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Language Wars: The Future of Bilingual America

Explore the impact of language laws on immigrant children's education in California, questioning the dominance of English and the role of minority languages in shaping the state's linguistic landscape.

john-franklin
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Language Wars: The Future of Bilingual America

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  1. “Trigger Happy Idioms” y el idioma de la ley In the United States, conflicts over language persist, particularly in places with large immigrant populations. Having passed an initiative in 1998 that prohibits teaching schoolchildren in any language but English, Californians may be more cognizant of the possibility of "language wars" than other Americans. But Shell can imagine future scenarios with national scope. - Nell Lake

  2. California Prop 227 – “The Language of the Law” Chapter 3. English Language Education for Immigrant Children Article 1. Findings and Declarations 300. The People of California find and declare as follows: (a) Whereas, The English language is the national public language of the United States of America and of the State of California, is spoken by the vast majority of California residents, and is also the leading world language for science, technology, and international business, thereby being the language of economic opportunity; and (b) Whereas, Immigrant parents are eager to have their children acquire a good knowledge of English, thereby allowing them to fully participate in the American Dream of economic and social advancement; and (c) Whereas, The government and the public schools of California have a moral obligation and a constitutional duty to provide all of California's children, regardless of their ethnicity or national origins, with the skills necessary to become productive members of our society, and of these skills, literacy in the English language is among the most important; and (d) Whereas, The public schools of California currently do a poor job of educating immigrant children, wasting financial resources on costly experimental language programs whose failure over the past two decades is demonstrated by the current high drop-out rates and low English literacy levels of many immigrant children; and (e) Whereas, Young immigrant children can easily acquire full fluency in a new language, such as English, if they are heavily exposed to that language in the classroom at an early age. (f) Therefore, It is resolved that: all children in California public schools shall be taught English as rapidly and effectively as possible. Source: California Secretary of State. “English Language in Public Schools, Initiative Statute: proposition 227, Full text of the Proposed Law.” Sos.ca.gov. California Secretary of State. 26 June 2009 < http://primary98.sos.ca.gov/VoterGuide/Propositions/227text.htm>.

  3. US Census 2000 – California - Languages spoken at homeSource: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. California 2000: Census 2000 Profile. August 2002. 1 July 2009 <http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kprof00-ca.pdf>

  4. Self-Identification of English proficiencySource: U.S. Department of Commerce, Economics and Statistics Administration, U.S. Census Bureau. California 2000: Census 2000 Profile. August 2002. 1 July 2009 <http://www.census.gov/prod/2002pubs/c2kprof00-ca.pdf> • LANGUAGE SPOKEN AT HOME • Population 5 years and over . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31,416,629 100.0 • English only . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19,014,873 60.5% • Language other than English . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12,401,756 39.5 Speak English less than ″very well″ . . . . . . . . 6,277,779 20.0 • Spanish . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8,105,505 25.8 Speak English less than ″very well″ . . . . . . . . 4,303,949 13.7 • Other Indo-European languages . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1,335,332 4.3 Speak English less than ″very well″ . . . . . . . . 453,589 1.4 • Asian and Pacific Island languages. . . . . . . . . . . 2,709,179 8.6 Speak English less than ″very well″ . . . . . . . . 1,438,588 4.6 Only 20 percent of Californians over age five identified themselves as those who speak English less than “very well.” While self-identification of proficiency has its own inherent questions related to accuracy, this begs the question of whether this proposition is a “problem” to fix in the first place.

  5. CA – Languages Spoken at Home 2006

  6. Ferguson and Heath’s lens upon 227Source: Ferguson, Charles A. and Shirley Brice Heath, Introduction. Language in the USA. Ed. Edward Finegan and John R. Rickford. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2004. xxxiv-xxxv. Back to the Prop 227 law: • Whereas, The English language is the national public language of the United States of America and of the State of California, is spoken by the vast majority of California residents, and is also the leading world language for science, technology, and international business, thereby being the language of economic opportunity; Was / Will this law be true in the future for California? How will languages other than English (mainly Spanish) exert its language power over English when it reaches the minority majority?

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