At war with diversity: US language policy in an age of anxiety

152 Pages·2000·0.5 MB·English

by  James Crawford

At War With Diversity
BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM
Series Editors:Professor Nancy H. Hornberger,University of Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia, USAand Professor Colin Baker,University of Wales, Bangor, Wales, UK
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Please contact us for the latest book information:
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BILINGUAL EDUCATION AND BILINGUALISM 25
Series Editors: Nancy H. Hornberger and Colin Baker
At War With Diversity
US Language Policy
in an Age of Anxiety
James Crawford
MULTILINGUAL MATTERS LTD
Clevedon • Buffalo • Toronto • Sydney
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Crawford, James
At War With Diversity: US Language Policy in an Age of Anxiety/James Crawford.
Bilingual Education and Bilingualism 25.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Language policy–United States. 2. English language–Political aspects–United
States. 3. Education, Bilingual–United States. 4. Indians of North America–
Languages–Revival. I. Title. II. Series.
P119.32.U6 C728 2000
306.44’973–dc21 00-064323
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 1-85359-506-3 (hbk)
ISBN 1-85359-505-5 (pbk)
Multilingual Matters Ltd
UK: Frankfurt Lodge, Clevedon Hall, Victoria Road, Clevedon BS21 7HH.
USA: UTP, 2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, NY 14150, USA.
Canada: UTP, 5201 Dufferin Street, North York, Ontario M3H 5T8, Canada.
Australia:FootprintBooks,Unit4/92aMonaValeRoad,MonaVale,NSW2103,Australia.
Copyright © 2000 James Crawford. Reprinted 2001.
Cover illustration by Rafael Cuevas Molina.
All rights reserved. No part of this work may be reproduced in any form or by any
means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Printed and bound in Great Britain by the Cromwell Press Ltd.
Contents
Acknowledgments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . vii
Introduction. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Anatomy of the English-only Movement . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Boom to Bust: Official English in the 1990s . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Endangered Native American Languages: What Is To Be Done,
and Why?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Seven Hypotheses on Language Loss. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
The Political Paradox of Bilingual Education . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
The Proposition 227 Campaign: A Post Mortem. . . . . . . . . . . . 104
References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 138
v

Acknowledgments
After 15 years of writing about language policy, I have amassed a pile of
intellectual debts far too large to catalog here. So I will restrict myself to
thanking, in alphabetical order, just a few colleagues who influenced my
thinking while I worked on the articles in this collection: Ed Chen, Mary
Carol Combs, Mike Croghan, Joshua Fishman, Michael Genzuk, Norm
Gold, Kenji Hakuta, Ken Hale, Leanne Hinton, Wayne Holm, Stephen
Krashen,PeggyLiss,RichardLittlebear,JeffMacSwan,TeresaMcCarty,Dan
McLaughlin,JeffMcQuillan,GeoffreyNunberg,CarlosOvando,JonReyhner,
LucyTse,LucilleWatahomigie,TerrenceWiley,andAkiraYamamoto.
Portions of this volume first appeared elsewhere in other forms:
‘AnatomyoftheEnglishOnlyMovement.’InD.A.Kibbee(ed.),1998,
LanguageLegislationandLinguisticRights.AmsterdamandPhiladel-
phia: John Benjamins.
‘EndangeredNativeAmericanLanguages:WhatIsToBeDone,and
Why?’ In Journal of Navajo Education 11 (Spring 1994); in Bilingual
ResearchJournal19(Winter1995);andinT.RicentoandB.Burnaby
(eds),1998,LanguageandPoliticsintheUSandCanada:MythsandReal-
ities. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
‘Seven Hypotheses on Language Loss.’ In G. Cantoni (ed.), 1996,
StabilizingIndigenousLanguages.Flagstaff,AZ:CenterforExcellence
in Education, Northern Arizona University.
‘ThePoliticalParadoxofBilingualEducation.’InSocialJustice25(Fall
1998); and in C.J. Ovando and P. McLaren, eds, 1999, The Politics of
MulticulturalismandBilingualEducation:StudentsandTeachersCaught
in the Cross Fire.New York: McGraw-Hill.
‘TheProposition227Campaign:APostMortem.’InBilingualResearch
Journal 21 (Winter 1997); and in R.D. González (ed.), in press,
Language Ideologies: Critical Perspectives on the Official English Move-
ment.Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English.
Allofthearticlesreprintedherearecopyright©2000byJamesCrawford.
All rights reserved.
vii
At War With Diversity

Introduction
America’s profusion of tongues has made her
a modern Babel, but a Babel in reverse.
Einar Haugen (1972)
Languageneednotbeapolarizingissue.IntheUnitedStates,itrarelyhas
been–certainlyascomparedwithrace,class,orreligion.Giventheright
conditions,however,thepoliticsoflanguagecanbejustasvisceral.Inthe
last two decades, these conditions have included:
• anincreaseinimmigration,mainlyfromAsiaandLatinAmerica,
transformingthelifeofnumerouscommunities,linguisticallyand
otherwise;
• a backlash against the civil-rights gains of the 1960s and 1970s,
leading to an emphasis on cultural and symbolic politics;
• an organized movement to limit the new ‘bilingualism’ by pro-
moting English-only laws in the name of national unity; and
• politicians seeking ‘wedge issues’to exploit for partisan purposes.
Americanshavehadrelativelylimitedexperiencewithconflictsover
language. For most of our history, the hegemony of English seemed
self-evident. Seldom did anyone perceive a threat from other tongues.
Languagediversitywasoftentolerated,occasionallyrepressed;mostlyit
was taken for granted. The US government hardly ever saw a need for
legislation,oranyotheraction,toregulatelanguageusage.Itsstandard
policywastohavenopolicyonlanguage,explicitlydefinedandnational
inscope.Statesandlocalitiesweremorelikelytoactinthisarea,some-
timestorefusebutfrequentlytoprovideaccommodations,suchasbilin-
gual instruction in public schools.
This history had less to do with any ideological ‘tradition’ on
languagethanwiththesocialphenomenonof‘Babelinreverse.’Likeno
othernation,theUnitedStateshasexhibitedapowertoattractdiverse
peoples and to acculturate them rapidly. Contrary to myth, however,
theprocesswasnotassimpleasepluribusunum.Asfastasimmigrant
tongues were depleted, generally by the third generation, they were
replenished by new arrivals. Non-English-speaking groups continued
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At War With Diversity