At a Los Angeles hospital, the head nurse forbade workers to speak anything but English and urged employees to report anyone overheard using another language. The city council in Monterey Park, a suburb of L.A., ousted the trustees of the library for buying foreign-language books and magazines. The manager of an insurance company in Los Angeles ordered Chinese-American staffers to speak only English unless they were dealing with a Chinese- speaking customer.
These incidents and others like them occurred in the wake of California's adoption two years ago of an initiative declaring English the official language. Until recently language, which has sparked wars and altered national boundaries abroad, was not a political issue in this country. Now a growing number of Americans seem to feel their mother tongue needs protection. Voters in Florida, Arizona and Colorado have approved similar initiatives, bringing to 17 the number of states with such laws.
These victories have made U.S. English, the group that sponsored the initiatives, a formidable political force. Founded with the guidance of linguist S.I. Hayakawa, a former U.S. Senator from California, the 350,000- member organization is seeking a constitutional amendment making English the official language of the U.S. Says Steve Workings, the group's director of government affairs: "Language is one of the very few things we have in common in the U.S." U.S. English urges a written English-proficiency test for naturalization. It also advocates an end to bilingual ballots and an increase in funds for bilingual education, though only for short-term, transitional programs. Current bilingual courses, the group claims, fail students by weaning them from their mother tongues too slowly. "It is cultural maintenance, not language acquisition," says Workings.
Opponents of the official-English movement consider it to be no more than a socially acceptable way of tapping into xenophobic fears: fear of being outnumbered by immigrants, fear that jobs are in jeopardy from cheap labor, just plain fear of anyone different. Stewart Kwoh, executive director of the Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California, charges the initiatives are partly responsible for unleashing a backlash against foreign- language minorities. Colleen O'Connor, spokeswoman of the American Civil Liberties Union, says the initiatives shout, "You're here but we would like to make it difficult for you." Even conservatives like Arizona Senator John McCain oppose initiatives like the one just passed in his state. Says McCain: "Our nation and the English language have done quite well with Chinese spoken in California, German in Pennsylvania, Italian in New York, Swedish in Minnesota and Spanish in the Southwest. I fail to see the cause for alarm now."