November 8, 1988 should have been a day of celebration for English-only advocates. Voters in Arizona, Colorado, and Florida turned out in large numbers to approve ballot measures declaring English the official language of their state governments. This brought the total of such laws to sixteen, more than half enacted in the previous two years. To all appearances, the anti-bilingual forces had never been stronger. Yet for the leading English-only organization, these wins proved Pyhrric in the extreme. U.S. English lost its founder and chairman, its president, and one of its best known celebrity endorsers during the 1988 campaign. All were forced to resign in a scandal involving a leaked memo, organizational ties, and funding sources that revealed an agenda of anti-Latino prejudice.

The memo – actually a study guide on the impact of immigration in the United States – received wide coverage in national media, which highlighted its inflammatory language. Warning of a Hispanic political takeover through high birthrates, the founder of U.S. English wrote:

Gobernar es poblar translates “to govern is to populate.”… In this society where the majority rules, does this hold? Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? … Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down! … As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion? (Tanton 1986)

For many Americans, these disclosures shattered the aura of innocence surrounding Official English. Clearly, this movement was about more than reaffirming language as a totem of national identity. Its stated objectives of ethnic harmony and minority advancement were now hard to sustain, with U.S. English leaders cracking jokes about fast-breeding Mexicans.

Nowhere was the damage more evident than in Arizona, where editorial cartoons linked English-only proponents to Nazis and Klansmen. The initiative there was especially draconian – “This State shall act in English and no other language” (Arizona Constitution 1988) – and it polarized the state along racial lines. The measure, known as Article 28, passed with barely one percent of the vote. Immediately challenged as an assault on free speech, it was blocked by a federal judge and was later ruled unconstitutional by the Arizona Supreme Court (Ruíz v. Hull 1998). This version of Official English stressed restriction, not affirmation, calling on Americans to “defend our common language” against alien forces. Its agenda was transparent, no longer viable as a fig leaf for intolerance. Popular support for the movement declined accordingly.

In the mid-1990s, however, the American political scene was transformed by a resurgence of nativism and the election of the most conservative Congress in half a century. As immigrants came under direct attack by legislators, U.S. English no longer appeared so extreme. Its dream of a national English-only law now seemed within reach. In this new environment, the House of Representatives voted to designate English the official medium of U.S. government operations and to ban most uses of other languages by federal agencies and officials. But the bill fell short of victory when the Senate failed to act before adjourning for the year, and Republicans soon lost interest when the issue brought them no partisan advantage. They also began to worry about alienating Hispanic and Asian Americans, the fastest-growing sectors of the electorate. Although the legislation was reintroduced in subsequent Congresses, it was never brought to a vote. English-only advocates returned to esoteric issues, such as a hypothetical language policy for Puerto Rico, should the island’s residents some day opt for statehood. Hardly an engaging issue for non-Puerto Ricans.

English-only activism thus came full circle during the 1990s, from fringe-group status to mainstream acceptance to political marginality. After recovering from scandal, the movement nearly won its greatest legislative battle. Yet, by the end of the decade, its campaign for Official English had never seemed less relevant, as voters and politicians moved on to other concerns. This progression is instructive in the nature of the U.S. language policy debate, its premises, and its likely directions.

Disgrace and Rehabilitation
Until 1988, the English-only movement had expanded rapidly as an outlet for native frustrations. By seizing on language as a symbol of what troubled them about immigrants, Anglo-Americans could register a protest without seeming bigoted. Espousing Official English enabled them to strike back against diversity while maintaining a pose of fair-mindedness. Foreigners were welcome to come and share in the abundance of America, the rationale went, provided they met their responsibilities to blend in and adopt our language. John Tanton (1988), chairman of U.S. English and author of the notorious memo, invoked this principle in his own defense: “I am not a racist. I want to bring all members of the American family to share in our Thanksgiving feast – but I also want us to be able to speak to each other when we’re gathered around the table.” This appeal was less than convincing, however, from a man who recycled unflattering stereotypes about Latinos.

Disclosure of the Tanton (1986) memo had immediate consequences. Walter Cronkite, a member of the U.S. English advisory board, broke publicly with the organization, declaring: “I cannot favor legislation that could even remotely be interpreted to restrict the civil rights or the educational opportunities of our minority population.” He asked that his name no longer be used in U.S. English fundraising. Linda Chávez quit as the group’s president, calling Tanton’s views “repugnant ... not excusable ... anti-Catholic and anti-Hispanic.” The chairman himself was forced to resign following disclosures about his network of nonprofit organizations and their financial backers. The latter included foundations dedicated to promoting eugenics, limiting the reproduction of Third World peoples, distributing white supremacist tracts, and sponsoring research purporting to prove the inferiority of nonwhites (Crawford 1992).

In the scandal’s aftermath, English-only advocates not surprisingly found their message to be a harder sell with legislators and editorial writers. While many conservatives continued to support Official English, dismissing the charge of racism, it became difficult for moderates and liberals to do so. Even President Bush opposed the idea; in a television interview his wife, Barbara, condemned it as “a racial slur.” Between 1988 and 1995, just one additional state adopted such legislation – Alabama, hardly a bellwether for the nation.

These events also took a devastating toll on U.S. English itself. Infighting broke out between Tanton loyalists and detractors, leading to resignations and dismissals. Turnover of professional staff approached 100 percent annually. Fundraising suffered. The Internal Revenue Service opened an investigation to determine whether the organization was abusing its tax-exempt status by engaging in lobbying and partisan politics. By 1992, a financial crisis forced U.S. English to lay off employees and close regional offices.

Hard times, as well as the death of cofounder S. I. Hayakawa, brought factional strife into the open. When board members accused Tanton’s successor, Stanley Diamond, of misappropriating funds, he alleged that the organization had long engaged in “illegal [political] activities”¹ (Kaplan 1992). After being forced out, several of Diamond’s detractors tried to regain control of the organization by forming an Emergency Committee to Save U.S. English. The main effect was to air dirty laundry in the newspapers. Finally, embarrassed allies in Congress, led by Representative Bill Emerson of Missouri, insisted on a thorough house-cleaning. Diamond was asked to resign and former Representative Norman Shumway of California took over until a permanent replacement could be found. In 1993, Mauro Mujica, a South American immigrant, was named to head the organization.

Besides restoring stability, the new chairman’s mission was to repair the image of U.S. English. A lobby perceived as extremist had little hope of passing legislation. So Mujica worked to refocus its message on new themes, downplaying the threat of language conflict and emphasizing the benefits of English to immigrants. Soon he was running advertisements in national magazines under the headline “Why a Hispanic² Heads an Organization Called U.S. English”:

I am proud of my heritage. Yet when I emigrated to the United States from Chile in 1965 to study architecture at Columbia University, I knew that to succeed I would have to adopt the language of my new home. As in the past, it is critical today for immigrants to learn English as quickly as possible. And that’s so they can benefit from the many economic opportunities this land has to offer. ... On the job and in the schools we’re supporting projects that will ensure that all Americans have the chance to learn the language of equal opportunity.

By stressing the positive, Mujica hoped to defend a flank on which the organization had long been vulnerable. On the one hand, U.S. English was proposing to“encourage” immigrants to learn the language by terminating assistance in their native tongues. On the other hand, it was promising them no direct assistance in doing so. When an Official English initiative passed in California, it did nothing to help the 40,000 adults on waiting lists for English classes in Los Angeles alone (Los Angeles Times 1986). Instructional opportunities were scarce in other states as well. Yet, despite a multimillion-dollar budget for lobbying, U.S. English had never pressed for public subsidies to ease the shortage. When asked, it refused to support a federal effort along these lines proposed by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, insisting that the job of English instruction should be handled by the private sector. For opponents, this contradiction spoke volumes about the hypocrisy of English-only advocates. To advocate spending the taxpayers’ money on immigrants – even as a ploy – was obviously unacceptable to many U.S. English supporters. To keep contributions flowing in, Mujica had to find another way to demonstrate good will toward language minorities. So he revived “Project Golden Door,” a program of charitable donations to support English instruction in communities and workplaces. Although the effort committed only token amounts for this purpose, its public relations benefits were substantial. And, of course, it supplied a ready answer to the critics.

Conservative Restoration
As U.S. English repositioned itself closer to the center, the center was sliding rapidly to the right. A lingering recession and perceived “gridlock” in government had left voters in a dyspeptic mood. Striking back against liberal and moderate incumbents, they made 1994 the Year of the Angry White Male. Targets of middle-class rage included taxation, welfare, affirmative action, multiculturalism, and immigration policies – all deemed to benefit “undeserving” minorities at the expense of the dominant group. California confirmed its reputation as a trend-setter by adopting Proposition 187, an initiative that sought to bar the children of “illegal aliens” from the public schools and turn educators into virtual deputies of the Border Patrol (both provisions were struck down in court and never took effect). The same election swept Republicans to power in both houses of Congress, voicing a range of populist demands. Pundits proclaimed that a conservative “revolution” – or, at least, a major political realignment – had occurred. Republicans declared their victory a popular mandate to dismantle the status quo in Washington. There was talk of repealing decades’ worth of antipoverty and civil rights programs, reducing the tax “burden” on prosperous Americans, and taking a harder line toward immigrants, undocumented and otherwise.

Newt Gingrich (1995), the flamboyant new Speaker of the House, articulated these themes in a best-selling book, To Renew America. Prominent among them was a call “to impose the English language” on immigrants (p. 159). “Bilingualism” threatened “the very fabric of American society,” he warned. “A civilization is only one generation deep and it can be lost in a very short time. Insisting that each new generation be assimilated is the sine qua non of our survival” (p. 162). The Speaker signaled that his party planned to deal firmly with the “uncivilized.” Official English legislation, long thwarted by Democrats, would receive ample attention in the 104th Congress.

Soon his Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Bob Dole, climbed on the bandwagon. Preparing to seek the presidency, the senator needed to ingratiate himself with the right wing of his own party. That meant taking sides in what his rival Patrick Buchanan called “the cultural war.” At a convention of military veterans, Dole (1995) deployed the heavy rhetorical artillery:

English is the language in which we still speak to each other across the frontiers of culture and race. It is the language of the Constitution. It is the language in which we conduct our great national debates – an essential ingredient of democracy. Insisting that all our citizens are fluent in English is a welcoming act of inclusion, and insist upon it we must. ... With all the divisive forces tearing at our country, we need the glue of language to help hold us together. If we want to ensure that all our children have the same opportunities in life, alternative language education should stop and English should be acknowledged once and for all as the official language of the United States.

This statement, coming from a presidential contender, put the language issue back on the map. National media had largely ignored English-only activity since 1988. Now they rediscovered its relevance in connection with changing attitudes toward immigrants. A spate of news stories appeared on the impact of language barriers, particularly in the classroom. Many focused on the alleged shortcomings of bilingual education. Pollsters revisited the question of Official English and reported strong support among the voters³ Sensing a groundswell, members of Congress rushed to attach their names to half a dozen such bills; by the end of 1995, more than 220 had signed on as cosponsors.

Republican leaders sensed something else. Here was an issue that could further weaken the Democratic Party by driving a wedge into its multiethnic coalition. They knew that the prevailing hostility toward immigrants was visceral rather than ideological. It resulted largely from the irritants of daily life, to which liberals and moderates were hardly immune. Language evoked reactions that were especially emotional. This was true both among natives who resented bilingual accommodations by government, and among ethnic groups who resented their resentment. English-only legislation therefore posed a dilemma for Democrats. They could either appease members of the majority by compromising long-held principles on civil rights, or they could defend minority interests and accelerate white flight from the party. Republicans were spared such worries because their coalition included relatively few racial or linguistic minorities (Vietnamese and Cuban exiles being the prime exceptions). In strictly political terms, Official English seemed like a winner to Gingrich and Dole.

As a matter of policy, however, it remained problematic. The United States had managed without an official language for more than 200 years and English remained overwhelmingly dominant. Why was there now a need to restrict bilingualism? How could one justify a ban on certain kinds of speech in conducting the business of democracy? What would such a policy accomplish in practice, other than impeding government operations, offending the Bill of Rights, and depriving limited-English speakers of rights and services to which they were entitled? Why open the Pandora’s box of litigation that would surely ensue, not to mention the conflict between ethnic groups? Where were the facts to support such a radical piece of legislation? Answers to these questions were so scarce that several commentators dubbed Official English “a solution in search of a problem” (e.g., USA Today 1995).

There was, of course, a perceived problem. After decades of limited immigration, Americans were unaccustomed to language diversity. Tight quotas on newcomers adopted in the 1920s had gradually reduced the foreign-born population from 14.7 percent in 1910 to 4.8 percent in 1970. Then the pattern began to reverse itself. In 1965, Congress repealed laws that had largely excluded immigrants from non-Anglo-Saxon nations. The proportion of foreign-born soon doubled, to 9.3 percent of U.S. residents by 1996. Equally important, their countries of origin changed from primarily European to primarily Asian and Latin American (Hansen and Faber 1997).⁴ Suddenly nonanglophones were noticeable again. In some neighborhoods Spanish, Mandarin, or Vietnamese became the majority language. Relative to earlier periods, this was nothing out of the ordinary. But in the late 20th century, it was foreign to the life experience of most English speakers. Hearing other languages spoken freely in public seemed unnatural, even sinister to many Anglo-Americans, who feared that immigrants were no longer assimilating. English seemed to be losing ground to competitors, jeopardizing the nation’s sense of unity and purpose. A troubling situation indeed.

Such feelings were real, if ill-founded. Sponsors of English-only legislation sought to bolster them with what could be called the Babel argument. Testifying before a House subcommittee, Representative Toby Roth of Wisconsin claimed that “for one in seven Americans, English is a foreign language. ... I want to keep America one nation, one people. We must preserve the common bond that has kept his country of immigrants together for more than two centuries by making English our official language” (House of Representatives 1995a: 17-18). Though literally accurate, the Congressman’s numbers were misleading. It was true that in the 1990 census, about one in seven U.S. residents reported speaking a non-English language at home. But not only a non-English language. The vast majority were bilingual to varying degrees; just 3 percent of the population spoke English “not well” or “not at all.” Other Republicans cited with horror a census estimate that 323 languages were spoken in the United States.⁵ The figure was impressive, yet what did it prove other than the rich variety of immigrants and indigenous peoples? It revealed nothing about rates of anglicization. Wasn’t that the key issue?

To be sure, the number of minority language speakers has increased rapidly in recent years. As long as immigration continues at current levels, there is no reason to doubt that this trend will continue. Meanwhile, however, there is a stronger, countervailing trend toward bilingualism, as today’s immigrants seem to be acquiring English more rapidly than those of earlier periods (Veltman 1983, 1988). Considering the spread of electronic media and information technology, this should be neither surprising nor difficult to grasp. It is certainly not difficult to prove empirically. In 1990, there were 31.8 million U.S. residents (aged 5 and above) who spoke a home language other than English, a 38 percent increase over 1980. Yet there was an even faster increase – more than 100 percent – in the English fluency of minority language speakers residing in the country for less than ten years. Put another way, more than half of immigrants who had arrived during the previous decade spoke English “very well” in 1990⁶ (Waggoner 1995).

Even more impressive are the language choices of their descendants. A long-term study of second-generation immigrants in South Florida and Southern California, using a detailed survey far more precise than the census “snapshot,” found no threat to English whatsoever. To the contrary, by the end of high school, 72 percent of these children of primarily Hispanic and Asian immigrants preferred to communicate exclusively in English; only 16 percent were still fluent in their native language (Portes and Hao 1998).⁷ A remarkable degree of Babel in reverse.

The Case for Official English
Even assuming they could prove the opposite was true – that assimilation was slowing down – Republicans still faced a problem. No one disputed that all U.S. residents should be proficient in English; the issue was one of means. How could the party of “limited government” justify legislation to engineer social behavior? Conservatives had recaptured Congress by mobilizing voters disaffected with Washington for allegedly trampling the liberties of individuals and local authorities. If Official English was designed to coerce conformity in matters of language, wasn’t it just another “federal mandate”? Thematically, it appeared to clash with the Contract with America, a campaign manifesto in which House Republicans had promised to reduce regulations and red tape. At the time there would likely have been little trouble enacting a symbolic declaration of Official English, hailing the “unifying role” of the national language and calling on all Americans to learn it. But having pushed through such measures in states like California, to little effect, English-only proponents insisted on a law with teeth: a mandate to restrict the use of other tongues. The question was how to make this goal compatible with a conservative libertarian agenda.

Republicans’ answer was to portray government not as the cure for diversity, but as the source of the epidemic. English-only legislation would be a way to “reform” federal programs that allegedly encouraged dependence on other languages. Bilingualism was thereby redefined, from a demographic reality to a pernicious policy of Big Government. Accommodations for limited-English speakers were assailed as the cause of, rather than a response to, the growth of nonanglophone communities. The implication was that if federal bureaucrats would stop meddling with market forces and creating disincentives to assimilation, the “problem” would solve itself.

Thus Official English became part of the Gingrich gospel, another instance where government could unleash initiative by simply getting out of the way. Eliminating bilingual services would “empower” immigrants to learn English and make them productive members of society. Though hardly novel, the empowerment argument coincided for the first time with the rhetoric of a majority party in Congress. Republicans showcased this rationale at a House subcommittee hearing in late 1995. All eight witnesses were drawn from ethnic minorities, and all but one⁸ endorsed H.R. 123, the so-called “English Language Empowerment Act.”

The bill proposed (1) to declare English the official language of the federal government; (2) to forbid the use of any other language by its agencies, employees, and officers, except in limited circumstances;⁹ (3) to protect English-speakers against “discrimination” by federal agencies and programs; and (4) to invite lawsuits by any person who felt injured by violations of the English-only policy. Oral bilingualism was later exempted from the ban, but written communication by the federal government in a non-English language would be verboten, even by elected representatives.

While their testimonials varied in detail, each of the seven supporting witnesses articulated the same basic themes. We could never have made it without English, they insisted (though some appeared to speak no other language). Government was doing today’s immigrants no favors by providing bilingual assistance – or “linguistic welfare,” as Mauro Mujica described it (House of Representatives 1995b) – thus perpetuating the false hope that one could prosper in the United States without English. However well meaning, such policies had the effect of disempowering those they purported to serve. Ergo, Congress should eliminate disincentives to assimilation by requiring all public business to be conducted exclusively in English.

Again, however, there were nagging factual issues. Most obvious was the extent to which the government was currently operating bilingually. Only a handful of federal statutes, all enacted during the 1970s, mandated any kind of language accommodations. These involved court interpreters in some types of legal proceedings, bilingual staff at federally funded health facilities serving migrant workers, and voting materials in areas with significant non-English-literate populations (Dale 1984). Limited numbers of clients were involved. Of course, it was difficult to quantify the assistance federal agencies provided to limited-English speakers on an as-needed basis. But where was the evidence that such accommodations were preventing anyone from learning English, or that their elimination would have the opposite effect?

Suspecting a lavish expenditure of federal dollars, the chief Senate sponsor of Official English, Richard Shelby of Alabama, commissioned a study to determine the amount of materials being published in non-English languages. Congressional researchers were dispatched to review the output of the U.S. Government Printing Office (GPO) over the previous five years. They located about 400,000 titles, of which a mere 265 had been translated into other tongues. These were mostly informational pamphlets explaining Social Security benefits, health and safety precautions, tax laws, and tourist attractions (General Accounting Office 1995). The remainder – 99.94 percent of the GPO’s products – were published in English. If Shelby was disappointed, however, he concealed it well. The senator described the foreign-language printing as an “overwhelming” example of government waste (Associated Press 1995).

• How extensive were the needs for federal services in various languages?
• How important was it to provide translations, both to assist limited-English speakers and to advance broader goals such as government efficiency, public health, economic development, educational attainment, civil rights, due process, and the promotion of tourism?
• What balance should be struck between these benefits and the costs of producing certain publications in languages other than English?

If solving language problems were indeed the goal, answering such questions would be essential. Yet the legislators who championed Official English focused virtually all of their energies on denouncing bilingualism (the Babel argument) and extolling English proficiency (the empowerment argument). The most constructive role for government, they maintained, was no role at all, other than declaring its refusal to function in any language but English. As for the practical effects of the legislation – who knew? The important thing, explained Representative John Doolittle of California, was to “send a clear message to the country so that we can help people help themselves” (CR 1996: H9765). Yet no actual help, other than “sending a message,” was envisioned. It is hard to escape the conclusion that proponents had, at best, an incidental concern with formulating language policy. In essence, this was a political debate masquerading as a policy debate.

The political debate ultimately involved the social status and behavior patterns of immigrants. Were recently arrived Latinos and Asians a net benefit to the nation, or were they a burden to taxpayers and communities? Was it proper for government to offer them transitional help, or would that sap their initiative and eagerness to assimilate?

One side felt that immigrants should be guaranteed basic rights and services. Helping limited-English speakers to overcome barriers of language would enable them to advance economically and to participate politically. In the long run, giving them a stake in the system was likely to avoid a host of difficulties for everyone. A little generosity, in other words, would serve the national self-interest.

The other side objected to bilingual assistance on principle, arguing that we owed nothing to them beyond an opportunity to succeed. Having come here of their own volition, immigrants would have to make it through their own efforts, just as our hard-working ancestors had done. Learning English was the first test of one’s fitness to be American. Coddling newcomers with bilingual services might seem humane, but was in reality a cruel policy that would exclude them from the mainstream.

By the time the legislation reached the House floor, the “tough love” theme was prominent. Speaking for his fellow Republicans, as most of them prepared to cast votes in favor of H.R. 123, Representative Dana Rohrabacher of California addressed the immigrants who might be listening:

We care. We are the ones who care about every American citizen when we do not give them an easy way out, but we say, “Become part of America, we love you, we have caring in our heart. That’s why you should learn to speak English and that’s why we are doing you a disservice by making it easier for you to exist in our society without being able to communicate, without being able to be fully part of the economic system.” (CR 1996: H9765).

It was a familiar appeal in the 104th Congress. A day earlier the House had approved a final version of “welfare reform” – the so-called Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 – resolving to teach the poor self-reliance by taking away their food stamps, medical care, disability insurance, and other safety nets.¹⁰

While the stated goals of H.R. 123 may have sounded positive, its means were decidedly not. It included no funding or other means to teach English – only provisions to make life more difficult for limited-English speakers. In the words of Delegate Robert Underwood of Guam, the bill was “all stick and not much carrot” (CR 1996: H9766). Whether the stick would have the desired effect was a matter of speculation. Just as conservatives offered no proof that terminating welfare payments to pregnant teenagers would “encourage the formation and maintenance of two-parent families” (P.L. 104-193, §401), they could not show how banning bilingual services would “help immigrants better assimilate and take full advantage of economic and occupational opportunities in the United States” (H.R. 123, §101). Like the slashing of welfare programs, English-language “empowerment” was an experiment whose risks would be borne not by the government but by the disadvantaged persons who depended on its help. Supporters of H.R. 123 and its Senate version, S. 356, never assessed those risks. Nor did they address numerous warnings about the harm an English-only law might do.

The Case Against Official English
As Congress considered these bills, legal challenges to Arizona’s Article 28 were wending their way through state and federal courts. This Official English amendment to the state constitution, passed by voters in 1988, was nearly identical to the federal legislation. Both banned most uses of non-English languages by government agencies, public employees, and elected officials. The only major difference was that the Arizona measure, unlike H.R. 123, applied to oral as well as written communications. A federal judge promptly decided that Article 28 would have a “chilling” effect on the protected speech rights of state employees and declared it unconstitutional (Yñiguez v. Mofford 1990). English-only proponents appealed.

On October 5, 1995, two weeks before House hearings opened on the English Language Empowerment Act, the federal appellate court for the 9th Circuit issued a final ruling in the Arizona case.¹¹ It condemned Article 28 in even stronger terms than the lower court had used. Embracing the logic of an earlier language rights decision, Meyer v. Nebraska (1923), the court’s 6-5 majority held:

In our diverse and pluralistic society, the importance of establishing common bonds and a common language between citizens is clear. Equally important, however, is the American tradition of tolerance, a tradition that recognizes a critical difference between encouraging the use of English and repressing the use of other languages. Arizona’s rejection of that tradition has severe consequences not only for its public officials and employees, but for the many thousands of Arizonans who would be precluded from receiving essential information from their state and local governments if the drastic prohibition contained in the provision were to be implemented. (Yñiguez v. Arizonans for Official English 1995: 923)

Article 28 violated the First Amendment, the judges ruled, because it not only blocked the free expression of state employees, but also impeded the free flow of state services to limited-English speakers. They rejected suggestions that the amendment merely sought to regulate expressive conduct – the choice of a medium to articulate ideas – rather than the content of speech itself:

[A] monolingual person does not have the luxury of making the expressive choice to communicate in one language or another. ... To call a prohibition that precludes the conveying of information to thousands of Arizonans in a language they can comprehend a mere regulation of “mode of expression” is to miss entirely the basic point of First Amendment protections. (pp. 935-36)

The court was especially outraged by the idea of regulating communications between legislators and their constituents. “Freedom of speech is the foundation of our democratic process,” wrote Judge Melvin Brunetti. “By restricting the free communication of ideas between elected officials and the people they serve, Article XXVIII threatens the very survival of our democratic society” (p. 950).

Testifying on November 1 as the lone opposition witness to H.R. 123, Edward Chen of the American Civil Liberties Union reiterated the 9th Circuit’s findings of law and extended its constitutional arguments beyond the First Amendment. He warned that English-only restrictions would also violate “equal protection” guarantees under the Fifth and Fourteenth amendments, by “discriminating against an already disadvantaged and powerless minority” (House of Representatives 1995b: 26). Where such groups are adversely affected by state action, the Supreme Court has required legislation to meet standards of “strict scrutiny” – insisting that it be “precisely tailored to serve a compelling government interest” (Plyler v. Doe 1982: 217). For Official English, that proof was entirely lacking, Chen said. Proponents had demonstrated neither a need to restrict other languages, nor any connection between this policy and their stated goals of promoting English proficiency, national unity, and government efficiency. Such legislation would have difficulty meeting even the lowest standard of judicial review, a “rational basis test.”

Besides jeopardizing their current access to government, the legislation would foreclose any expansion of efforts to meet their language needs. Already, as Chen explained, the lack of adequate services meant hardships for many whose English was limited:

Even in California, which has the most comprehensive set of laws in the nation aimed at providing language assistance by governmental agencies, it is not uncommon for a Vietnamese cancer patient to wait for hours in a Bay Area county hospital waiting room until a translator is available, for a five-year old son of a Chinese-speaking couple to choke and lapse into a coma because emergency dispatchers could not understand their calls for help, for Latino earthquake victims to receive no assistance from relief workers who do not speak Spanish, for a Cuban immigrant to be shot and killed by the police because no officer was available to command him to stop in Spanish, for Spanish-speaking workers to be disproportionately injured by workplace toxic hazards because of the lack of Spanish speaking OSHA inspectors, doctors and warnings, or for more than 50% of limited-English proficient students in California to receive no instruction in their native language. The harsh reality is that language minorities remain underserved and the national resources devoted to foreign language assistance, particularly outside of public education, are relatively minuscule. (House of Representatives 1995b: 19-20)

Passage of a federal English-only law could only exacerbate these problems.

Equally troubling was the indirect impact of the legislation. State and local adoption of Official English measures had tended to foster intolerance, making ordinary citizens feel justified in practicing language vigilantism (Bender 1997). These episodes ranged from harassment of strangers on the street – “This is America; speak English!” – to exclusionist policies in employment and housing. Public officials also seized the opportunity to act on their prejudices, for example, by refusing to allow translators at school board meetings or barring foreign-language publications from public libraries (Crawford 1992). The trend seemed to accelerate in the mid-1990s, as Official English campaigns intensified:

• Business owners nationwide increased the use of speak-English-only rules in the workplace, defying guidelines of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (Fletcher 1998).
• Tavern owners in Yakima, Washington, refused to serve patrons who conversed in Spanish, posting signs such as: In the U.S.A., It’s English or Adios Amigo (Bender 1997).
• A judge hearing a child-custody case in Amarillo, Texas, accused a mother of abuse for speaking Spanish to her five-year-old daughter. “Now get this straight,” he admonished. “The child will hear only English” – or else (Verhovek 1995).
• Police in Yonkers, New York, ticketed a Cuban American truck driver for his inability to answer questions in English (Associated Press 1999a).
• In Huntsville, Alabama, the county assessor refused to approve routine tax exemptions for Korean property owners whose English was limited (Associated Press 1999b).
• Norcross, Georgia, authorities fined the pastor of a Spanish-speaking congregation for posting placards that allegedly violated an English-only sign ordinance (Verdes 2000).

These incidents were hardly isolated. Nor were their effects limited to the individuals directly involved. Language vigilantism stemmed from a growing sense among Anglo-Americans – no doubt encouraged by the consideration of Official English legislation – that it was now appropriate, or even patriotic, to police the behavior of linguistic minorities. Far from unifying diverse communities, such bills had precisely the opposite effect.

English Plus Alternative
The House floor “debate” on H.R. 123, which occupied most of August 1, 1996, was something of a misnomer. Confident in their majority, none of the bill’s supporters saw fit to answer the civil-rights objections, other than to insist that they were acting on the purest of motives – no racism here, just a desire to “empower.” By and large, Republicans defined the issue as whether immigrants to the United States should be expected to speak English, or whether they should be exempted from this requirement. “Why are we even debating this?” asked Jan Meyers of Kansas. “If any of us wanted to move to France or Japan, we would look awfully silly complaining about having to learn their local language. Why is it somehow a horrible violation of human rights to insist that people living here, and especially people who move here deliberately from elsewhere, learn our language?” (CR 1996: H9758).

Democrats were generally supportive. “Encouraging the use of world languages is critical if the United States is to remain a world economic leader,” argued Lucille Roybal-Allard of California, noting that 40 percent of large U.S. corporations found a need to hire bilingual employees (H9766). Pat Williams of Montana stressed that this was not only an immigrant issue. “Of these 300 plus so‑called foreign languages that we have heard about,” he pointed out, “almost half of them are native languages, indigenous languages to the original people of the United States, languages that were here hundreds of years before English” (H9756). Others said it was ironic to be passing an English-only bill just as international visitors arrived for the Olympic games in Atlanta. “Are we so insecure about our heritage that we have to lash out at other languages?” asked Cynthia McKinney of Georgia (H9752).

Few Republicans addressed English Plus directly. But most seemed to agree with Charles Cannady of Florida, who characterized the proposal as “government-sanctioned and enforced multiculturalism” (H9758). Their only concession was to accept a late amendment to H.R. 123 exempting the Native American Languages Act, a small grant program supporting language revitalization, from the bill’s restrictions.¹² The majority declined, however, to spare numerous other language services for American Indians, Native Hawaiians, and Alaska Natives.

[A]sk yourself, in an America where there are over 80 languages taught in the California schools as the primary language, not as the secondary language but as the primary language, in a country where in Seattle there are 75 languages being taught, in Chicago there are 100;¹³ this is not bilingualism, this is a level of confusion which, if it were allowed to develop for another 20 or 30 years, would literally lead, I think, to the decay of the core parts of our civilization. (H9768)

Looking to November, Gingrich was betting that the empowerment and Babel arguments would be a winning combination with white, middle-class voters. He counted on those gains to more than compensate for losses among linguistic minorities, who tended to vote Democratic anyway.

There was little suspense about the outcome of the legislation. The only questions involved its margin of victory and the number of lawmakers who would cross party lines. On final passage, Official English carried the House, 259 to 169. Eight out of 236 Republicans, mostly from diverse districts, voted against it; 35 of 198 Democrats, mostly from the South and Midwest, voted in favor (H9772).

Endgame
Until the House vote, the Clinton Administration had maintained its silence on H.R. 123. This led to speculation that the president might feel election-year pressure to go along, just as he acquiesced to the Republican welfare and immigration bills. After all, Clinton’s position on the issue had wavered over the years. As governor of Arkansas in 1987, he signed an Official English measure into law. Then he had second thoughts and asked the legislature to pass a new version that included a guarantee of “equal educational opportunities to all children” (Ark. Ann. Code §1-4-117). Speaking to a Hispanic audience during his 1992 campaign, Clinton offered regrets and excuses: “I probably shouldn’t have signed the one that passed, but it was passed by a veto-proof majority. I agreed to sign it only after we changed the law to make it clearer that it would not affect bilingual education, something that I have always strongly supported” (Ifill 1992). He failed to mention that bilingual education remains illegal in Arkansas under a 1931 law that authorizes fines of $25 a day against teachers who violate the English-only policy¹⁴ (Ark. Ann. Code §6-16-104). Clinton did, however, support an expansion of the federal Bilingual Education Act in 1994. The new law placed a greater emphasis on developing skills in students’ native language as well as English.

Now, with his reelection campaign in high gear, partisan considerations took precedence. With Official English, Gingrich had thrown down a gauntlet and the White House responded in kind. It issued a statement condemning H.R. 123 as “unnecessary, inefficient and divisive,” and threatened a presidential veto if the measure passed the Senate (Associated Press 1996).

Senate Republicans, however, took a more pragmatic approach than their ideological brethren in the House. Official English not only inspired less support, but encountered serious opposition from senators such as John McCain of Arizona, Pete Domenici of New Mexico, and Orrin Hatch of Utah. Though conservative, these Westerners had long cultivated Native Americans and more recently Latinos, whose votes were becoming decisive in close races. English-only measures seemed calculated to push ethnic minorities away from the Republican party. Speaking out against Article 28 in Arizona, Senator McCain said, “I don’t understand why we would want to pass some kind of initiative that a significant portion of our population considers an assault on their heritage” (Cheseborough 1988).

Many average voters appeared to see Official English in a similar light. Whether or not the legislation was racist in its intent, that was the message that speakers of other languages usually received. Why pass divisive legislation that accomplished so little of a practical nature? As House members returned from the Congressional recess in September, they reported back to Gingrich that the issue seemed to promise little if any boost for Republicans. Voters were feeling less angry and more tolerant than in 1994.

Immediately Official English disappeared from the Republican radar screen. No further action was taken by the Senate and the House did not complain. Bob Dole had nothing more to say about language, although by that time his presidential bid was doomed in any case. Not only did Clinton win reelection, but the Republicans lost numerous Congressional seats, as voters reacted against their “revolutionary” excesses. Presiding over a slimmer majority in the 105th Congress, Gingrich found it advantageous to project a more moderate image. While Official English bills were reintroduced, he made sure they never came to vote. Meanwhile, the Speaker’s own views seemed to evolve on the matter of bilingualism and civilization. Within a year he was asking:

Do you realize that there are two hundred languages spoken in the Chicago school system? That’s an asset, not a liability. You get Sally to speak Cambodian and Sally gets you to speak English. If they succeed, we give each of them a thousand dollars. We’d have kids practicing language seven days a week.¹⁵ (Klein 1997)

Clearly, the political factors that brought Official English into the Republican fold had changed. English-only lobbies now found themselves on the outside looking in. And what they saw was not encouraging.

Staunch conservatives began to desert the cause. In 1998, U.S. English and its chief competitor, English First, invested what remained of their political clout in an effort to block legislation authorizing a plebiscite on the political status of Puerto Rico. If residents of the island chose to become a state, they would no doubt continue to administer their affairs in Spanish – unless prohibited from doing so – and that might set an adverse precedent for Official English in the rest of the country. Other than ideologues, however, few Americans were worried about this hypothetical scenario. The House, led by a longtime English-only proponent, Dan Burton of Indiana, rejected English-only requirements as a condition of statehood. Ideology was forced to give way to substantive legislation.¹⁶

While these votes were proceeding in Washington, a more consequential campaign was raging in California. A ballot initiative known as English for the Children targeted bilingual education, the nation’s most extensive language assistance program, in the state where it was most widely practiced. The measure passed in June 1998, without the involvement of the major English-only organizations. Ironically, U.S. English had always hesitated to mount a direct attack on programs serving children. To avoid the taint of extremism, Official English bills usually exempted language instruction of any kind. Now the assault on bilingual education, launched in the name of “school reform,” appeared more mainstream than Official English.

Notes
1. Diamond later retracted this admission, which he made in a letter to the Internal Revenue Service that was reportedly never mailed. U.S. English did not lose its “charitable” 501(c)(3) tax status.

2. This was not how Mujica had identified himself on joining the U.S. English board. In an interview at the time, I asked him how he, as a Hispanic, felt about Tanton’s memo. The Chilean immigrant responded: “I don’t consider myself a Hispanic. I’m a Basque” (personal communication, 8 April 1992).

3. For example, a poll of 1,000 registered voters by Tarrance Associates found 73 percent in favor of declaring English the official U.S. language and 23 percent opposed (U.S. News and World Report, 25 September 1995). A poll by Luntz Research for U.S. English reported 86 percent of 1,208 registered voters in favor and 12 percent opposed (U.S. English press release, 18 September 1995).

4. In 1996, 44 percent of the foreign-born had originated in Latin America, 27 percent in Asia, and 17 percent in Europe (Hansen and Faber 1997).

5. No doubt this was a substantial undercount. Krauss (1995) estimates at least 50 more Native American languages than the 1990 census estimates.

6. In 1990, 52 percent of 8.4 million recent immigrants reported no difficulty with English; the comparable figure in 1980 was 41 percent of 5.3 million (Waggoner 1995).

7. “Second-generation immigrants” were defined as native-born with at least one foreign-born parent or foreign-born with at least five years’ residence in the United States.

8. As the minority party, Democrats were allowed to call only one witness, Edward Chen of the American Civil Liberties Union. The proceedings were stacked in a different way by Republicans in the Senate. At the first hearing of the Governmental Affairs Committee, which commanded the lion’s share of press coverage, only supporters of Official English were allowed to testify. Opponents’ arguments were heard three months later, receiving limited attention.

9. These included language teaching, national security, international trade and diplomacy, health and safety, census activities, criminal proceedings (but only civil suits initiated by the government), and “terms of art” from other languages (H.R. 123, §169).

10. This measure (P.L. 104-193), along with the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (P.L. 104-208), denied to legal “resident aliens“ many social benefits that were available to citizens.

11. The U.S. Supreme Court later vacated this ruling as moot because the plaintiff, María-Kelly F. Yñiguez, had left state employment (Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona 1997). In any case, it added, this was a matter that should be litigated first in Arizona courts. Soon after, the Arizona Supreme Court unanimously struck down Article 28 on constitutional grounds nearly identical to those of the 9th Circuit (Ruíz v. Hull 1998).

12. The potential impact on Native Americans became a key issue during Senate hearings on S. 356, chaired by Ted Stevens of Alaska. An Official English supporter, the senator was also known for his responsiveness to Native concerns. Indigenous groups from his home state and elsewhere stood firmly against the bill, with one exception. Representatives of ‘Aha Pünana Leo Inc., a Hawaiian immersion preschool, offered to support the English-only measure if Congress would exempt indigenous languages and increase funding to help preserve them. The group endorsed a 1984 position paper by U.S. English arguing that, while immigrants deserve no language rights in the United States, Native Americans are entitled to retain their ancestral tongues because they predate English (Senate 1996: 69-71). ‘Aha Pünana Leo submitted a revised English-only bill, complete with amendments targeting subsidies to its own activities (pp. 155-66). A deal was never consummated, however, as the proposal found no supporters among Official English sponsors. Meanwhile, it was roundly criticized by language minority advocates, including other Hawaiians.

13. Gingrich cited no sources for these figures. Not long before, the California Department of Education (1995) reported that bilingual teachers in that state were certified in seventeen languages – 96 percent of them in Spanish. In April 2000, according to Internet sites maintained by the school districts, the Chicago Public Schools offered bilingual programs in seventeen languages. But at that time Seattle schools had no full-fledged bilingual programs – only “native language support,” primarily in Spanish.

14. The Arkansas law, the most restrictive of its kind in the United States, no longer appears to be enforced. World War I-ear laws in six other states – Alabama, Delaware, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and West Virginia – also continue to mandate English as the basic language of instruction in public and (sometimes) private schools.

15. Apparently Gingrich was unfamiliar with two-way bilingual education, a pedagogy the Chicago Public Schools have helped to pioneer. In these programs English-proficient and limited-English-proficient students learn each others’ languages, and no one has to bribe them to do so.

16. For reasons unrelated to language policy, the Senate failed to act on the Puerto Rico plebiscite bill.

17. The level of support seems to be declining, however. A March 2000 poll by Zogby International asked: “Please tell me which of the following statements you most agree with: Statement A: English should be the official language of the U.S. and no other language should be permitted in government correspondence, including election ballots, in court hearings, or information related to social, welfare, and health benefits. Statement B: By not offering information in the immigrants’ native language, you are denying them their due rights to participate in this country’s democratic process and the means to improve their standard of living.” It found 52 percent in favor of Official English and 41 percent opposed (Reuters 2000).

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