In July 1992 Senator Robert C. Byrd (D-WV) angrily suggested during
floor debate... that the United States should not continue
accepting immigrants mho speak no English. "I pick up the telephone
and call the local garage," Byrd said. "I can't understand the
person on the other side of the line. I'm not sure he can
understand me. They're all over the place, and they don't speak
English. We want more of this?" Later he apologized for the remark,
saying, "I regret that in the heat of the moment I spoke unwisely."
Is America in the midst of another backlash against foreigners? In
the wide-ranging controversy over multiculturalism that has
generated much heat in recent years, one of the most volatile
issues is whether the United States should reflect a dominant
English-speaking majority or encourage a multilingual culture. Tied
up with this emotional issue is a growing anxiety on the part of
many Americans about the new wave of non-European immigrants. "It
is not without significance," says S.I. Hayakawa, who was a founder
of U.S. English, "that pressure against English language
legislation does not come from any immigrant group other than the
Hispanic: not from the Chinese or Koreans or Filipinos or
Vietnamese; nor from immigrant Iranians, Turks, Greeks, East
Indians, Ghanians, Ethiopians, Italians, or Swedes." Raymond
Tatalovich has conducted the first detailed, systematic, and
empirical study of the official English movement in the United
States, seeking answers to two crucial questions: What motivations
underlie the agitation for official English? Does the movement
originate at the grassroots level or is it driven by elites? Since
1980, fifteen states have passed laws establishing English as the
official language -- Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California,
Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, North
Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia.
Three more laws, in Hawaii, Illinois, and Nebraska, predate the
current agitation. The official language laws in ten of the states
are wholly symbolic, but in the remaining eight they go beyond
symbolism to stipulate some kind of enforcement. Four states have
passed English Plus laws -- New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and
Washington. In addition some major cities -- Atlanta, Cleveland,
Dallas, San Antonio, Tucson, and Washington,D.C. -- have also
adopted English Plus laws or resolutions. Tatalovich hypothesized
five possible motivations for the official English movement: race
(hostility of the majority toward a minority), ethnicity (conflict
between minori-ties), class (reaction by lower socioeconomic
groups), politics (partisan or ideological backlash), and culture
(anti-foreign sentiment). His analysis is based on an eclectic
range of sources, from historical documents, legal records, and
court decisions to news accounts and interviews. In many southern
states where the issue has recently assumed prominence, he found
that support for the initiative is identified as a residue of
nativism. Tatalovich empirically shows linkage between support
today for official English and opposition in the South to
immigration in the 1920s. This study not only is definitive but
also is a dispassionate analysis of an issue that seems destined to
become even more controversial in the next few years. It makes a
notable contribution to the current debate over multiculturalism
and will be of special interest to sociologists, historians of
contemporary social history, linguists, legal scholars, and
political scientists who study public policy, minority politics,
and comparative state politics.
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