ROUND THE WORLD

New Delhi, 30 May 2006   

Official, At Last

Bush AND Immigration

By Dr. SAUMYAJIT RAY

School of International Studies, JNU

Oklahoma’s Republican Senator James M. Inhofe’s National Language Amendment to the new immigration reform bill in the United States Senate marks the culmination of a movement that began exactly 25 years ago. In 1981, Republican Senator Samuel I. Hayakawa of California introduced an English Language Amendment (ELA) bill in the U.S. Senate, aimed at amending the Federal Constitution to declare English as the official language of the Government of the United States. The bill died at the committee stage.

The Inhofe amendment, apart from declaring English as America’s “national language”, relieves the federal government from any obligation to provide services to citizens and immigrants in any language other than English and requires every immigrant entering the United States legally to learn English. It also recognizes the pre-eminence of the English language in the American society. The amendment passed with overwhelming support on May18. Even though it was a bipartisan measure, more Republicans than Democrats voted for it.

It is not the first time, however, that a house of the U. S. federal legislature has accorded official status to the English language. In 1996, in the Republican 104^th Congress, the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Speaker Newt Gingrich passed the Bill Emerson English Language Amendment Act declaring English the official language of the United States. Then President Bill Clinton had called the amendment “objectionable” and “in bad taste”. The Senate sat on it and the bill lapsed. Subsequent efforts to revive the bill failed.

The Inhofe Amendment also marks the culmination of years of painstaking effort by Official English advocates across the United States. The Official English movement—deridingly called the English Only movement by opponents—started when late Senator Hayakawa introduced his ELA in the Senate and followed it up by launching an organization named U.S. English in 1983. Supported by smaller Official English advocacy groups like ProEnglish and EnglishFirst, U.S.

English has been successful in getting English declared as the official language of government in 27 states. In all these states, Official English emerged as a ballot initiative, won more than 70% of the popular vote, and English became the official language either through a statute or an amendment to the state constitution. The 1996 legislation passed by the U.S. House of Representatives marked the first victory of the Official English movement at the federal level. The Inhofe amendment is the second.

The Founding Fathers did not regard it expedient to lay down in law what existed in fact. For all practical purposes, English was the official language of the United States. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence in English, the debates in the Philadelphia constitutional convention were conducted in English, the Constitution and the laws were framed in English, the Oath of Allegiance to the Constitution was also in English. But the Constitution of the United States does not stipulate English—or, for that matter, any other language—as the official language of the U.S. Government. Added to that were bilingual education and multilingual ballots, both of which seriously prevented immigrants to the United States from acquiring the English language.

The problem was compounded by unbridled immigration—both legal and illegal—to the United States in recent years. Most of these immigrants came from across the Mexican-American border, spoke no English, and settled down in certain areas in large numbers. Never before had immigrants entered America in such large numbers, and it was also the first time that so many immigrants came from one single country.

In 1999, El Cenizo, a small town on the Mexican-American border in Texas, banned the use of English and declared Spanish as its official language. Despite the hue and cry raised by Official English advocates and common Americans, then Texas Governor George W. Bush remained silent on the matter. So did then President William Jefferson “Bill” Clinton who, as Arkansas Governor, had accepted English being made the state’s official language.

The Official English movement has come a long way. From 1981 to 1994, Democratic majorities in both Houses of the U.S. Congress had thwarted its efforts to make English the official language of the United States. Though the Republican National Committee had seldom taken an official position supporting Official English, individual Republicans—Representatives and Senators—have always been in the forefront of the movement. In 1994, when Republicans regained control of the Congress after a gap of forty years, Official English became a priority. Undeterred by hostile charges of being nativist, racist, and Hispanophobic, the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives passed an ELA for the first time in 1996.

Republicans are still in control of the Congress, winning seven back-to-back majorities from 1994. Whenever an ELA was introduced in the House of Representatives even after 1996, it was done with overwhelming Republican support (and stringent Democratic opposition). Two-term Republican president George W. Bush, though, has never cared to make his stand clear on Official English; during the 2000 campaign he had said he opposed English Only, and rooted for English Plus. His constraints were evident: he belonged to a state (Texas) with a huge Hispanic population, and he could not afford to lose Latino voter support. A fluent Spanish speaker himself, he could not publicly oppose the public use of Spanish.

But never had the Official English movement called for a ban on the use of non-English languages (329 languages are spoken in the U.S.). The issue is not English only, but English primarily. The movement’s demand has always been that public and official use of English be made compulsory, private use of non-English (or, minority) languages voluntary.

It now depends on the U.S. House of Representatives to approve the immigration reform bill—of which Senator Inhofe’s National Language Amendment is an important part—which the U.S. Senate has already passed. With a Republican majority in the lower chamber, that should not be a problem. And then, if English becomes the official language of the United States through an amendment to the federal Constitution, multilingual ballots would be eliminated, and bilingual education would turn purely transitional. English would finally get official status in the world’s first English-speaking Republic.---INFA

 (Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)