGRESS, 2nd Session To establish as the policy of the United States the preservation, protection, and promotion of the rights of indigenous Americans to use, practice and develop Native American languages, and for other purposes. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES September 15 (legislative day, September 7), 1988 Mr. Inouye (for himself, Mr. Evans, Mr. Daschle, Mr. DeConcini, Mr. McCain, Mr. Murkowski, Mr. Domenici, and Mr. Matsunaga) introduced the following joint resolution; which was read twice and referred to the Select Committee on Indian Affairs.

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To establish as the policy of the United States the preservation, protection, and promotion of the rights of indigenous Americans to use, practice and develop Native American languages, and for other purposes. Whereas the unique status of the cultures and languages of Native Americans is analogous to that of native and endemic species in the United States, and the United States has the responsibility to act together with indigenous Americans to ensure the survival of these unique cultures and languages; Whereas special status is accorded Native American peoples in the United States, a status that recognizes unique cultural features and the right to continue unique identities; Whereas the traditional languages of Native Americans are an integral part of their cultures, traditional heritage, and identity, such languages forming the basic medium of the transmission, and thus survival, of Native American cultures, literatures, histories, religions, and values; Whereas the widespread practice of treating Native American languages as if they were non-valid languages has placed Native American languages in a position of being treated as linguistic outcasts in their own homeland; Whereas the lack of a clear, comprehensive and consistent Federal policy has often resulted in acts of suppression and extermination being directed against Native American languages and cultures, especially as used by the young in educational institutions; Whereas acts of suppression and extermination directed against Native American languages and cultures have often been premised on bases incompatible with a United States policy of self- determination for Native Americans; Whereas Native American languages and cultures in their own homelands, principal settlements and reservations have been restricted, banned and, in some cases, exterminated. Whereas all indigenous languages of the Americas are recognized as full members of the world's linguistic community; Whereas languages are fully capable of serving as a means of communication for the full range of human experiences and are critical to the survival of cultural integrity of any peoples; and Whereas language provides a direct and powerful means of promoting intercultural communication: Now, therefore, be it Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That — 1) it shall be the policy of the United States to preserve, protect, and promote the rights of indigenous Americans, including Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians and Native American Pacific Islanders, to use, practice, and develop Native American languages as the media of instruction in State and Federal institutions of compulsory education and as the official language in their traditional territories; 2) the Federal Government supports the granting of proficiency in an indigenous language the same academic credit as proficiency in a foreign language; and 3) the Federal Government strongly recommends that all institutions of elementary, secondary, and higher education include indigenous languages in the curriculum in the same manner as foreign languages are and that competency in the indigenous language be granted the same full academic credit. B.2. Federal Alternative Proposal: S. 629: English Proficiency Act 100th Congress, 1st Session To establish literacy programs for individuals of limited English proficiency. IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES March 3, 1987

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Mr. Bingaman (for himself, Mr. Simon, Mr. Dixon, Mr. Moynihan, Mr. Bentsen, Mr. Matsunaga, Mr. Inouye, Mr. McCain, Mr. Cranston, Mr. Bradley, and Mr. DeConcini) introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Labor and Human Resources. A BILL To establish literacy programs for individuals of limited English proficiency. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of American in Congress assembled, SHORT TITLE SECTION 1. This Act may be referred to as the "English Proficiency Act." F I N D I N G S A N D PURPOSES SEC. 2(a) F I N D I N G S . - The Congress finds that (1) proficiency in English, the common language of the United States, is essential in American life and a prerequisite to naturalization and the full exercise of civic rights and responsibilities; (2) limited English literacy is a barrier to participation in the political and economic mainstream of the Nation, diminishing economic competitiveness and restricting citizen participation in democratic processes; (3) parents who possess limited English literacy skills are unable to be full partners in their children's education resulting in low levels of educational attainment and high dropout rates among those children; (4) many endeavors which serve the technological, economic, and national security of the United States require advanced skills among workers in the private and public sector, and a solid foundation of basic skills including proficiency in English is essential in obtaining these complex skills; (5) it is in the national interest to assist individuals of limited English proficiency to acquire the English language skills to enable them to become full and productive members of society; (6) significant numbers of adults and out-of-school youth in the United States lack oral English proficiency and functional English literacy skills; (7) individuals of limited English proficiency include both citizens and non-citizens; (8) individuals seeking legalized status pursuant to the Immigration and Nationality Act as amended by the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (Public Law 99 — 603) need an opportunity to be enrolled in a course of study in the English language; (9) many individuals of limited English proficiency lack English literacy skills because they have not been provided equal educational opportunities by State and local educational agencies; (10) research and surveys demonstrate that adults of limited English proficiency have a strong desire to achieve full competence in the English language; (11) existing resources are hot sufficient to meet the special needs of individuals of limited English proficiency; and (12) community-based nonprofit organizations are often the most appropriate entities in providing successful English literacy programs focused on individuals of limited English proficiency.

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(b) PURPOSE. — It is the purpose of this Act, in order to promote opportunities for all individuals to achieve literacy in English, to — (1) provide financial assistance for development of the establishment, operation, and improvement of English language and literacy programs specifically designed and targeted to meet the needs of limited-English proficient persons; and (2) establish a national clearinghouse to compile information on literacy curriculum and resources for limited- English proficient youth and adults and thereby assist local grantees implementing programs funded under this Act; and DEFINITIONS SEC. 3. For the purposes of this Act; (1) The term "individual of limited English proficiency" means an adult or out-of-school youth who has limited ability in speaking, reading, writing, or understanding the English language — (A) whose native language is language other than English; or (B) who lives in a family or community environment where a language other than English is the dominant language. (2) The term "adult" means an individual who has attained 16 years of age. (3) The term "out-of-school youth" means an individual who is under sixteen years and beyond the age of compulsory school attendance under state law who has not completed high school or the equivalent. (4) The term "English literacy program" means a program of instruction designed to help limited English proficient adults, out-of-school youths, or both achieve full competence in the English language. (5) The term "Secretary" means the Secretary of Education. (6) The term "community-based organization" means a private nonprofit organization which is representative of a community or significant segments of a community and which provides education, vocational education, job training, or internship service and programs and includes neighborhood groups and organizations, community actions agencies, community development corporations, union-related organizations, employer- related organizations, tribal governments, and organizations serving Native Alaskans and Indians. FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE FOR ENGLISH LITERACY PROGRAMS SEC. 4. (a) ESTABLISHMENT. - Subject to the availability of appropriations, the Secretary shall establish with the Office of Adult Education a program of grants for the establishment, operation, and improvement of English literacy programs for individuals of limited English proficiency. Such grants may provide for support services including child care and transportation costs for program participants. (b) GRANT RECIPIENTS. (1) A grant under this section may be made to community- based organizations, local educational agencies, tribally- controlled schools, institutions of higher education (including community colleges), public libraries, and prisons. (2) Eligible grant recipients under paragraph (1) may be located in any of the fifty States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, American Samoa, the Virgin Islands, the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, and the Northern Mariana Islands. (c) APPLICATION. (1) Any eligible institution under subsection (b) may submit an application for a grant authorized under subsection (a). Such application shall be made to the Secretary at such time, and in such manner, as the Secretary considers appropriate.

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(2) Applications for grants authorized under subsection (a) of this section shall contain information regarding — (A) the number of limited-English proficient adults and out- of-school youth in the area served by applicants; (B) the activities which would be undertaken under the grant and the manner in which such activities will promote English literacy and enable individuals in the program to participate fully in national life; (C) a statement of the applicant's ability to serve individual adults and out-of-school youth of limited English proficiency, including the qualifications and training of personnel who will participate in the proposed project; (D) the resource necessary to develop and operate the proposed program and the resources to be provided by the applicant; and (E) the specific goals of the proposed program and how achievement of these goals will be measured. (d) AVAILABILITY. — Grants under this section shall be available for not more than three years. The Secretary may terminate a grant only if the Secretary determines that — (1) the applicant's program has not made substantial progress in achieving the specific educational goals set out in the application; or (2) there is no longer a need for the applicant's program. (e) SET-ASIDE FOR COMMUNITY-BASED ORGANIZATIONS. - Not less than 50 percent of funds available under this section shall be used to make grants to communitybased organizations with the demonstrated capability to administer English proficiency programs. (0 REPORT. — A grant recipient under this section shall submit to the Secretary a report on the program's progress and activities for each fiscal year. SEC. 5. DEMONSTRATION PROGRAMS AND EVALUATION. (a) PROGRAM AUTHORITY. — Subject to appropriation under this section, the Secretary, through the Office of Adult Education, shall directly, and through grants and contracts with public and private nonprofit agencies, institutions, and organizations, carry out a program ( 1 ! to develop innovative approaches and methods of literacy education for individuals of limited English proficiency utilizing new instructional methods and technologies; and (2) to establish a nationwide clearinghouse on literacy education for individuals of limited English proficiency to collect and disseminate information concerning effective approaches or methods, including coordination with manpower training and other education programs. (b) EVALUATION AND AUDIT. - The Secretary shall directly, and through grants and contracts with public and private agencies, institutions, and organizations, evaluate the effectiveness of programs conducted under this Act. Programs funded under this Act shall be audited annually. AUTHORITY OF SECRETARY SEC. 6. In the administration of programs under this Act, the Secretary shall have authority to accept in the name of the United States, grants, gifts, or bequests of money for the purposes of this Act. AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS SEC. 7. (a) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS. - There are authorized to be appropriated for the purposes of this Act $50,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 1988, 1989, and 1990.

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(b) AVAILABILITY. — Funds appropriated under subsection (a) shall remain available until expended. (c) LIMITATION. — Not more than 10 percent of funds available under this Act shall be used to carry out the purposes of section 5(a). C. Arizona Official English Amendment Proposal, Amendment C.l. Arizona Official English Amendment Proposal: SCR. 1005 Arizona Senate, 1987 [The following amendment should be put before the voters]: A. The English language is the official language of this state. B. This state or any subdivision of this state shall not make or enforce a law which requires the use of any language other than English. C. This article applies to statutes, ordinances, rules, orders, programs and policies. D. Except as necessary to ensure a fair hearing, a court of this state shall not issue an order or decree requiring that any proceedings or matters to which this article applies be conducted or written in any language other than English. E. This article does not prohibit educational instruction in a language other than English if it is required as a transition method of making students who use a language other than English proficient in English, or for the purpose of teaching that language as an academic subject. F. The Legislature may enforce this article by appropriate legislation. C.2. Arizona Official English Amendment: Proposition 106 U.S. English Initiative, 1987 [Sponsored by Arizonans for Official English for the November, 1988, Arizona ballot as 106; won by 11,000 votes in the general election, eds.] PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA RELATING TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE PROVIDING THAT ENGLISH IS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE OF THE STATE OF ARIZONA, AND AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA BY ADDING ARTICLE XXVIII. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Arizona. The following amendment to the Constitution of Arizona, by adding Article XXVIII, is proposed to become valid when approved by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon and on proclamation of the governor: The Constitution of Arizona is amended by adding Article XXVIII, to read: ARTICLE XXVIII. ENGLISH AS THE OFFICIAL LANGUAGE Section 1 (1) (2)

The English language is the official language of the State of Arizona. As the official language of this State, the English language is the language of the ballot, the public schools and all government functions and actions. (3a) This Article applies to: (i) the legislative, executive and judicial branches of government, (ii) all political subdivisions, departments, agencies, organizations, and instrumentalities of this State, including local governments and municipalities, (iii) all statutes, ordinances, rules, orders, programs and policies,

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(iv) all government officials and employees during the performance of government business. (3b) As used in this Article, the phrase "This State and all political subdivisions of this State" shall include every entity, person, action or item described in this Section as appropriate to the circumstances. Section 2 This State and all political subdivisions of this State shall take all reasonable steps to preserve, protect and enhance the role of the English language as the official language of the State of Arizona. Section 3 (1) Except as provided in Subsection (2): (a) This State and all political subdivisions of this State shall act in English and in no other language. (b) No entity to which this Article applies shall make or enforce a law, order, decree or policy which requires the use of a language other than English. (c) No governmental document shall be valid, effective or enforceable unless it is in the English language. (2) This State and all political subdivisions of this State may act in a language other than English under any of the following circumstances: (a) to assist students who are not proficient in the English language, to the extent necessary to comply with federal law, by giving educational instruction in a language other than English to provide as rapid as possible a transition to English. (b) to comply with other federal laws. (c) to teach a student a foreign language as a part of a required or voluntary educational curriculum. (d) to protect public health or safety. (e) to protect the rights of criminal defendants or victims of crime. Section 4 A person who resides in or does business in this State shall have standing to bring suit to enforce this Article in a court of record of the State. The Legislature may enact reasonable limitations on the time and manner of bringing suit under this subsection. D. Arizona Alternative Proposals D.l. Arizona Alternative Proposals: An Initiative Measure, 1987 [Sponsored by Francisco Gutierrez and Arizona English for the 1988 ballot; similar to SCR. 1007 (1988) and SCR. 2012 (1988); failed to gain enough signatures to go on ballot, eds.] PROPOSING AN AMENDMENT TO THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA RELATING TO THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE; PROVIDING FOR AN OFFICIAL POLICY OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY IN THE STATE OF ARIZONA, AND AMENDING THE CONSTITUTION OF ARIZONA BY ADDING ARTICLE XXVIII. Be it enacted by the People of the State of Arizona. The following amendment to the Constitution of Arizona, by adding Article XXVIII, is proposed to become valid when approved by a majority of the qualified electors voting thereon and on proclamation of the governor: The Constitution of Arizona is amended by adding Article XXVIII, to read:

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Appendix I: Amendments, Initiatives, Resolutions ARTICLE XXVIII AN OFFICIAL POLICY OF ENGLISH PROFICIENCY

1. Purpose of English Proficiency SECTION 1. The state of Arizona recognizes that limited English literacy is a barrier to full participation in the political and economic mainstream of this state and this nation. 2. Arizona's Official Policy of English Proficiency SECTION 2. It shall be the official policy of the state of Arizona to promote proficiency in English, the common language of the United States, while recognizing Arizona's unique history, languages and diversity. 3. Enforcement SECTION 3. The legislature shall take the steps necessary to provide the opportunity to learn and be proficient in the English language. 4. Guarantee of Rights SECTION 4. The state of Arizona shall provide the opportunity to learn and be proficient in the English language and guarantee the right and freedom to learn and use other languages. 5. Private Cause of Action SECTION 5. Under this section, no individual shall have a private cause of action without explicit and expressed conferral of that right by appropriate legislative enactment. 6. Severability SECTION 6. If any provision of this article is held invalid, the remainder of this article to the extent it can be given effect, shall not be affected thereby, and to this end the provisions of this section are severable. D.2. Arizona Alternative Proposals: San Carlos Apache Tribe Resolution 88 — 177 San Carlos Apache Tribe San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation San Carlos, Arizona RESOLUTION WHEREAS, the San Carlos Apache Tribe is a Federally recognized Indian Tribe organized pursuant to the provisions of the Indian Reorganization Act of June 18, 1934 (48 Stat, 984); and, WHEREAS, the San Carlos Apache Tribe Council is the elected governing body of the San Carlos Apache Tribe and the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation; and, WHEREAS, the San Carlos Apache tribe is cognizant of the current political and legislative effort to demolish and/or diminish languages other than "English"; and, WHEREAS, the existing educational system has been systematically corrupted by eradicating our language, culture and traditions [so that] we are on the verge of endangering our language, culture and tradition, and depriving our children, through the current educational system, forever; and, WHEREAS, the San Carlos Apache people are determined to preserve and maintain our language, culture and traditions, because we would cease to exist as people without these common grounds, NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT: The San Carlos Tribal Council hereby opposes "English Only" and [urges a] vote against PROPOSITION 106 that will be placed on the general election ballot.

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BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED THAT: The San Carlos Tribal Council directs the San Carlos Apache Tribal Education Committee to conduct "any and all things necessary" to educate San Carlos Apache voters about the effects of PROPOSITION 106 on the San Carlos Apache culture. CERTIFICATION I, the undersigned, Secretary of the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council, hereby certify that the San Carlos Apache Tribal Council is composed of eleven (11) members, of whom all constituting a quorum, were present at a Regular Council Meeting, hereto held on the 13th day of September 1988; and that the foregoing Resolution No. 88 — 177 was duly adopted by a vote of 9 in favor and 0 opposed, of the Tribal Council pursuant to the provisions of... [the] Amended Constitution and Bylaws of the SAN CARLOS APACHE TRIBE, Effective February 24, 1954. Barbara A. Manuelito, Secretary San Carlos Apache Tribal Council E. California English Language Amendment: Proposition 63 AMENDMENT OF THE CONSTITUTION OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA A. Purpose. English is the common language of the people of the United States of America and of the State of California. This section is intended to preserve, protect, and strengthen the English language and not to supercede any of the rights guaranteed to the people by this constitution. B. English as the Official Language of California. English is the official language of the state of California. C. Enforcement. The legislature shall enforce this section by appropriate legislation. The legislature and officials of the State of California shall take all steps necessary to insure that the role of English as the common language of the State of California is preserved and enhanced. The legislature shall make no law which diminishes or ignores the role of English as the common language of the State of California. D. Personal Right of Action and Jurisdiction of Courts. Any person who is a resident of, or does business in the State of California shall have standing to sue the State of California to enforce this section, and the Courts of Record of the State of California shall have jurisdiction to hear cases brought to enforce this section. The legislature may provide reasonable and appropriate limitations on the time and manner of suits brought under this section. E. Severability. If any provision of this section, or the application of any such provision, to any person or circumstance shall be held invalid, the remainder of this section, to the extent it can be given effect, shall not be affected thereby, and to this end the provisions of this section are severable. F. Florida English Language Legislation F.l. Florida English Language Amendment: Amendment 11 Article II, Section 9 of the Florida Constitution: a) English is the official language of the state of Florida. b) The Legislature shall have the power to enforce this section by appropriate legislation.

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F.2. Florida English Language Legislation: Dade County Language Ordinance [Ordinance 2 — 11.18, of Metropolitan Dade County, 1980, as amended, 1984, eds.] Section 1. (a) English is hereby declared to be the official language of Dade County. (b) The expenditure of county funds for the purpose of utilizing any language other than English, or promoting any culture other than that of the United States, is prohibited. (c) All county governmental meetings, hearings and publications shall be in the English language only. (d) Nothing contained herein shall prohibit any actions by the county which relate to the provision of (1) medical services at Jackson Memorial Hospital or other county health care facilities; (2) essential services to the elderly or handicapped; (3) the promotion of worldwide tourism; or (4) emergency services relating to police, fire, ambulance, medical, rescue and hurricane preparedness. (e) The provisions of this section shall not apply where a translation is mandated by state or federal law. Section 2. If any section, subsection, sentence, clause or provision of the ordinance is held invalid, the remainder of this ordinance shall not be affected thereby. Section 3. It is the intention of the Board of County Commissioners, and it is hereby ordained that the provisions of the ordinance shall become and be made a part of the Code of Metropolitan Dade County, Florida; and that the sections of the ordinance may be renumbered or relettered to accomplish such intention, and the word "ordinance" may be changed to "section," "article," or other appropriate word. Section 4. The provisions of this ordinance shall become effective ten (10) days after the date of its enactment.

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Appendix II: Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo Feb. 2, 1848, 9 U.S. Stat. 922 TREATY OF PEACE, FRIENDSHIP, LIMITS, AND SETTLEMENT WITH THE REPUBLIC OF MEXICO Concluded between the United States of America and the United Mexican States on February 2, 1848. Ratifications exchanged at Queretaro May 30, 1848. Proclamation July 4, 1848. [The only article in the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo which might be relevant to language rights is Article VIII, eds.]: ARTICLE VIII Mexicans now established in territories previously belonging to Mexico, and which remain for the future within the limits of the United States, as defined by the present treaty, shall be free to continue where they now reside, or to remove at any time to the Mexican republic, retaining the property which they possess in the said territories, or disposing thereof, and removing the proceeds wherever they please, without their being subjected, on this account, to any contribution, tax, or charge whatever. Those who shall prefer to remain in the said territories, may either retain the title and rights of Mexican citizens, or acquire those of citizens of the United States. But they shall be under the obligation to make their election within one year from the date of the exchange of ratifications of this treaty; and those who shall remain in the said territories after the expiration of that year, without having declared their intention to retain the character of Mexicans, shall be considered to have elected to become citizens of the United States. In the said territories, property of every kind, now belonging to Mexicans not established there, shall be inviolably respected. The present owners, the heirs of these, and all Mexicans who may hereafter acquire said property by contract, shall enjoy with respect to it guaranties equally ample as if the same belonged to citizens of the United States. [According to the annotations to the New Mexico Revised Statutes, Article VIII of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has been used in appeals for legislative rights, but rejected by the state courts: Nor does it confer proprietary right to have Spanish language and culture preserved and continued in the public schools at public expense. Lopez Tijerina v. Henry, 48 F.R.D. 274 (D.N.M. 1969), appeal dismissed, 398 U.S. 922, 90 S. Ct. 1718, 26 L. Ed. 2d 86 (1970). (N.M. Rev. Stat. 7 8 - 7 9 ) In annotations to the Arizona Revised Statutes, references to the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo deal with property rights and citizenship; they never address issues of cultural or language rights (Az. Rev. Stat. 82-83), eds.]

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Appendix III: Congressional Mexico and Arizona

Hearings on Statehood for

New

A. 61st Congress: 2nd session, 1909 — 10; Senate Reports, vol. 2, No. 454. AN ACT ENABLING THE PEOPLE O F NEW MEXICO A N D ARIZONA TO F O R M A CONSTITUTION A N D STATE GOVERNMENT, ETC. Mr. Beveridge, from the Committee on Territories, submitted the following REPORT [The report begins with an account of two vetoes by Governor Kibby of the constitution proposed for Arizona by the state legislature. Governor Kibby objected to two qualifications added to the existing list (male, 21 years, citizen, resident for one year, etc.) which the governor felt disfranchised many who should have the right to vote. Senator Beveridge's report quotes the Governor's entire veto explanation, including the following passages, eds.]: (p. 5) To these qualifications above enumerated this bill adds two others; that is, and I renumber them for the convenience of reference: "8. Who, not being prevented by physical disability from so doing, is able to read the Constitution of the United States in the English language in such manner as to show he is neither prompted nor reciting from memory, and "9. To write his name." As the absolutely certain result of the operation of this bill, if it becomes a law, is to disfranchise some who have had, ever since the organization of the Territory, the right of suffrage, it must necessarily be presumed that that is the purpose of the proposed law. It was probably the mind of the legislature to raise the standard of the suffrage and to prevent in some degree at least the possibility of a venal and ignorant vote. Whatever tends to do that is generally to be approved, but it occurs to me that in this effort to raise the standard of the franchise and to some extent eliminate the ignorant vote, the doors are widely opened by this proposed law to infinitely greater evils. In America the tendency has always been toward universal suffrage, notwithstanding there is a sentiment and a proper one that it ought to be limited to the intelligent, to the honest, and to those who have a direct interest in the orderly and just administration of public affairs. For generations there have been settlements in the older States of the Union where the English language was seldom if ever spoken; where the German, or the French, the Scandinavian, or the Hebrew are almost the only languages spoken. Because they do not speak or read or write English is not to denounce them as ignorant, illiterate, and hence venal, dishonest, and corrupt. Such a conclusion would be an unjust imputation against thousands of the best, most honest, most industrious, and desireable citizens of our free, cosmopolitan country. They may not be able to read the Constitution in English but they who are Germans are able to understand it quite as well as most of those who are able to do so; and so of the French, the Scandinavians, etc. (p. 6) I do not wish to be misunderstood. I believe that the language of any nation is a national institution; possibly one of the chiefest, and that all who claim the rights of

Appendix III: Congressional Hearings on Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona

319

citizenship of the nation should understand its language; what I do wish to be understood to say is that I think it is unreasonable to require of any people the acquisition of a different national language faster than in the due, ordinary, and natural course; and that to impose the penalty of disfranchisement for not doing so is rather harsh and ungenerous. [The report goes on to describe a second veto message from Governor Kibby, who reiterated essentially the same points. Then follows an account of how the actual statehood proposal sent to the U.S. Congress by the subsequent governor, Governor Sloan, did not contain any English proficiency clause — now called an "educational qualification" — as a voter requirement. The absence of this clause raised the ire of local legislators, who thought had succeeding in forcing the inclusion of such a provision when they overrode Kibby's two vetoes. In a vein similar to his predecessor's, Governor Sloan defended his rejection of such provisions as unjustified disfranchisement, eds.]: (p. 13) I doubt if any advocate of this law would be so disingenuous, not to say dishonest, as to claim that the law is either intended to or does in effect disfranchise any considerable number of voters other than those who speak the Spanish language and whom we ordinarily call Mexicans. This being so, I contend that the act is unjustly discriminatory, racial in its application and as such is to be condemned. Many good people may be misled as to the act and entertain a mistaken belief based upon insufficient information or prejudice that the demands of good citizenship require the elimination of the Mexican vote. Granted that we would be better off if the venal, ignorant, and purchaseable portion of that vote, as of our entire electorate, could be eliminated, nevertheless I hold it to be unjust and undemocratic to include in this discrimination a large number of intelligent, respectable, law-abiding, and patriotic men whose ancestors lived here long before any American ever visited the Territory or dreamed that it should become at any time one of the United States, who know no other home or country, who have property and pay taxes, who are rearing families here, and who, by every consideration, are entitled to all the rights and privileges of citizenship. Having been reared in Spanish-speaking households and in Spanish-speaking communities, and having gone to schools where Spanish alone was taught, their knowledge of English is about such as Americans acquire of Spanish under like circumstances. These men would not attempt to qualify as voters by reading orally in the presence of a critical and possibly hostile audience from the Constitution of the United States. The result is the almost complete disfranchisement of this class of Mexicans. [Beveridge's report again touches on language issues in the summary of differences between the House and Senate bills, eds.]: (p. 25) The next marked difference between the House and Senate bills is found in the provisions relating to the teaching of other languages than English in the schools. The House bill permits the teaching of other languages than English in the schools, whereas the Senate bill provides that the schools shall be conducted in English, striking out the provision in the House bill that nothing in this act shall preclude the teaching of other languages in said public schools. In this connection the House bill provides in the fifth clause of section 3 that: "the ability to read, write, and speak the English language sufficiently well to conduct the duties

320

Appendix III: Congressional Hearings on Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona

of the office without the aid of an interpreter shall be a necessary qualification for state officers." Instead of this the Senate bill provides in clause 5 of section 2: "that ability to read, write, speak, and understand the English language sufficiently well to conduct the duties of the office without the aid of an interpreter shall be a necessary qualification for all state officers and members of the state legislature." One of the most serious difficulties of both of these Territories, and especially the Territory of New Mexico, has been and is the disposition of the Mexican population to continue the Spanish language from generation to generation. In many counties in New Mexico a jury can not be impaneled all of whom can understand English; and an interpreter is used in many, if not in most, of the courts to interpret the testimony of the English-speaking witnesses, the argument of the counsel, and the charge of the court to the jury. Not only this, but an interpreter is necessary in the legislature itself in order to conduct business. Nor is this all. It is a further fact that no political convention of any political party is or can be held without the aid of an interpreter. The reason for this is, of course, the disposition of the Mexican population to preserve their mother tongue and to teach the children the language of their fathers and mothers. Had the provisions of the Senate bill been in force in the Territory for a generation the conditions above described would not now exist. Since we are about to admit this Territory as a state of the Union, the disposition of its citizens to retain their racial solidity, and that in doing so to continue the teaching of their tongue, must be broken up. It is only just to the Spanish-speaking citizens of the Territory of Arizona to say that, first, they do not exist in such numbers as in New Mexico; second, that they do not live in such solid and compact communities as in New Mexico, but are more scattered; and third, and principally, that while the whole of the Spanish-speaking citizens of Arizona can not speak the English language, their children have been taught the common tongue spoken throughout the United States and can speak, write and understand it perfectly. B. Congressional Record, U.S. Senate, June 16, 1910 [In the discussion of Senator Beverages' Report over the differences between House and Senate versions of the bill to admit New Mexico and Arizona to statehood, the following exchanges occurred, eds.]: (p. 8227) Mr. BEVERIDGE. The Senate bill now provides that English shall be taught in the schools and that all public officers and members of the state legislature shall be able to read, speak, and understand the English language. The House bill confined that requirement solely to state officers. Everybody knows, as the [earlier statehood, eds.] report I presented points out, that one of the difficulties in the situation down there, particularly in New Mexico, has been the curious continuance of the solidarity of the Spanish-speaking people, the people of Mexican decent. These people have kept together in a most amazing way and have maintained not only their social relations, living close together and not scattering out and mingling with other people, but they have maintained also a remarkable tenacity to the tongue of their fathers. It would be well, of course, if at least the men who make the laws could speak the language which all the rest of us speak.

Appendix III: Congressional Hearings on Statehood for New Mexico and Arizona

321

Our bill does not require anybody else shall do so, but certainly the legislators should. That will be one of the first things that will break up that condition, which has been for a long time a serious problem before Congress and before the better people down there. The whole subject is a profound ethnological and sociological question. Our bill begins a solution. (p. 8228) Mr. CUMMINS. Mr. President, I desire to ask a question of the Senator from Indiana. He has referred to a provision which requires the English language to be used, I take it, in the legislative assemblies. Does the bill require the judicial proceedings to be conducted in the English language? Mr BEVERIDGE. No. Mr. CUMMINS. The Senator from Indiana says "no." I should like to inquire why it would not be a wise thing to require the courts to use in their proceeds the English language? Mr. BEVERIDGE. As a matter of fact, they do, and I do not think it is at all necessary, as a practical matter, to provide that they shall. Mr. CUMMINS. Is it not true that recently — I do not know whether in the last few years, but recently — the proceedings of the courts in New Mexico have been carried on in the Spanish language? Mr. BEVERIDGE. That is true,... . I should think that it would work at present a tremendous hardship if we changed that, because it would mean practically a denial of justice in many cases. Mr. CUMMINS. I do not believe, of course, that a witness should not be examined who speaks only the Spanish language; but when the testimony is recorded and the degrees and the judgments of the courts are entered, is that done in English or in Spanish? Mr. BEVERIDGE. Except in some justice of the peace courts, they are recorded in English. Our committee some years ago investigated that question, and I recall that in some justice of the peace courts records were kept in Spanish, but I do not recall any other courts where that was so. Mr. SUTHERLAND. Mr. President, is it not a fact that in New Mexico, at least in many of the courts, juries are impaneled part of which speak no English and part of which speak no Spanish; so that it is necessary to have the evidence given to the jury in both languages? Mr. NELSON. That is true. Mr. SUTHERLAND. And to have the charge given to the jury in both languages? Mr. NELSON. That is true; and in that country they even have what is unusual, but with which no complaint has been found, an interpreter to go in with the jury when they return to agree upon their verdict. Mr. SUTHERLAND. That is the point as to which I was going to ask the Senator. How is it possible to have the jurors discuss the case with one another when part of them speak English and part of them speak Spanish? Mr. NELSON. They have an interpreter taken with them into the jury room. Mr. SUTHERLAND. To what extent does that practice prevail? Mr. NELSON. Not to a very great extent. It prevails in some localities, but it is fact dying out. [Ultimately, both states were admitted to the Union, but with all English proficiency qualifications removed, eds.]

322

Appendix IV: Constitutions of the State of New Mexico

Appendix IV: Constitution

of the State of New

Mexico

[The sections of the New Mexico Constitution which deal with language are Article XII, Sec. 8 and Article XX, Sec. 12, eds.]: ARTICLE XII, Sec. 8. The legislature shall provide for the training of teachers in the normal schools or otherwise so that they may become proficient in both the English and Spanish languages, to qualify them to teach Spanish-speaking pupils and students in the public schools and educational institutions of the state, and shall provide proper means and methods to facilitate the teaching of the English language and other branches of learning to such pupils and students. [The annotations to this section discuss its implications for extended language rights, eds.]: Meaning of Section. This section does not require that all teachers in the state be proficient in both English and Spanish or that all teachers who teach Spanish-speaking pupils be proficient in both English and Spanish. The clear intent is to teach English to Spanishspeaking students and to assure that the Spanish and English languages will always be available to prospective teachers in the teachers' colleges and that Spanish-speaking pupils will be provided the means and methods to learn the English language as well as other subjects of learning. 1968 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 68 — 15. This section is a mandate to the legislature to provide teachers proficient in both English and Spanish to teach Spanish-speaking pupils; it does not require all teachers to have this proficiency. 1971 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 71-102. Law Reviews. For student symposium, "Constitutional Revision — Constitutional Amendment Process," see 9 Nat. Resources J. 422 (1969). For comment, "Education and the Spanish-Speaking — An Attorney General's Opinion on Article XII, Section 8 of the New Mexico Constitution," see 3 N.M. L. Rev. 364 (1973). For note, "Bilingual Education: Serna v. Portales Municipal Schools," see 5 N.M. L. Rev. 321 (1975). Am. Jur. 2d and C.J.S. References. 68 Am. Jur. 2d Schools § 283. 78 C.J.S. Schools and School Districts § 169; 79 C.J.S. Schools and School Districts §485. [The New Mexicon Constitution provides for the publication of laws in Spanish and English, as described below, eds.]: ARTICLE XX, Sec. 12. For the first twenty years after this constitution goes into effect all laws passed by the legislature shall be published in both the English and Spanish languages and thereafter such publication shall be made as the legislature may provide. See also 73 Am. Jur. 2d Statues § 257.

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

Appendix Ethnicity

V: Representative

323

Data on Language Use and

Table 1. 1980 Selected Census Data on Nativity and Language Table la. By Country of Origin

Total Native Foreign Born Europe Austria France Germany Greece Italy Poland UK USSR Other Asia China India Japan Korea Philippines Vietnam Americas Canada Mexico Cuba S. America Other

Arizona

California Florida

New Mexico New York

2,718,215 2,555,409 162,806 39,947 1,227 1,759 10,037 995 3,862 2,100 8,685 2,815 8,467 17,716 2,038 1,017 2,590 2,160 2,028 1,841 87,272 13,444 70,952 546 2,762 17,817

23,667,902 9,746,324 20,087,869 8,687,592 3,580,033 1,058,732 633,550 269,503 16,703 11,576 23,764 8,495 112,673 53,376 17,886 7,719 67,245 29,185 27,380 26,730 133,690 51,073 58,642 34,859 175,567 46,490 876,878 55,891 116,331 4,003 4,278 30,010 79,593 4,724 4,322 83,180 237,713 10,258 83,227 6,347 1,667,250 547,455 163,300 70,603 13,704 1,:277,969 46,258 366,057 96,769 61,340 402,355 185,883

1,302,894 1,250,489 52,405 10,684 330 457 3,484 437 770 279 2,618 696 1,613 6,391 321 252 858 618 814 943 28,715 2,189 25,120 351 1,146 6,615

Texas

17,558,072 14,229,191 15,169,134 13,372,978 2,388,938 856,213 96,201 1,002,524 38,799 2,481 4,941 20,852 134,991 34,419 54,738 3,283 283,990 4,480 3,304 113,262 83,736 22,389 112,725 4,253 159,431 16,651 290,456 117,516 68,839 8,446 33,434 13,905 17,885 9,451 27,104 11,562 27,493 11,553 6,402 24,793 615,233 546,210 73,142 17,409 498,101 10,676 56,895 10,103 17,056 182,818 480,725 96,286

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. 1980 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter C: "General Social and Economic Characteristics," Table 63: "Nativity and Language"

324

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

Table lb. By Ability to Speak English (5 Years and Older) Arizona

California Florida

New Mexico

Total 2,505,455 21,969,725 9,180,221 1,888,276 Only English 739,344 2,001,276 17,004,703 7,970,557 Other lang. 504,179 4,965,022 1,209,664 448,932 Very good English 291,864 2,471,341 634,963 275,894 134,114 1,240,957 Good English 287,773 120,276 Poor English 78,201 1,252,724 286,928 52,762 13,454 146,654 15,941 9,372 5 — 13 years 14—17 years 3,888 58,164 2,902 7,403 1 8 - 2 4 years 7,992 208,356 17,858 4,857 25 years + 52,867 839,550 245,726 35,631

New York

Texas

16,429,011 13,064,596 13,131,717 10,221,830 3,297,294 2,842,766 1,756,580 1,399533 898,121 860,247 642,593 582,296 52,036 97,451 19,650 27,477 50,805 69,418 520,102 388,550

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. 1980 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter C: "General Social and Economic Characteristics," Table 63: "Nativity and Language"

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

325

Table lc. By Language Spoken at Home (5 Years + ) Arizona

California Florida

New Mexico New York

Texas

5 — 17 years English only Chinese French German Greek Italian Philippine Polish Spanish Other specified Unspecified

578,750 448,936 748 943 1,847 276 764 218 165 88,437 35,713 703

4,685,403 1,794,858 3,611,458 1,589,266 46,819 1,592 8,884 13,701 17,878 6,106 4,981 2,068 8,920 3,112 784 30,659 1,040 580 804,182 164,293 139,229 13,906 6,576 4,267

303,120 192,496 150 471 584 92 93 36 26 83,064 25,977 131

3,559,784 2,947,223 24,567 28,763 13,668 17,576 521,754 3,244 6,336 375,905 83,910 5,838

3,143,074 2,339,721 3,702 5,861 8,906 1,044 1,238 1,288 572 750,734 24,276 5,732

18 years + English only Chinese French German Greek Italian Philippine Polish Spanish Other specified Unspecified

1,926,705 1,552,340 4,267 8,321 14,418 1,959 7,033 1,386 3,743 242,601 88,505 2,123

17,284,322 7,385,363 13,393,245 6,381,291 7,164 210,868 63,002 99,059 151,996 61,819 13,247 29,871 122,802 56,215 199,038 7,609 21,297 19,752 2,328,548 621,951 702,107 137,772 15,541 25,429

885,156 546,848 846 2,734 4,917 658 1,849 534 486 269,424 56,214 646

12,869,227 10,184,494 101,337 136,395 154,076 78,152 475,989 20,706 135,936 1,023,072 532,897 26,173

9,921,522 7,882,109 18,094 41,751 75,463 5,489 9,702 8,307 10,025 1,733,454 122,878 14,250

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. 1980 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter C: "General Social and Economic Characteristics," Table 63: "Nativity and Language"

326

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

Table 2. 1980 State Population % by Race Table 2a. All races White Arizona California Florida New Mexico New York Texas

2,240,761 82.4% 18,030,893 76.1% 8,184,513 83.9% 977,587 74.7% 13,960,868 79.6% 11,198,441 78.8%

Native American 152,745 5.6% 201,369 .8% 19,257 .1% 106,119 8.1% 39,582 .2% 40,075 .2%

Black

Asian

Other

74,977 2.7% 1,819,281 7.6% 1,342,688 13.7% 24,020 1.8% 2,402,006 13.7% 1,710,175 12.1%

22,032 .8% 1,611,319 6.8% 56,740 .5% 6,825 .5% 310,526 1.7% 120,313 .8%

227,700 8.4% 2,362,541 8.4% 143,126 1.4% 188,353 14.4% 845,090 4.8% 200,528 8.0%

— Black and White includes Spanish origin. — Native American includes Eskimo and Aleut. — Asian includes only the nine categories of Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese, Hawaiian, Guamanian, and Samoan. Others of Asian origin are in the "Other" column. See Table 2b. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter B: "General Population Characteristics," Table 15: "Persons by Race"

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

327

Table 2b. Breakdown of 'Asian' Category* Japan Arizona

China

4,074 18.4% California 261,822 20.8% Florida 5,579 9.8% New Mexico 1,286 18.8% New York 24,524 7.8% 10,502 Texas 8.7%

Philip- Korea pines

India

3,348 2,449 2,102 6,820 30.9% 15.1% 11.1% 9.5% 322,309 357,492 103,845 57,901 8.2% 4.6% 25.7% 28.5% 13,422 14,218 4,671 9,144 8.2% 16.1% 23.6% 25.0% 1,182 1,442 706 806 21.1% 17.3% 10.3% 11.8% 148,105 33,956 34,157 60,505 47.7% 10.9% 10.9% 19.4% 25,461 15,096 13,997 22,231 21.1% 12.5% 11.6% 18.4%

Vietnam

Hawaii Guam

Samoa

1,932 8.7% 89,601 7.1% 7,600 13.3% 1,043 15.2% 6,644 2.1% 29,112 24.1%

808 3.3% 23,086 1.8% 1,378 2.4% 217 3.1% 1,566 .5% 2,218 1.8%

146 .6% 20,089 1.6% 252 .4% 61 .8% 296 .0% 503 .4%

353 1.6% 17,763 1.4% 476 .8% 82 1.2% 773 .2% 1,193 .9%

* Percentages are based on the total of the Asian population of each state, not the total population of each state. Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. 1980 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter B: "General Population Characteristics," Tabe 15: "Persons by Race"

Table 3. 1980 Spanish Origin Persons by Type Total Arizona California

440,701 4,544,331

Florida

858,158

New Mexico

477,222

New York

1,659,300

Texas

2,985,824

Mexican

Puerto Rican

Cuban

Other Spanish

396,410 89.9% 3,637,466 80.0% 79,392 9.2% 233,772 48.9% 38,755 2.3% 2,752,487 92.1%

4,048 .9% 93,038 2.2% 94,775 11.0% 1,610 .3% 986,389 59.4% 22,938 .7%

1,071 .2% 61,004 1.3% 470,250 54.7% 605 .1% 76,942 4.6% 14,124 .4%

39,172 8.8% 752,823 16.5% 213,741 24.9% 241,235 50.5% 557,214 33.5% 196,275 6.5%

Source: U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of Census, 1983a. 1980 Census of Population, Volume I: Characteristics of the Population, Chapter B: "General Population Characteristics," Table 16: "Total Persons and Spanish Origin Persons by Type of Spanish Origin and Race"

328

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

Table 4. Representative 1986—87 Public School Membership % by Ethnic Group

Arizona California Florida New Mexico New York Texas

White

Native American

Black

Asian

Spanish

65.8 51.0 65.4 Not available 62.5 52.5

6.4 .1 .2

4.0 9.2 23.5

1.0 7.0 1.2

22.2 29.6 9.5

19.5 14.6

1.8

-

.2

-

14.3 30.9

Source: Arizona Department of Education, 1987. State Summary by Grade of Pupil Enrollment, 1986 - 87 California Department of Education, 1986. Enrollment in California Public Schools by Grade Level and Racial or Ethnic Group, 1985 — 86 Florida Department of Education, 1986. Limited English Proficiency Students in Florida Public Schools by Racial/Ethnic Category, Fall, 1985 State Education Department, Information Center on Education, 1984. Racial/Ethnic Distribution of Public School Students and Staff, New York State 1986-87 Texas Education Agency, 1987. Texas Public School Fall Membership by Ethnic Group Campus Report-Count and Percent, 1986— 87

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

329

Table 5. Primary Language of School Age Children, 1986 (Selected) Los Angeles

Arizona Total Total English only Other primary Spanish Arabic

Cambodian Chinese Cantonese Mandarin Czech Dutch

622,237 523,790 98,447 73,170 466

286 787 456 331 44 38

French German Greek

257 420 120

Hebrew

73

Hungarian

40

Italian Japanese Korean Laotian

184 185 631 273

Philippines

244

Polish Portugese

111 173

Romanian

144

* Limited English Proficiency

LEP*

Fluent

Total English only Other primary Spanish Arabic Armenian Assyrian Burmese Cambodian Chinese Cantonese Mandarin Other Chinese

567,280 0 567,280 413,070 2,148 2,419 189 96 13,907 29,911 19,780 7,250 2,881

3,688,274 4,245,554 3,146,215 3,136,215 542,059 1,109,339 377,058 790,128 2,459 4,607 2,597 5,016 281 470 97 193 2,123 16,630 29,087 58,998 18,268 38,048 7,815 15,065 3,004 5,885

Dutch Farsi French German Greek Guamanian Gujarati Hebrew Hindi Hmong Hungarian Indonesian Italian Japanese Korean Laotian Mein Philippines Pilipino Ilocano Visayan Other Filipino Pashto Polish Portugese Punjabi Romanian

74 3,393 361 339 186 117 289 604 1,271 8,701 87 148 221 3,946 9,920 8,958 956 15,682 13,935 842 95 810 138 162 2,507 1,073 769

233 3,887 725 1,249 507 263 373 1,095 1,495 1,911 132 100 706 6,645 14,984 2,330 110 31,522 28,750 1,560 69 1,143 73 134 5,258 1,564 324

Total

307 7,280 1,086 1,588 693 380 662 1,699 2,766 10,612 219 248 927 10,591 24,904 11,288 1,066 46,706 42,187 2,402 164 1,953 211 296 7,765 2,766 1,093

330

Appendix V: Representative Data on Language Use and Ethnicity

Table 5. (continued) Arizona

Los Angeles LEP*

Total Russian

Thai

Vietnamese Native American Navajo Apa-San Carlos Apa-White Mtn Chemehuevi Cocopah Hopi Hualapai Maricopa Mohave O'Odham Pima Supai Yaqui Yavapai Yuma Other Indian Other

43

163

1,066 18,082 13,893 897 1,162 6 23 263 235 18 10 944 372 4 36 26 10 183 1,388

Fluent

Total

Russian 180 Samoan 1,622 Serbo-Croatian 53 Thai 123 Tongan 680 Turkish 58 Vietnamese 30,591 241 Urdu Native American 53 [no breakdown available]

626 2,110 174 806 428 57 21,107 262 163

806 3,732 227 1,529 1,108 115 51,698 503 216

Other

26,404

38,339

11,935

* Limited English Proficiency Sources: Arizona Department of Education, 1986. Language and Census Program Report, ARS15-751-756 California Department of Education, 1986. Evaluation and Research, Basic Education Data System

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List of Contributors Karen L. Adams Department of English, Arizona State University Jon Amastae Department of Linguistics, University of Texas at El Paso AnCita Benally Center for Indian Education, Arizona State University The Honorable Jeff Bingaman U.S. Senator, New Mexico Elizabeth A. Brandt Department of Anthropology, Arizona State University Daniel T. Brink Department of English, Arizona State University Max J. Castro Executive Director, Greater Miami United William G. Davey Director, American Language and Culture Program, Arizona State University Stanley Diamond Board of Directors, U.S. English Betty Lou Dubois Department of Speech, New Mexico State University Connie Dyste English as a Second Language Program, Santa Monica Community College, Pasadena City College The Honorable Noel Fidel Arizona Court of Appeals, Division 1 Roseann D. Gonzalez Director, Federal Court Interpretation Project, University of Arizona Margaret Haun English Department, South Miami Senior High School

354

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Alan Hudson-Edwards Department of Linguistics, University of New Mexico Leslie J. Limage Program Specialist, UNESCO Joseph E. Magnet Common Law, University of Ottawa David F. Marshall English Department, University of North Dakota T. L. McCarty Department of Language, Reading and Culture, University of Arizona Rachel F. Moran Boalt Hall School of Law, University of California, Berkeley Geoffrey Nunberg Department of English, Stanford University Ana Roca Department of Modern Languages, Florida International University Richard Ruiz Department of Language, Reading and Culture, University of Arizona Sharon McCloe Stein Law Offices of Barnaby Zall, Washington, DC John Trasvina Counsel to the Subcommittee on the Constitution, U.S. Senate Committee on the Weinstein Judiciary James College of Law, Arizona State University Kathryn A. Woolard Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego Barnaby W. Zall Law Offices of Barnaby Zall, Washington, DC Ana Celia Zentella Hunter College (Black and Puerto Rican Studies) and Graduate Center (Linguistics), City University of NewUniversity York Ofelia Zepeda Director, American Indian Studies, of Arizona

Index f = figure; n = note; q = question; t = table; I—V = appendices. adult education, 201 - 02, 210 - 1 1 , 2 1 8 - 2 0 (tl) Afro-Caribbean Americans, 167 — 70 Alaskan Natives, 213, 224 American Ethnic Coalition, 2 Amnesty Act (Simpson-Rodino Act), 199, 210, 234 Anglo-Americans. See White Americans Apache Tribe. See Native Americans Arizona Asian American populations, 184—88, 327 bilingual-education legislation, 218—21, 238, 243 demographics, 183-93, 3 2 3 - 3 0 (V) language patterns, 183 - 93, 215 - 20 (fl ), 3 2 3 - 3 0 (V) Native American population, 191 —93, 255-56 official English measures, 2—3, 57 — 58, 162, 171, 176, 302-05, 3 0 7 - 1 6 (I: A, C, E-F) alternative proposals, 308 —14 (I: B, D) impact, 223 — 37 opposing organizations, 195 Spanish language use, 188-91, 3 1 8 - 2 2 (III-IV) Asian Americans attitudes toward official English, 140 - 42, 194 Chinese Americans, 127 — 28, 137 (nl), 184-88, 194, 196 (n4) opposition to official English, 115, 127-28, 137 (nl), 194 Japanese Americans, 185 Southwestern U.S. populations, 184—88, 327 (V: 2) assimilation, 1, 12, 17, 37, 43, 55, 5 9 - 6 0 , 80, 101, 117, 121, 262-63, 294-97, 302, 305 bilingual education and, 297 English acquisition and, 262 — 63

Bahasa Malaysia, 19 - 2 0 , 9 5 - 1 0 3 ballots, bilingual, 1 1 - 1 2 , 27, 59, 112-14, 116,125-37, 140-41,148 (q6), 166-67, 169-70, 197 (nl4), 233, 266, 270 (nlO, 17), 283 mandated for San Francisco County, 127 ballots, monolingual, 126, 131, 135 Basque language, 86, 88 — 89 Belgium, 30, 3 7 - 3 9 , 41, 9 0 - 9 1 , 230-31, 296 Bennet, William, 224 Bikales, Gerda, 112,188 bilingual ballots. See ballots, bilingual bilingual education, 5, 1 1 - 1 2 , 18, 23, 27, 47, 57, 58 (n7), 59, 8 7 - 8 9 , 102, 114, 1 1 7 - 1 8 , 1 3 9 - 4 1 , 1 4 9 (q9), 159,166-67, 169-70, 197 (nl4), 222-23, 227 (nl), 236, 266, 270 (nlO, 17), 282, 284, 297 American Institutes for Research (AIR) evaluation, 287-88, 291 (nl9, 23) "Americanization" programs, 220—21, 281 bilingual-bicultural programs, 218, 228 (n2), 262, 270 (n20), 2 8 6 - 8 8 community collaboration, 289 — 90, 292 (n32) constitutional vs. statutory rights, 274, 276 English-as-a-Second-Language programs, 289-89, 292 (n31) equal educational opportunity, 218 flexibility in, 266, 271 (n24), 2 8 8 - 8 9 history and goals of U.S. programs, 215, 285-87 immersion programs, 69, 224—25, 288-89, 292 (n31) impact of official English measures, 55, 59, 218-19, 2 8 8 - 8 9 in Europe, 87 — 89 native-language instruction, 287 opposition to, 125,221-23,284, 286-88

356

Index

protections in New Mexico, 191 school achievement, 285, 287 segregative effects, 287, 291 (n20) transitional programs, 218, 225, 2 2 7 - 2 8 (nl), 249, 2 8 6 - 8 9 Bilingual Education Acts, 193, 266, 269 (nlO), 285-87, 2 9 0 - 9 1 (n2, 15, 22) funding, 285-86, 2 9 0 - 9 1 (n6, 12) bilingual services in the U.S., 5 7 - 5 8 , 152, 156, 159, 166-67, 1 6 9 - 7 0 bilingualism, 31, 3 8 - 3 9 , 47, 54, 56. See also multilingualism anti-bilingualism, 126, 151 — 54, 205, 221-23 conflict, evidence refuting, 29 — 30, 3 7 - 4 1 , 5 4 - 5 6 , 220 constitutional bilingualism in New Mexico, 191, 233 constitutional rights, 281 — 84 in Australia, 49 in Canada, 3 7 - 3 9 , 41, 5 3 - 5 6 , 220, 295-96 in Europe, 3 7 - 3 9 , 41, 68, 89 in U.S goals, need for definition, 296—98 Hispanic Americans, 188—91, 199-208 ( t l - 3 ) Native Americans, 241 —43, 255 — 56 official, 151 opposition to, 284 proficiency models Interdependence Hypothesis, 226 Threshold Hypothesis, 226 Bingaman, Jeff, 235 Black Americans attitudes toward Hispanic Americans, 271 (n36) attitudes toward official English, 125-37, 140-42, 147-50 (ql —15), 157-59, 162-73, 195 language discrimination, 232, 271 (n36), 281 boarding schools, Indian language policies, 222 Bumiputra, 19, 97-100, 102 California ethnicity and language of population, 183-93, 3 2 3 - 3 0 (V)

Asian Americans, 184—88 Hispanic Americans, 188-91, 327 (V: 3) Native Americans, 191 - 9 3 , 328 (4) official English measures, 2 — 3, 194, 2 6 3 - 6 4 , 267 (n9, 10). See also ELA Proposition 38, 112,125 Proposition 63, 3, 11, 112-17, 125, 134, 139-50, 171, 207, 263, 267-68, 315 (I: E) San Francisco Proposition "O", 112, 125-37 Canada consensus government, 295 — 96 immersion method of bilingual education, 224 - 25 language conflict, 2, 30, 38, 5 4 - 5 6 , 233-34 misapplication of the Canadian example, 3 8 , 5 8 - 6 1 , 2 2 0 , 2 9 8 language rights, 5 3 , 5 5 - 58, 220, 293 - 9 6 linguistic diversity, 53 — 54, 295—96 Catalan language, 86, 8 8 - 8 9 , 121 chauvinism, linguistic, 79, 135, 137 (n3) Chavez, Linda, 161, 177 (n5) Chícanos. See Hispanic Americans, Mexican Americans Chinese language in Malaysia, 9 6 - 9 8 , 1 0 0 - 0 2 in U.K., 88 in U.S., 112,116,185 church-sponsored literacy programs, 200 - 02

churches, bilingual, 220 Civil Rights Act of 1964, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 279 (nl6, 17) national origins and language protections, 265, 2 7 5 - 7 6 Title VI, VII protections, 275-76, 279 (nil, 16), 286, 290 (nlO) code switching, 233 colonialism, 1 9 - 2 0 , 31, 63, 78, 9 6 - 9 7 common language distinguished from official language, 261, 268 domains of use, 262 — 65 common language argument for official English, 4 3 - 4 4 , 58, 111, 129, 134, 141, 147 (q2), 153, 160, 261-63, 2 8 8 - 8 9

Index Common Underlying Proficiency (CUP), 225 Constitution, U.S. See also ELA Canadian constitution compared to, 294-96 First, Fifth, Fourteenth Amendment language protections, 273 — 74, 279 (n4, 6, 9), 294, 298 indirect protections of language rights, 273-74, 1 7 6 - 7 7 language rights, 2 7 3 - 7 4 , 2 7 6 - 7 8 , 281-84, 2 9 3 - 9 6 tradition inhibiting maintenance of language minorities, 294 — 95 corpus planning, 15 — 16,22,25 Court Interpreters Act, 269 (nlO) Cuban Americans, 152, 154-55, 158-59, 188-89 Das Gupta, Jyotyrindra, 13, 17 Diamond, Stanley, 112,114,118,207 diglossia, 43, 51 (n3) discrimination constitutional provisions prohibiting, 274-75, 2 9 4 - 9 5 in education, 282 national-origin discrimination and language rights, 264 — 65, 275 — 76 dropout rates, 211-12, 222-24, 227, 285 economic status and ethnic conflict, 3 1 - 3 6 , 4 3 - 4 4 , 4 7 - 4 8 , 101, 103 education bilingual. See bilingual education content studies in first language, 225-26, 228 (n2) English acquisition. See English acquisition and English-acquisition programs in Europe, 6 8 - 7 4 , 79, 81, 88 in Malaysia, 9 7 - 9 8 , 1 0 2 - 0 3 ELA (English Language Amendment), 3, 1 1 - 1 2 , 18, 2 2 - 2 4 , 125, 136, 165-68, 271 (n38), 307 (I: A). See also Official English elections. See also ballots, voting bilingual services for, 265, 269 (nlO), 283 increased voter participation, 283 opposition to, 283

357

endoglossic, exoglossic states, 19, 20 English acquisition, 189, 200 - 06, 215 - 20, 287 Navajo children, 2 3 8 - 4 0 role of first language, 223 — 27 social mobility, 262 — 63 use of native tongue, 202 — 206 (tl —3) English-acquisition programs, 200 — 02, 210-11, 2 1 5 - 2 0 . See also English-as-aSecond-Language (ESL) programs and bilingual education enrollment in, 2 0 0 - 0 2 , 2 1 0 - 1 1 , 2 1 5 , 219 expanding and improving, 200 — 02, 211-12

funding, 206-07, 211, 214, 219, 311 (B) history in U.S., 2 2 4 - 2 6 literacy, 2 0 0 - 0 2 , 2 0 9 - 1 0 teaching methods, 220, 223 - 25, 235 - 36 English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs, 88, 200-02, 215-20, 227 (nl), 235, 287-89, 292 (n31). See also Englishacquisition programs and bilingual education Arizona legislation regarding, 243 enrollment, 2 0 0 - 0 2 , 2 1 0 - 1 1 teaching methods, 222 — 25 English First, 2 — 3, English for Speakers of Other Languages (ESOL). See also English-as-a-SecondLanguage (ESL) programs and bilingual education English Language Amendment (ELA), 3, 1 1 - 1 2 , 18, 2 2 - 2 4 , 125, 136, 165-68. See also official English English language as means of unity, 153, 160, 261 —63 as medium of "pure" communication, 135 as official language of government, 263. See also official language history in U.S., 123-24,261 national language vs. official language, 18-22

vulnerability of, 2 6 1 , 2 6 3 - 6 4 English Plus, 155-57 English proficiency first-language influence on, 223 — 27

358

Index

lengthy period of development, 227 English Proficiency Act, 209-14, 235, 3 0 9 - 1 2 (I: B) description, 209 legislative outcome, 214 organizations supporting, 212 — 13 equal opportunity Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, 265 in education, 57, 127, 218, 286, 291 (nil) equal protection clause (of Fourteenth Amendment), 274, 279 (n4), 298 ESL (English-as-a-Second-Language) programs. See English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) programs ethnic groups conflict and, 3 0 - 3 2 , 3 7 - 4 1 , 89, 99,114, 151-53, 110-11 elites within, 3 3 - 3 7 , 4 2 , 8 8 - 8 9 , 1 2 9 - 3 5 in Malaysia, 95 — 103 in U.S growing populations, 152, 188, 200 opposition to official English, 115-16, 141-42, 161-62, 170, 175-77, 1 9 4 - 9 5 organizations, 151, 153 — 55 acquisition of English, 200—06, 215, 226-27 in U.S.S.R., 9 2 - 9 3 militancy, 36 — 39 mobilization, 31—42 social mobility, 85, 89, 186 Fifth Amendment, U.S. Constitution. See Constitution, U.S Filipino-Americans, 185 — 88, 196 (n4) Filipino language, 19, 196 (n4) Finnish, 30, 231 First Amendment. See Constitution, U.S first language proficiency in and second-language proficiency, 2 1 5 - 1 7 , 2 2 3 second-language acquisition, 223 — 27 Fishman, Joshua, 13, 4 7 - 4 8 , 50, 233 Flemish language, 90, 230 Florida demographics, 323—28 (V: 1—4) language use, 3 2 3 - 2 5 (V: 1)

official English measures, 2 — 3, 151—60, 162, 171, 176, 3 1 5 - 1 6 (I: F) 1980 Miami (Dade County) Referendum, 151—54 foreign-language instruction, 15 measures prohibiting, 219, 264 — 65, 274-75, 282 Fourteenth Amendment. See Constitution, U.S France, foreign language use in, 85 — 87, 90 French language, 121—24 in Canada, 5 3 - 5 5 , 2 2 0 , 2 2 5 , 2 9 3 , 2 9 6 in Europe, 21, 8 6 - 8 8 , 230, 232 Gadsden Purchase, 190, 216 Gaelic language, 121. See also Irish language gaelicization, 63, 69, 72—74 Gaeltacht districts, 64, 67, 7 1 - 7 8 Gambia, 21 GED programs, 219 German language in Belgium, 90 in Switzerland, 90 in U.S., 196 (n4), 220-21, 306 (nl), 3 1 8 - 2 1 (III) Germany, Federal Republic of, 83 — 85, 231 Ghana, 21 government interference in language choice, 265-66 Guadalupe Hidalgo, Treaty of, 190, 216, 317 (II) Hawaii, 3 - 4 , 6 (n3), 183, 1 8 5 - 8 6 Hayakawa, S.I., 2 , 1 1 1 - 1 2 , 1 1 4 Hispanic Americans, 133 — 34,151 — 59. See also Mexican Americans adults in English-acquisition programs, 2 1 8 - 1 9 (tl) anti-Hispanicism, 35, 59 — 60, 133 — 34, 157-59, 161-62, 271 (n36), 275 attitudes toward official English, 115-17, 126, 137 (n4), 140-42, 146, 157-59, 166-73, 194-95, 2 9 6 - 9 8 attitudes toward using English, 204 — 05 bilingual education, 200-02, 220-23, 285-90

Index bilingualism, 189, 202-03, 223-27, 287-88, 296-98, 304 demographics, 27, 35, 188-91, 327 (V: 3) dropout rates, 285 English fluency/literacy, 202—03, 209-10 organizations, 60, 115,151, 153-55, 213 voting patterns, 18, 35 on official English measures, 58 — 59, 126, 137 (n4), 153-54, 1 5 7 - 5 9 protections for Hispanic American voters, 282 Voting Rights Act of 1975 and, 282 Hopi Tribe. See Native Americans illegal aliens, 133-34, 140, 149 (ql2), 199, 210 Imhoff, Gary, 29, 41 immigrants, 43, 91 Anglophones in Ireland, 77, 80 in Australia, 49 in U.S., 1 - 5 , 1 1 4 , 1 1 6 - 1 8 , 1 2 1 , 1 2 3 - 2 4 anti-immigrant sentiment, 126, 129, 157-59, 161, 199, 206-07, 230 as economic threat, 230, 297 assimilation, 1, 43, 55, 5 9 - 6 0 , 101, 117, 262-63, 302, 305 discrimination against, 191, 196 (n4), 230, 2 8 2 - 8 3 English acquisition and assimilation, 144 - 45, 149 (q9—11), 158, 186-89, 262-63 Hispanic immigrants, 126, 129, 188-91 language maintenance, 142 — 44, 186-89, 196 (n3) literacy and naturalization requirements, 281 resistance to acquiring English, 129, 134, 202-05, 211, 2 1 5 - 1 6 prohibition of native-language instruction, 275 Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, 185 Immigration Reform and Control Act (Simpson-Rodino). See Amnesty Act India, 3 9 - 4 1

359

Indian Self-Determination and Educational Assistance Act, 193 industrialization and language policy, 3 2 - 3 6 , 83, 2 3 8 - 3 9 instruction, language. See also bilingual education, English-as-a-Second-Language, English Acquisition Programs foreign-language prohibitions, 221—23, 264-65, 274-75, 282 in Ireland, 66, 6 8 - 7 1 mother tongue, 85, 8 7 - 8 8 , 9 0 - 9 1 , 93, 142-44 regional languages, 84, 86, 88, 91 second-language acquisition, 223 — 27 teaching methods, 222—25 instruction, language of, 96—98, 223 — 27, 264, 2 6 9 - 7 0 (nil) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, 298 interpreters, court, 58, 115, 233, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 274, 284, 304 Irish language, 6 3 - 7 7 , 121, 192. See also gaelicization, Gaeltacht districts school subject, 68 — 71 declining use, 6 5 , 6 7 , 6 9 , 7 3 - 7 4 Gaeltacht policies, 64, 67, 71 - 7 8 Italian language, 87, 9 0 - 9 1 , 196 (n4) Jernudd, Bjorn, 13 Korean Americans, 185—88, 196 (nl) language as barrier, 133 — 35, 281 as label, 3 2 - 3 3 as problem, 9, 13, 1 7 - 1 9 , 23, 2 2 9 - 3 0 as resource, 9,13,17 - 1 9 , 21, 2 3 , 4 5 - 4 9 , 298 as sacred tongue, 43 as symbol of unity, 2 4 , 3 3 - 3 7 , 8 1 , 9 5 , 98, 141-42, 153, 159-60, 176 conflict and, 2 7 - 2 8 , 3 7 - 4 1 , 5 4 - 5 6 , 84, 89, 2 3 3 - 3 4 in Belgium, 9 0 - 9 1 in Canada, 5 3 - 6 1 , 296 in U.S.S.R., 9 2 - 9 3 Eastern and Western views, 31 industrialization and, 33 — 36

360

Index

language choice, 123, 262, 264—65, 267 as protections for fundamental rights, constitutional rights, 273-78, 289 281-84 government/official uses, 261—64 Canadian protections for, 53 — 54, 56 private uses, 262 — 65 in U.S language legislation, 35 — 38 constitutional issues and, 269 (nlO), early U.S., 2 2 1 , 2 8 1 - 8 2 273-78, 281-84, 2 9 4 - 9 5 in Arizona, 215 — 20 distinction between private and constilanguage maintenance, 60, 65 — 69, 75 — 76, tutional bases, 275, 294 79, 99, 142-44, 152, 288, 295-98, national-origin protections and, 265, 304—05. See also Asian Americans, Hi275-76 spanic Americans, and Native Americans viewed as government interference, federal language-protection proposal, 265-66 3 0 7 - 1 2 (1: B) International Covenant on Civil and Polin Ireland, 65 — 69 itical Rights, 298 in U.S., 2 9 6 - 9 8 international perspective of, 298 isolation and, 206, 238, 295 symbolic significance of, 302—04 language minorities. See also assimilation, language shift, 64, 69, 80, 121, 186-89, ethnic groups, immigrants 196 (n4) in Canada, 5 3 - 6 0 , 2 9 5 - 9 6 assimilation leading to, 295 — 97 international perspectives, 33 — 36, 298 of Asian Americans, 186 — 87 protections for in U.S. See also Constituof Hispanic Americans, 188 — 89, tion, U.S.; legal decisions on language 202-05 Bilingual Education Act, 2 8 5 - 8 7 , 290 of Native Americans, 192-93,238 (n2, 6) language use domain effects, 2 0 4 - 0 5 (t2) Lau Guidelines, 286, 291 (nl6, 17) status, 1 5 - 1 6 , 1 8 - 2 3 language planning, 9 — 22 switching, 32, 35, 47 assessment, 15 Languedoc language, 86 codification, 15 — 16 Lau Guidelines, 270 (n20), 286, 291 (nl6, corpus planning, 15 — 16, 22 17) elaboration and evaluation, 15 — 16 implementation, 9, 1 5 - 1 6 , 21, 23 Lau v. Nichols, 186, 266, 2 6 8 - 7 0 (n8, 20), officialization, 9, 12, 14, 2 2 - 2 3 279 (nl6), 282, 286, 2 9 0 - 9 1 (n7, 16). See policy formulation, 15 — 16 also legal decisions on language promotion, 15 - 1 6 , 20 - 23 League of United Latin American Citizens. language policy, 9. See also language planSee LULAC ning, language legislation, and official legal decisions on language language Alfonso v. Board of Review, 268 — 69 (n8) education and, 6 8 - 7 4 , 7 6 , 2 8 5 - 9 0 implementation, 8 8 - 8 9 , 9 6 , 2 3 3 Barels v. Iowa, 270 (nl2) in U.S., 1 - 2 , 6 (nl), 2 2 - 2 3 , 2 8 1 - 8 4 Barker v. Ohio Dept. of Public Welfare, in U.S.S.R., 9 2 - 9 3 270 (nl4) research and, 215, 221 Belanger v. State Farm Mutual Auto Ins. typology of, 20—22 Co., 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) language proficiency assessment, 216 — 18, Berke v. Ohio Dept. of Pub. Welfare, 279 228 (n2) (nl3) lengthy period of development, 227 Castro v. State (California), 270 (nl2) language rights, 37, 51 (n5), 154, 3 0 2 - 0 4 Da Lomba v. Director of the Div. of as collective rights, 293, 293 — 96 Employment, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8)

Index Frontera v. Sindell, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 279 (ni 8) Garcia v. Gloor, 265, 270 (ni5, 16), 279 (ni 0) Gitlow v. New York, 278 (ni) Griswold v. Connecticut, 279 (n5) Guadalupe Organization v. Tempe Elementary School District No. 3, 268 (n5), 279 (nl5) Guerrero v. Carlson, 264, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) Gutierrez v. Municipal Court, 265, 269 (nl6) Hernandez v. Erlenbusch, 279 (nl2) Hunter v. Erickson, 278 Jara v. Municipal Court for the San Antonio Judicial Dist. of Los Angeles County, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) Jurado v. Eleven-Fifty Corp., 270 (nl5, 16) Katzenbach v. Morgan, 270 (nl7), 283 Lau v. Nichols, 186, 266, 2 6 8 - 7 0 (n8, 20), 279 (nl6), 282, 286, 2 9 0 - 9 1 (n7, 16) Lau Guidelines, 270 (n20), 286, 291 (nl6, 17) Lochner v. New York, 279 (n4) Loehde v. Gleis, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) Meyer v. Nebraska, 221, 264, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 271- (n24), 275, 2 7 8 - 7 9 (n2, 4), 282 Mulkey v. Hunter, 279 (n21) Nebraska District v. McKelvie, 282 Olagues v. Russoniello, 279 (nl4) Reitman v. Mulkey, 278 Soberal-Perez v. Heckler, 279 (n8) Stein v. Meyers, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) United States ex rei. Negron v. New York, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 279 (n7) Valdivia v. Chicago Northwestern Transp. Co., 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8) Yu Cong Eng v. Trinidad, 279 (n3) legislation, language. See language legislation Limited English Proficient (LEP) adults and voting rights, 192, 265 students, 1 8 8 , 2 0 9 - 1 2 , 2 1 6 - 1 8 , 2 2 8 (n2), 266, 268-69, 2 8 5 - 8 7 assessment, 286 — 87 linguists and language policy, 215, 227, 232

361

literacy, 86, 9 2 - 9 3 , 201 - 0 2 , 209-11, 219, 223, 2 2 7 - 2 8 (n3), 235 in Navajo language, 223 literacy tests as barrier to political access, 281 naturalization requirements and, 281 voting and, 127, 129-30, 137 (n3) Los Angeles bilingual election services in, 283 demand for English-acquisition programs, 2 1 0 - 1 1 primary language of school-age children, 3 2 9 - 3 0 (V: 5) LULAC (League of United Latin American Citizens), 60,115,297 Luxembourg, 30 Malaysia, 1 8 - 2 0 , 9 5 - 1 0 3 MALDEF (Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund), 115, 131 melting pot theory of assimilation, 1, 139, 305 Métis revolt, 54, 61 (n8) Mexican Americans, 184, 189, 327 (III). See also Hispanic Americans Meyer v. Nebraska, 221, 264, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n8), 271 (n24), 275, 2 7 8 - 7 9 (n2, 4), 282 migrant workers in Europe, 8 4 - 8 8 , 9 0 - 9 2 in U.S., 269 (nlO) militancy, ethnic, 36 minorities, 27—41, 48. See also language minorities elites within, 3 3 - 3 7 , 4 2 , in Canada, 53 — 60 in Europe, 78, 8 6 - 8 9 , 91 - 9 4 in Malaysia, 9 5 - 9 6 , 98, 100, 102 inU.S anti-minority sentiment, 133 — 34, 196 (n4) demographics, 195 (nl), 3 2 3 - 3 0 (V) dropout rates of, 211 - 1 2 , 285 growth of population, 152,188,200 leadership and organizations, 129 — 35, 213, 2 3 9 - 4 1 literacy of, 2 0 9 - 1 0 maintenance of language and culture, 304-05

362

Index

opposition to official English, 126, 128, 131, 153-55, 1 9 4 - 9 5 perceived resistance to acquiring English, 202,206,210,215-16 protections for language rights criticized, 262 schools, relationship with, 285—90 language rights, 58 — 60, 135 social mobility of, 3 2 - 3 3 , 35, 4 2 - 4 3 , 85, 89, 263 status of, 78, Minority Schools in Albania, 298 Mohave Tribe. See Native Americans monolingual ballots, 126,131,133 monolingualism, 2 9 - 3 1 , 8 3 - 8 4 , 8 6 - 8 7 , 94 among Asian Americans, 187 — 88 in Europe, 8 3 - 8 4 , 8 6 - 8 7 , 9 4 in Malaysia, 102 Western views of, 31 mother tongue, 43, 35, 49, 78 in U.S literacy/illiteracy in, 210, 2 2 3 - 2 7 maintenance, 186, 193 punishment for use of, 222 — 23 reported use in census, 195 (nl) instruction in Europe, 85, 87, 91 in U.S., 115,117,223-27 use in second-language acquisition, 223-27 multilingualism, 31, 5 6 - 5 8 , 83, 89, 139. See also bilingualism, language as problem, 31, 126, 131, 133 as resource, 9, 45 — 49, 298 conflict, 3 1 - 3 2 , 2 3 3 - 3 4 consequences of constitutional language right, 2 7 6 - 7 8 language protections, 292 — 93 protection of language rights, 53 — 56 Western views of, 31 nation building, 13, 22, 45, 4 7 - 4 9 , 83, 91-93 in Malaysia, 95 — 103 in U.S.S.R., 9 2 - 9 3 National Defense Education Act, 221 national language, 18 — 22, 262

national unity, 31, 3 3 - 3 8 , 4 1 - 4 5 , 83, 86, 94, 1 5 9 - 6 0 French measures to achieve, 86 language homogeneity as symbol of, 33, 36, 4 2 - 4 4 "National unity" argument for official English, 12, 24, 2 7 - 2 8 , 50, 58, 94, 111, 116, 122-23, 129, 134, 142, 153, 159-60, 261-63, 267-68, 288 Native Americans. See also Navajo Tribe, Pascua Yaqui Tribe, and Tohono O'odham Tribe Apache Tribe, 192, 195, 248, 3 1 4 - 1 5 (I: D) Arizona, Intertribal Council of, 247 bilingual education, 253 — 54 Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) schools, 239, 2 4 3 - 4 4 Cheyenne Tribe, official language policy, 248 cultural preservation among, 192—93 dropout rates of, 211—12 federal language-protection proposal, 3 0 7 - 0 8 (I: B) generational differences among, 193 Hopi Tribe, 46, 192, 196 (n8), 248 language maintenance among, 192 — 93, 216, 225, 237, 239-41, 249, 251 literacy in tribal language, 250 official language policies of, 193, 248 — 55 opposition to official English, 194—95, 247-48, 3 1 4 - 1 5 (I: D) Pima Tribe, 192, 248 proficiency in English, 212 Uto-Aztecan language family, 192, 255-56 voting protections for, 282 Navajo Tribe, 1 9 2 - 9 3 , 2 3 7 - 4 4 , 2 4 8 bilingual education policy, 243—44 demographics, 237 language policy of, 243—44 written language, 244 Navajo language use domains of, 239—43 Navajo proficiency and English proficiency, 2 2 3 - 2 4 , 2 3 9 - 4 1 school policy, 238 — 39 shift, 244

Index social uses, 242-43, 245 (n5) Nebraska. See also legal decisions on language official English measures, 6 (n3), 266-67, 269 (n9) language instruction in schools, 264-65, 2 6 9 - 7 0 (nil) New Mexico Asian American populations, 327 (V: 2) bilingual election services, 283 constitutional bilingualism, 191, 233, 322 (IV) demographics, 3 2 3 - 2 8 (V: 1 - 2 , 4) English-acquisition programs, demand for, 2 0 9 - 1 2 ethnicity of public-school students, 3 2 8 - 3 0 (V: 4 - 5 ) Hispanic American populations, 188-91, 327 (V: 3) statehood dispute, 1 9 0 - 9 1 , 3 1 8 - 2 1 (III) language use, 183-84, 209, 230-33, 3 2 3 - 2 5 (V: 1) Native American populations of, 192-93 official English measures, 211, 233 — 36 New York demographics, 323—28 (V: 1—4) English-speaking abilities of populations, 324 (V: 1) ethnicity of public-school students, 328 (V: 4) non-English-speaking populations, 183 official English measures, 4—5 Suffolk County, 173, 176 New York City poll, 1 6 2 - 6 6 official English, 35, 49, 5 7 - 5 8 , 1 0 2 - 0 3 attitudes toward, 1 3 9 - 5 0 , 1 5 7 - 5 9 education and, 143—45,171—73 media influence, 114-16, 151, 153, 155, 159, 2 3 0 - 3 1 political orientation and, 143—45,158, 163 polls/surveys, 162-75, 195 race and, 143-46, 158, 168-70, 194-95 religion and, 163, 165 sex and, 163, 167, 170-71

363

measures, 6 (n3, 4), 151-59, 171, 176, 211, 234-36, 263-64, 267, 2 6 8 - 6 9 (n6, 9) alternative proposals, 3—4, 234—36, 3 0 7 - 1 5 (I: B, D) arguments against, 115 — 16, 121 — 24, 153, 157, 268 arguments for, 12, 5 7 - 5 8 , 111, 115-17, 153, 155-56, 199, 206-07, 233-34 as protection of language choice, 262-64 as symbolic, 3, 11, 16, 20, 141-42, 146, 159-60, 166-67, 173, 176, 278, 302-04 consequences, 58—60, 139—42, 1 4 9 - 5 0 ( q l l - 1 5 ) , 166-67, 233, 247-48, 266-67, 284, 288-89, 292 (n32), 296-98, 3 0 4 - 0 5 constitutionality of, 277 - 78, 2 8 1 - 8 4 federal-level efforts, 3, 11, 197 (nl4), 265-66, 284, 307 (I: A) history, 1 8 3 - 8 4 , 2 2 1 , 2 8 1 - 8 2 implementation, 155 — 56, 158 — 59, 232-33, 2 6 7 - 6 8 legislation vs. referenda, 112 — 13 opposition to, 3, 115-16, 126, 128, 131, 153-55, 194-95, 268, 296-98, 3 1 4 - 1 5 (I: D) research and the debate, 215, 227, 232 state-level efforts, 2 - 5 , 1 1 - 1 2 , 113-19, 125-37, 262-63, 266-68, 284 successful measures, 113 — 17,125 — 37, 139, 154-57, 162, 171, 261-62, 266-67 wording, 1 5 1 , 1 7 3 - 7 5 , 1 7 6 , 3 0 7 - 1 6 (I)

movement in U.S as cause of conflict, 175 — 76, 233 — 34, 248 goals of, 301, 305 misapplication of the Canadian example, 3 8 , 5 8 - 6 1 , 2 2 0 , 2 9 8 opposition to bilingual education, 221-23, 266, 282, 2 8 8 - 8 9 support for bilingualism, 27, 116 — 17, 125-37, 139-47, 151, 154, 195

364

Index

official language, general, 9, 16, 18—22, 27, 30, 3 3 - 3 4 , 40, 49, 7 8 - 8 0 , 8 3 - 8 4 , 8 6 - 9 0 , 94 barrier to political access, 281 de facto, de jure official language, 261-64, 267 domains of use, 265—66 implementation, 73, 96, 155 — 56, 158-59, 233, 2 4 9 - 5 0 in India, 3 9 - 4 1 in Ireland, 7 1 - 8 0 in Malaysia, 95 — 102 national/common language comparison, 262 Native American policies, 193, 216, 247 — 55. See also Tohono O'odham Tribe and Pascua Yaqui Tribe Ohio, 270 (nil) Papago Tribe. See Tohono O'odham Nation Pascua Yaqui Tribe, 192, 196 (n8), 2 5 1 - 5 6 Arizona communities of, 256 bilingual-bicultural education, 253 — 54 language patterns of, 256 official language policy of, 216, 250—55 authority, status, 252 education and, 253 — 54 Language and Culture Commission, 253 orthography, 252 — 53 Pima Tribe. See Native Americans proficiency, language, 203 — 05 (tl), 209-12, 219, 223 English, 2 1 8 - 1 9 generational differences, 76—77, 189, 193, 203 Project LEA, 203 Puerto Rican Americans, 167 - 70,188 - 90 attitudes toward official English, 166-73 voting protections for, 265 Québécois separatism, 55 — 56 Quechua language, 19—21 regional languages, 84, 86, 8 8 - 8 9 , 91 Romansch language, 21, 90 Rubin, Joan, 13 Russian language, 92—93, 122

San Francisco, 185-86, 283 San Francisco Proposition "O", 112, 125-37 schools. See also bilingual education, education, instruction, language, teacher training community control and quality of education, 2 2 3 - 2 4 official language measures, 264 — 65 punitive language policies in schools, 223 second-language acquisition, 220—21. See also bilingualism, bilingual education, multilingualism first-language proficiency, 223 — 27 separate-but-equal status of languages, 60, 296 Separate Underlying Proficiency (SUP), 225 separatism, 5 5 - 5 6 , 89, 101, 220 isolation of minorities, 185 — 87,196 (n5), 206-07, 238 Sephardic language, oppression of, 206, 207 (n7) services, bilingual, 56, 58, 152, 156, 159, 166-67 Sierra Leone, 21 Simpson-Rodino Act. See Amnesty Act Southwest, U.S language maintenance, 189,192—93, 216 language patterns, 183-84, 217, 2 3 0 - 3 1 minority populations, 183—93 Spain, 83, 8 7 - 8 9 , 121 Spanish American League Against Discrimination (SALAD), 60, 297 Spanish language. See also bilingual education in Europe, 83, 8 7 - 8 9 in U.S., 112,116-17, 127, 133, 137 (nl), 154,159, 1 7 2 - 7 3 , 1 7 5 , 1 8 8 - 9 1 , 1 9 6 (n4), 2 1 5 - 1 6 , 2 3 0 - 3 1 , 3 1 8 - 2 2 (III —IV), 327 (V: 3) court translators, 274 discrimination, 274 — 75 employment, 271 (n36), 275 English acquisition, 202 —05 (tl—3) schools policies, 282 protections for Spanish speakers, 191, 233

Index shift to English and loss of Spanish, 202-05 varieties of Spanish, 168-70,189 Suffolk County, NY, 173, 176 Supreme Court, U.S. See also Constitution, U.S.; legal decisions on language rulings regarding elections, 282—83 rulings regarding language, 264 — 66,274, 282, 286 Sweden, 83, 85, 87, 231 Switzerland, 37, 83, 85, 9 0 - 9 1 , 296 Tanton, John, 112, 161-62, 177 (n5) teacher training, 6 8 - 7 1 , 89, 211, 223-25, 236, 254 immersion/submersion bilingual education, 2 2 4 - 2 5 Texas demographics, 183-84, 3 2 3 - 2 8 (V: 1-4) official English measure, 6 (n4) provisions for Hispanic voters, 270 (nl 8) language use, 1 8 3 - 8 4 , 1 9 9 - 2 0 5 , 3 2 3 - 2 5 (V: 1) TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language), 201, 208 (n3) Tohono O'odham bilingualism/multilingualism, 253 — 54 culture and language, 192, 253 — 54 Himdag, 2 5 1 - 5 2 , 2 5 4 official language policy, 216, 250 — 55 legal applications of, 254—55 opposition to official English, 247 transitional bilingual education, 218, 225, 2 2 7 - 2 8 (nl), 249, 2 8 6 - 8 9 Turkish migrants and immigrants, 84—85, 8 7 - 8 8 , 91, 231 United Kingdom, 83, 87 national language vs. official language, 18-21

365

"Unity" argument for official English, 12, 29 - 51, 55 - 56, 58, 94, 112,122 - 23,129, 134,142,153,159-61, 261 - 6 3 , 267-68, 288 U.S. English, 2 - 3 , 5, 11, 18, 22, 154, 157, 159, 161 - 62, 173 - 74, 176,177 (n5), 184, 188, 194 California efforts, 111-19 opposition to, 121-24,194 - 95 purpose and history, 111 — 12, 117 — 19, 161-62, 188, 196 (n9), 2 0 6 - 0 7 San Francisco Proposition "O" campaign of, 125-37 teaching programs, 118 United States, language issues in demographic trends and, 27,213 language conflicts, 49—51, 175 — 77, 233-34 U.S.S.R., 21, 9 2 - 9 3 , 122 Ute Tribes. See Native Americans Uto-Aztecan. See Native Americans Vietnam, 19 Vietnamese Americans, 185 — 88 voting bilingualism and, 54, 5 7 - 5 9 , 112, 114, 125-27, 129-34, 262, 265, 2 8 1 - 8 4 official English measures, 111 — 19, 125-37, 139, 145, 151-57, 162, 174 Voting Rights Act, 1, 125-27, 190, 264-65, 2 6 7 - 7 0 (nlO, 17), 2 8 1 - 8 3 White Americans, attitudes toward official English, 143-47, 153-54, 158, 168-70, 195 Whorf, Benjamin Lee, 47 — 49 xenophobia, 2, 84, 94, 126, 159, 176, 177 (n5), 275, 306 (nl) Yaqui Tribe. See Pascua Yaqui Tribe

m Language Rights and m m m m m m m m m m m m m m

the English Language Amendment 1986.14.8 x 22.5 cm. 212 pages. Paperback. ISSN 0165-2516 Volume 60 of INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE General Editor: Joshua A. Fishman Issue Editor: David F. Marshall

This special issue of IJSL has a focus article by David F. Marshall which examines the issue of an official language for the United States; the history of the fact that one was not originally established, the reasons why an official language does not exist to date, as well as the wording and ramifications of the Constitutional amendments thus far proposed in Congress to change the situation. The effect of such an amendment's ratification upon the language statutes in six selected states is also studied. These states were selected both for their language laws and the impact these have on their non-English-speaking citizens, as well as for their diverse stances to the questions of multiethnic and multilingual culture and its preservation. After reviewing the history of language rights in the United States, the proposed amendments, and the arguments for advancing them, followed by the effect such amendments would have upon the six selected states, this study suggests some possible avenues for legislation that might prove less volatile for the United States and its many diverse peoples. Some suggestions for arriving at a new federal policy are also proposed, as well as a new means for implementing language legislation on the national level. This study of the issue of an official language for the United States is followed by comments from 18 leading international linguists, and concludes with a rebuttal essay from David F. Marshall.

mouton de gruyter Berlin • New York