English-only legislation as a practical solution to multilingualism in the United States

English Only Legislation

Is 'English Only' Legislation a Practical Solution to Multilingualism in the United States?

English Only' legislation or none, multilingualism is as much a fact of American life as baseball and apple pie (and, in recent decades, formerly "foreign" sports like soccer). The real issue vis-a-vis multilingualism, it seems, is that of whether 'English Only' should be mandated as everyone's required 'public' (as Richard Rodriguez puts it in his essay "Public and Private Language") language. In practical terms, what that would mean is elimination of all bilingual (or multilingual) signs; ballots, etc. Everyone, in public, at least, would then speak, read, write, and conduct all public business in English only. Like many politically-inspired notions, 'English Only' legislation seems a neat and tidy idea, and makes a great sound bite. The problem with it in reality, however, is that people cannot be forced to think, much less to "be," in English. Language is, after all, not just words and sentences; it is also inextricably linked, from earliest life, to one's origins: family; identity; selfhood. Therefore, 'English Only' legislation is not the most practical solution to multilingualism in the United States. Today better, more lasting solution would be to somehow create circumstances, which apparently we once had in the United States of bygone decades and centuries, in which everyone, immigrants included, sincerely desired to learn English, in order to become part of mainstream America.

However, the mainstream America of earlier times (and this is not just a linguistic problem) no longer exists. And identity and selfhood, which immigrants to America once strove, but do not always strive as much today, to make American through and through, run much deeper than just words one speaks, reads, writes, and understands. A real solution to the "English Only' dilemma (although probably equally impractical within America today) would be to discover ways, if any still exist, of recreating the burning incentive immigrants once felt to learn English quickly and well, in order to assimilate into mainstream American life. Perhaps, in today's fragmented, fractured (politically; socially; ideologically; and in terms of race and class, not just in terms of language) America, those incentives, for myriad reasons beyond the scope of this paper, have vanished. That, it seems, is the actual problem in America today. Multilingualism is just a symptom of that problem.

Former United States Senator S.I. Hayakawa clearly believed, as he indicated in "The Case for Official English," that Hispanics in particular seem to resist learning and speaking English more than do other immigrant groups, and that this arguably holds them back in American life. For example, Hayakawa cites statistics that "50% of Hispanic youths in America drop out of high school, and only 7% finish college" (p. 447).

As Headden et. al. also pointed out, in 1995, "According to a [then] new U.S. News poll, 73% of Americans think English should be the official language of government." "It has always been taken for granted that English is the national language, and that one must learn English in order to make it in America" (p. 446). Further, according to Crawford:

As late as 1987, two-thirds of the Americans who responded to a national survey believed that English was the official language of the United States. In fact, the Constitution is silent on the issue. Since Senator S.I. Hayakawa first proposed an English Language Amendment in Congress in 1981, Official

English legislation has been considered in forty-eight states and adopted by twenty-one [emphasis added] (p. 1).

Yet language itself, as Rodriquez poignantly indicates, whatever language it is, does not ever exist in a vacuum. In "Public and Private Language," Rodriquez recalls how he was "a happy child at home" until one afternoon, well-meaning nuns from his school came by the house and tactfully asked his mother: "Is it possible for you and your husband to encourage your children to practice their English when they are home? (p. 444). Forever after that, as Rodriquez also remembers.".. The special feeling of closeness at home was diminished" (p. 445).

The truth is that one can learn a second (or third or fourth) language extremely well, but that language will never be as integrally, inextricably connected to oneself as one's first. Language continually reminds one (or not), and underscores and reinforces (or not) one's roots, identity, and authentic self. That is, I believe, the real reluctance of those who would cling, too stubbornly, it has been argued by Hayakawa and others, to their first, original tongue. That is also why much of the intimacy, energy, comfortableness, and fun instantly evaporated from the Rodriguez family atmosphere the afternoon one of Richard's teachers suggested to the children's parents that the family speak more English, and less Spanish, at home.

Along with one's language of birth (whatever it is) come feelings of being understood and accepted; and from those spring a sense of one's own selfhood and identity. In my opinion, that is the main, underlying, reason why 'English Only' Legislation is not a particularly practical solution to multilingualism in the United States (if multilingualism needs a "solution"). This is not because such legislation (admittedly) might not have certain public benefits, such as everyone' speaking and understanding one another in one way. It is, instead, because language, especially one's first, whatever it is, is like the tip of a huge iceberg, beneath which lie identity; cultural heritage, first loyalties, and sense of belonging.

Therefore, to mandate 'English Only' in public is, in effect, to mandate 'mainstream American' only (whatever that now is) at least in public. But even in public, one can still truly only be who one is, however fluently - or haltingly. Therefore, passing 'English Only' legislation, at the federal, state, or any level, would not actually decrease multilingualism. Instead, it would merely drive it 'underground', effectively making publicly 'banished' languages (e.g., Spanish; Vietnamese; Japanese, and many others) all the more cherished (and defiantly spoken whenever and wherever possible) by their native speakers, as a private, intimate, comfortable languages of the authentic self.