IN TUCSON, ARIZONA, LAST JULY, 76 HISPANIC IMMIGRANTS WERE sworn in as U.S. citizens. While the oath was administered in English, the surrounding ceremony was conducted entirely in Spanish. Last May, Florida's 13-member Dade County Commission unanimously repealed an English-only ordinance that banned the use of other languages in public meetings and most government publications.
Are these harbingers of a long slide into bi- or multilingualism and a culturally fragmented citizenry -- the Quebecification of America? There are those who fear so. "Whatever happend to the idea of E pluribus unum?" asks Robert Parker, chairman of Arizonans for Official English, an...