English-only movement

Sticker sold in Colorado demanding immigrants speak English

English-only movement, also known as Official English movement, refers to a political movement for the use only of the English language in official US government operations through the establishing of English as the only official language in the United States of America. The United States has never had a legal policy stating an official national language. However, at some times and places, there have been various moves to promote or require the use of English, such as in schools for Native American children in the past. There have been some language selection policies implemented at the state level.

Earlier English-only movements

In 1803, as a result of the Louisiana Purchase, the United States acquired French-speaking populations in Louisiana. In 1807, Louisiana adopted English as its official language in its constitution as a condition to admittance to the Union. After the Mexican-American War (1846–1848), the United States acquired about 75,000 Spanish speakers in addition to several indigenous language-speaking populations.

An 1847 law authorized Anglo-French instruction in public schools in Louisiana. In 1849, the California constitution recognized Spanish language rights. French language rights were abolished after the American Civil War. In 1868, the Indian Peace Commission recommended English-only schooling for the Native Americans. In 1878–79, the California constitution was rewritten: "All laws of the State of California, and all official writings, and the executive, legislative, and judicial proceedings shall be conducted, preserved, and published in no other than the English language."

In the late 1880s, Wisconsin and Illinois passed English-only instruction laws for both public and parochial schools.

In 1896, under the Republic of Hawaii government, English became the primary medium of public schooling for Hawaiian children. After the Spanish–American War, English was declared "the official language of the school room" in Puerto Rico. In the same way, English was declared the official language in the Philippines, after the Philippine–American War.

During World War I, there was a widespread campaign against the use of the German language in the US; this included removing books in the German language from libraries. (A related action took place in South Australia as well with the Nomenclature Act of 1917. The legislation renamed 69 towns, suburbs or areas that had German names.)

English and reasons behind English-only movement

In 1907, US President Theodore Roosevelt wrote, "We have room for but one language in this country, and that is the English language, for we intend to see that the crucible turns our people out as Americans, of American nationality, and not as dwellers in a polyglot boarding house."

ProEnglish, the nation's leading advocates of "Official English," summarizes their belief that "in pluralistic nation such as ours, the function of government should be to foster and support the similarities that unite us, rather than institutionalize the differences that divide us." Therefore, ProEnglish "works through the courts and in the court of public opinion to defend English's historic role as America's common, unifying language, and to persuade lawmakers to adopt English as the official language at all levels of government."

Another "Official English" advocate group, U.S. English, summarizes their belief with "the passage of English as the official language will help to expand opportunities for immigrants to learn and speak English, the single greatest empowering tool that immigrants must have to succeed."

The modern English-only movement

In 1980, Dade County, Florida voters approved an "anti-bilingual ordinance." However, this was repealed by the county commission in 1993, after "racially orientated redistricting" led to a change in government.

In 1981, English was declared the official language in the commonwealth of Virginia.

In 1983, Dr. John Tanton and U.S. Senator S. I. Hayakawa founded a political lobbying organization, U.S. English. (Tanton was a former head of the Sierra Club's population committee and of Zero Population Growth, and founder of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), an immigration reductionist group.) In 1986, Tanton wrote a memo containing remarks about Hispanics claimed by critics to be derogatory, which appeared in the Arizona Republic newspaper, leading to the resignations from U.S. English board member Walter Cronkite and executive director Linda Chavez; Tanton would also sever his ties to the organization as a result. That same year, 1986, Larry Pratt founded English First, while Lou Zaeske, an engineer from Bryan, Texas, established the American Ethnic Coalition.

In 1985, Kae T. Patrick, a member of the Texas House of Representatives from San Antonio was the lone supporter of his unsuccessful attempt to authorize English as the official language of Texas. His House Concurrent Resolution No. 13 died in the State Affairs Committee. Patrick said his resolution was more important than having a "state bird." In subsequent sessions of the legislature, the move toward Official English gained supporters, including Talmadge Heflin of Houston, but never enough members to approve enactment of a law.

In 1994, John Tanton and other former U.S. English associates founded ProEnglish specifically to defend Arizona's English-only law. ProEnglish rejects the term "English-only movement" and asks its supporters to refer to the movement instead as "Official English".

The U.S. Senate voted on two separate changes to an immigration bill in May 2006. The amended bill recognized English as a "common and unifying language" and gave contradictory instructions to government agencies on their obligations for non-English publications.

In what was essentially a replay of the 2006 actions, on June 6, 2007 the US Senate again voted on two separate amendments to a subsequent immigration reform bill that closely resembled the amendments to the 2006 Senate bill. Ultimately, neither the 2006 nor 2007 immigration reform bill has become law.

On January 22, 2009, voters in Nashville, Tennessee rejected a proposal under a referendum election to make "Nashville the largest city in the United States to prohibit the government from using languages other than English, with exceptions allowed for issues of health and safety." The initiative failed by a vote of 57% to 43%.

In March 2012, Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum was criticized by some Republican delegates from Puerto Rico when he publicly took the position that Puerto Rico, a Spanish-speaking territory, should be required to make English its primary language as a condition of statehood.

Criticism

The modern English-only movement has met with rejection from the private organization Linguistic Society of America, which passed a resolution in 1986–87 opposing "'English only' measures on the grounds that they are based on misconceptions about the role of a common language in establishing political unity, and that they are inconsistent with basic American traditions of linguistic tolerance."

Linguist Geoffrey Pullum, in an essay entitled "Here come the linguistic fascists" charges English First with "hatred and suspicion of aliens and immigrants" and points out that English is far from under threat in the United States, saying "making English the official language of the United States of America is about as urgently called for as making hotdogs the official food at baseball games."

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has stated that "English Only" laws are inconsistent with both the First Amendment right to communicate with or petition the government, as well as free speech, and the right to equality because they bar government employees from providing non-English language assistance and services. Many academics seem to agree. On August 11, 2000, President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 13166, "Improving Access to Services for Persons with Limited English Proficiency." The Executive Order requires Federal agencies to examine the services they provide, identify any need for services to those with limited English proficiency (LEP), and develop and implement a system to provide those services so LEP persons can have meaningful access to them.

While the judicial system has noted that the laws are largely symbolic and non prohibitive, supervisors and managers often interpret them to mean English is the mandatory language of daily life. In one instance, an elementary school bus driver prohibited students from speaking Spanish on their way to school after Colorado passed its legislation. In 2004 in Scottsdale, a teacher claimed to be enforcing English immersion policies when she allegedly slapped students for speaking Spanish in class. In 2005 in Kansas City, a student was suspended for speaking Spanish in the school hallways. The written discipline referral explaining the decision of the school to suspend the student for one and a half days, noted: "This is not the first time we have [asked] Zach and others to not speak Spanish at school."

One study of English-only statutes during the Americanization period (1910-1930) finds that the policies moderately increased the literacy of certain foreign-born children but had no impact on immigrants' eventual labor market outcomes or measures of social integration.

Current law

Place	English official	Other official language(s)	Note
Alabama	Yes	No	since 1990
Alaska	Yes	Native languages
Arizona	Yes	No	since 2006, 1988 law ruled unconstitutional
Arkansas	Yes	No	since 1987
California	Yes	No	since 1986
Colorado	Yes	No	since 1988
Connecticut	No	No
Delaware	No	No
Florida	Yes	No	since 1988
Georgia	Yes	No	since 1996
Hawaii	Yes	Hawaiian	since 1978
Idaho	Yes	No	since 2007
Illinois	Yes	No	since 1969; "American" official 1923–1969
Indiana	Yes	No	since 1984
Iowa	Yes	No	since 2002
Kansas	Yes	No	since 2007
Kentucky	Yes	No	since 1984
Louisiana	Yes	No	since 1811. French has had special status since 1968 founding of CODOFIL.
Maine	No	No
Maryland	No	No
Massachusetts	Yes	No	Since 2002, 1975 law ruled unconstitutional
Michigan	No	No
Minnesota	No	No
Mississippi	Yes	No	since 1987
Missouri	Yes	No	since 1998
Montana	Yes	No	since 1995
Nebraska	Yes	No	since 1923
Nevada	No	No
New Hampshire	Yes	No	since 1995
New Jersey	No	No
New Mexico	No	No	Spanish has had special status since 1912 passage of state constitution. See article
New York	No	No
North Carolina	Yes	No	since 1987
North Dakota	Yes	No	since 1987
Ohio	No	No
Oklahoma	Yes	No	since 2010. Cherokee language has been official within the Cherokee and the UKB since 1991.
Oregon	No	No	English Plus since 1989
Pennsylvania	No	No
Rhode Island	No	No	English Plus since 1992
South Carolina	Yes	No	since 1987
South Dakota	Yes	No	since 1995
Tennessee	Yes	No	since 1984
Texas	No	No
Utah	Yes	No	since 2000
Vermont	No	No
Virginia	Yes	No	since 1996
Washington	No	No	English Plus since 1989
West Virginia	Yes	No	since 2016
Wisconsin	No	No
Wyoming	Yes	No	since 1996
American Samoa	Yes	Samoan
District of Columbia	No	No
Guam	Yes	Chamorro
Northern Mariana Islands	Yes	Chamorro, Carolinian
Puerto Rico	Yes	Spanish
U.S. Virgin Islands	Yes	No

The United States federal government does not specify an official language; however, all official documents in the U.S. are written in English, though some are also published in other languages.

See also

• Bilingual education
• English language learning and teaching
• Languages in the United States
• List of countries where English is an official language
• Spanish in the United States

Further reading

• Lynch, William. "A Nation Established by Immigrants Sanctions Employers for Requiring English to be Spoken at Work: English-Only Work Rules and National Origin Discrimination," 16 Temple Political and Civil Rights Law Review 65 (2006).
• Olson, Wendy. "The Shame of Spanish: Cultural Bias in English First Legislation," Chicano-Latino Law Review 11 (1991).

External links

• U.S. English (advocates for Official English)
• Anatomy of the English-Only Movement, by James Crawford
• Institute for Language and Education Policy
• Lingo Jingo: English Only and the New Nativism, by Geoffrey Nunberg
• Iowa Passes "English Only" Measure (2/27/02)
• English-Only Movement: Its Consequences on the Education of Language Minority Children
• Language Legislation in the U.S.A.
• Statements and legal actions against English-only law by the American Civil Liberties Union
• English as the Official Language of the United States: Legal background and Analysis of Legislation in the 110th Congress
• Linguistic Society of American Statement on Language Rights