THERE has been rising concern over immigration in the United States.This has prompted a wave of cities and states to try to make English the official language, USA Today has reported.
Related bills have been passed by houses of representatives in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Michigan. But the state senates have not taken them up. At least five cities and towns in the US have approved ordinances and eight are considering them. Twenty-seven of the 50 US states already call English their official language. Even the Spanish-speaking US territory of Puerto Rico calls English an official language, along with Spanish.
"This is the most action we have seen in about 10 years," says Rob Toonkel of US English, a group promoting English as the official language. "People are split on immigration. But on matters of assimilation, they agree that immigrants should be learning English." If immigrants don't learn the language soon after arrival, Toonkel says, many never will.
"English Only" legislation first appeared in 1981 in the US as a constitutional Amendment. This proposal had to be approved by a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate, and ratified by three-quarters of state legislatures to take effect. It would have banned virtually all uses of languages other than English by federal, state, and local governments. The US Senate in May voted to make English the national language. It declared that no one had the right to federal communications or services in a language other than English except for those guaranteed by law.
"English Only" advocates believe that native-language allowances discourage immigrants from learning English.
"We make it easy for people to come (to the US) and never speak English," says Louis Barletta, mayor of Hazleton, Pennsylvania, which passed an English Only ordinance in September. "We think we're helping them, but we're not." Barletta said.
He says the measures are not anti-immigrant. Critics disagree. "They're a way of putting immigrants in their place," says Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. Rumbaut co-wrote a study that found third-generation Americans of any ethnicity are rarely fluent in their ancestors' native tongue. What's threatened isn't English, he says, but Spanish.
Proposals vary but generally they say government business must be conducted in English, with exceptions for emergency services. Such proposals have been rejected in Kennewick, Washington; Arcadia, Wisconsin; Avon Park, Florida; and Clarksville, Tennessee.
"People know the key to getting ahead in this country is learning English," says John Trasvina, interim president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which opposes the official-English measures. He says it deprives people of the right to information about things such as prenatal classes and patient billing records in a language they understand.
NBC news political analyst Pat Buchanan says, "The elites in America now, do not believe in the melting pot. They think the melting pot is a form of cultural genocide. They think that people should maintain their own language, their own culture, their own faith, their own ethnic identity."
