[net.nlang] Official Languages

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.