davy (08/18/82)
#N:pur-ee:12900003:000:407 pur-ee!davy Aug 18 09:54:00 1982 I saw an interesting thing last night on the news......it seems that the senate voted something like 78-21 to endorse English as the official language of the United States. This all has to do with the new immigration laws, but, I'm sort of curious: if 21 senators voted 'no', what did they want our official language to be? --Dave Curry, Purdue E.E. Department decvax!pur-ee!davy ihnss!pur-ee!davy
mab (08/18/82)
Maybe they didn't want the US to have any official language ... Matt Bishop (decvax!pur-ee!csvax.mab)
smb (08/19/82)
As usual in such cases, there's a lot more to the vote than meets the eye. First, note that although the vote was on an amendment to an immigration law, the wording was that it was "the sense of the Senate that..." English was the sole official language of this country; thus, it isn't binding, and is purely symbolic. Second, the real issue is to what extent the United States will assist residents -- legal or illegal -- who don't speak English. There are a number of programs mandated by Federal law that require certain materials to be available in other langauges. For example, if a certain fraction of the voters in an area are non-English speakers, ballots and election notices must appear in their language as well as English. Other laws require that bilingual education programs be available in the public schools if enough students need them. Such programs have aroused a fair amount of ire. (It isn't just Spanish, either; some precincts in New York City have Chinese ballots available, for example.) Finally, there's a great deal of resentment in some areas of the country, especially Florida and Texas, about the influx of Spanish-speaking people. Apparently, the feeling is that "real Americans" are losing control of the state. In that context, the position of the 21 senators who voted against the bill is fairly clear: they're actively supporting such programs. Many of the others actively oppose them, but not a majority; thus, they put together a "flag, applehood, and mother pie" amendment that could draw lots of nice meaningless votes. As you asked, who could vote against English as the official language of the country? --Steve P.S. Let's try to avoid too many flames in *this* newsgroup about who's right on this issue; the question is politics, not language. Might I nominate net.misc?
wmartin (08/19/82)
Undoubtedly those 21 senators have heavy Hispanic, oriental, or other ethnic constituencies. This whole issue is based on court decisions which have required schools to offer curricula in Spanish or other local languages, and not force children to operate in English in school. Many people believe that such maintenance of ethnic solidarity, or catering to minorities, depending on your viewpoint, has ill effects for the long term quality of the sense of "nationhood" and patriotism for the United States. Up until recently, every immigrant or child of immigrants was routinely expected to learn English to be able to exist in the general American lifestyle. Even though ethnic neighborhoods permitted adults to live out their lives speaking only their "old-country" language, their children were forced into learning English in school. These court decisions have changed that, and this has upset some people. Hence the "official language" legislative efforts. Will Martin
wagner (08/21/82)
If they really want to make English the official language of the United States, they will have to start re-educating a large fraction of the population down there! Michael Wagner, UTCS
reed (08/21/82)
Thank-you Mr Wagner, Canadian Goodwill Ambassador.