English-Only Rears Ugly Head

After reading this USA Today article today, I ask myself once again:

Why?

PUSH FOR "OFFICIAL" ENGLISH HEATS UP

By Wendy Koch, USA TODAY (emphasis mine)

Rising concern over immigration has prompted a wave of cities and states this year to try to make English the official language.

A ballot measure is pending in Arizona. Related bills have passed houses of representatives in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Michigan; the state senates have not taken them up. At least five cities and towns have approved ordinances; eight are considering them. The U.S. Senate included a provision in a pending immigration bill. Gubernatorial candidates in Kansas, Iowa, Oklahoma, Arizona and Idaho have debated the idea.

"This is the most action we've seen in about 10 years," says Rob Toonkel of U.S. English, a group promoting English as the official language. "People are split on immigration. But on matters of assimilation, they agree immigrants should be on the road to learning English." If immigrants don't learn the language soon after arrival, he says, many never will.

"We make it easy for people to come (to the USA) and never speak English," says Louis Barletta, mayor of Hazleton, Pa., which passed an English-only ordinance last month. "We think we're helping them, but we're not."

Barletta says the measures are not anti-immigrant. Critics disagree. "They're a way of putting immigrants in their place," says Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California, Irvine. He co-wrote a study that found third-generation Americans of any ethnicity are rarely fluent in their ancestors' native tongue. What's threatened isn't English, he says, but Spanish.

Proposals vary but generally say government business must be conducted in English, with exceptions for emergency services. Federal law requires that election information be available in other languages.

"People know the key to getting ahead in this country is learning English," says John Trasvina, interim president of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which opposes the official-English measures. He says they deprive people of the right to information about things such as prenatal classes and patient billing records in a language they understand.

Such proposals have been rejected in Kennewick, Wash.; Arcadia, Wis.; Avon Park, Fla.; and Clarksville, Tenn.

Some measures, several of which also set penalties for people who hire or rent to undocumented immigrants, have been challenged in court. Last month, an English referendum sought by Mayor Steve Lonegan of Bogota, N.J., died after the Bergen County clerk said Bogota had no authority to set an official language and the state Supreme Court declined to intervene.

Twenty-seven states already have laws making English their official language. According to the Census Bureau, eight in 10 U.S. residents speak only English.