¿Only English? How Bilingual Education Can Mitigate the Damage of English-Only

Abstract

INTRODUCTION Pizza, por favor. These three simple words recently caused an uproar when Dallas-based pizza chain, Pizza Patron, launched a new promotion: free pepperoni pizza if you order in According a company press release, the June 5, 2012 promotion was the first in a series of immigrant-targeted events that Pizza Patron will launch this year to celebrate the brand's Hispanic focus and honor the positive force of change immigrants have made in communities throughout America. (1) Critics like Peter Thomas, chairman of the Conservative Caucus, which advocates as the language of the United States, denounced the promotion as punish[ing] people who can't speak Spanish. (2) Others even deemed the promotion racist. (3) Nonetheless, the marketing ploy may very well be the first promotion reward customers who exhibit linguistic diversity--whether it comes in the form of broken Spanish, first-time Spanish, or fluent Unlike Pizza Patron's promotion, English-Only rules in the workplace and the vast majority of acquisition programs in American public schools treat language diversity as a problem or a social liability. (4) This perspective is not surprising given that people are uncomfortable with language conflict, and linguistic outsiders naturally have feelings of disorientation, powerlessness and vulnerability. (5) The modern English-Only movement, (6) spearheaded by political action groups like U.S. English, capitalizes on this anxiety and lobbies for legislation that restricts the use of languages other than by the government and, in some cases, the private sector as well. (7) As a result of these campaigns, many states have passed English-Only laws, primarily targeting Latino and Asian immigrants. Some laws make the official state language, and others limit or bar the government from providing non-English language assistance and services. (8) As of August 2012, thirty states had identified as their only language. (9) On August 2, 2012 the House Judiciary's Subcommittee on the Constitution heard testimony regarding the latest incarnation of a federal English-Only bill: the English Language Unity Act of 2011 (H.R. 977), sponsored by Representative Steven King of Iowa. (10) The school and the workplace have become the primary battlegrounds of the English-Only debate. In recent years, the English-Only movement has spawned numerous so-called Unz Initiatives, (11) state legislation aimed at abolishing bilingual education by replacing it with acquisition classes, imposing a time limit on acquisition, and removing bicultural education from public schools. (12) In the workplace, employers justify English-Only rules with arguments that mirror the claims made by the Official Movement at large. Both argue that a common language is required for efficiency in a multilingual society and claim that an language will promote social harmony. (13) Studies have revealed that linguistically complex workplaces create pressure [on employers] 'suppress linguistic differences,' by implementing English-Only rules, because language, an obvious marker of changes brought on by immigration, 'crystallizes resentment and anxiety.' (14) While proponents of the English-Only movement have adopted a language-as-problem approach, opponents of the movement tend view language as a right. Critics assert that the constitutionality of Official laws is questionable, and courts have struck down particularly draconian English-Only statutes at the state level in both Alaska (15) and Arizona. (16) Courts grounded the respective rulings in constitutional guarantees of freedom of speech and equal protection, and the finding that the State had no compelling interest justify an infringement of these rights. (17) The Arizona court declared: [t]he Amendment's goal promote as a common language does not require a general prohibition on non-English usage. …

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