Assemblyman Vows To Carry The Ball For English-Only Action

One of the principal backers of Proposition 63 — the English-only initiative that won overwhelming approval in Tuesday’s election — said Wednesday that he will ask the Legislature to require that driver’s tests, welfare applications, state university student aid forms and a variety of other state services be made available only in English.

“We’re going to have a whole lot of bills” along these lines, said Assemblyman Frank Hill (R-Whittier), honorary vice chairman of the California English Campaign, sponsors of Proposition 63.

‘Package Them All’

“If we’re not successful — and we might not be because the Legislature is still controlled by liberals — then we’ll package them all together, go back to our network of 60,000 volunteers, put it on the ballot and pass it over the heads of the Legislature,” he said.

Hill added, “The only areas where we will concede” that state services should be provided in languages other than English are public health, safety and justice.

Hill’s remarks seemed to confirm the worst fears of the minority groups and civil rights organizations that had opposed Proposition 63, which was approved by voters by a 73%-27% margin.

“We are expecting an avalanche” of lawsuits and other actions, said Jessica Fiske, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s office in Los Angeles.

Proposition 63 grants to any California resident or person doing business in the state the right to sue if the Legislature or state officials take actions to “diminish or ignore the role of English as the state’s common language.”

“I’m a little scared,” Fiske said. “I see the vote as having an undertone of fear — people have looked at the changing demographics and they have voted . . . out of a sense of panic.”

However, she said, lawyers for groups that opposed the initiative have not yet decided whether to challenge Proposition 63 on constitutional grounds, as ” too vague and overly broad” or to wait until some specific application of the measure is attempted.

Except for the proposals of Assemblyman Hill, there were few signs on the day after the election that supporters of “official English” were planning immediate moves to implement the initiative.

Stanley Diamond, chairman of the California English Campaign, official sponsors of Proposition 63, said: “I don’t expect much for the next couple of months — we’re going to let things settle down a little bit and reflect on where we are.”

Suggests Action

However, Diamond suggested that Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp scrutinize all California laws and regulations to see which ones need to be changed in light of the measure’s passage.

J. William Orozco, Southern California’s spokesman for the campaign, said he expects few “strong steps” to implement Proposition 63 in the near future. But he went on to say that school notices sent home in languages other than English “should be eliminated.”

Orozco said schools in Alhambra, where he lives, send home notices to parents in English, Spanish, Chinese, Vietnamese and sometimes Korean and added, “That should be stopped — if you continue to put crutches under people, they’re never going to learn English.”

Both sides agreed that bilingual education will be a major battleground when the Legislature meets next year.

Current bilingual education legislation expires next year, and Gov. George Deukmejian vetoed a Democratic-sponsored bill that would have extended the program for five years.

Hill and other legislative critics oppose the “transitional” method now used by most California school districts, in which non-English-speaking pupils are taught reading, mathematics and science in their native language, while at the same time improving their English skills with classes in English as a second language.

“We’re going to get away from teaching in the native language,” Hill said. “We’re going to teach ’em in English.”

But state bilingual education officials pointed out that an English-only approach would violate a 1974 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which said that pupils who do not speak English well must be offered special assistance, including instruction if necessary, in their native languages.

Sarah Gomez, assistant chief of the bilingual division in the state Department of Education, said it will be “business as usual in local school districts for the time being.”

“We have court mandates and state laws to follow,” Gomez said. “The kids in these schools are more important than some group that’s running around putting things on the ballot.”

Gomez said about 567,000 of the 4 million children in California public schools are enrolled in bilingual programs, 45% of them in Los Angeles County.

Supporters also said they hope that passage of Proposition 63 will lead to elimination of bilingual ballots — but again, they may be thwarted.

Federal law requires that bilingual ballots be made available in 10 California counties where at least 5% of the population does not speak English.

But Los Angeles and San Francisco counties are not among the 10, and backers of the initiative hope to curtail the use of bilingual or trilingual ballots in those two counties.

Roger Hughes, Orange County coordinator for the California English Campaign, said passage of the measure will “force the Legislature not only to look at bilingual education” but to spend more money to combat illiteracy.

Hughes said language arts classes in California frequently have 29 students, well above the national average and far too many to allow the teachers to assign frequent writing assignments.

He called for a reduction to 20 or 21 pupils per class, but acknowledged that this would be expensive and that there were few signs of support for such a move from either the Legislature or the governor.

Diamond announced that the six directors of U.S. English, the national organization that planned and financed the Proposition 63 campaign, had pledged $1,000 each to provide more English classes for adult immigrants.

“That won’t even pay for a short weekend” of classes, Diamond acknowledged, “but we hope it will be the beginning of a program that could raise as much as $1 million.”

Linda Wong, an attorney for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, called $6,000 “a drop in the bucket” compared to the $800,000 to $900,000 that was spent to gather signatures to place Proposition 63 on the ballot and then to conduct the election campaign.

“It’s just a lot of hot air,” Wong said.

John Tanton, the Petoskey, Mich., ophthalmologist who is board chairman of U.S. English, said the success of Proposition 63 would give impetus to a similar drive now under way in Florida and to the effort to adopt a federal constitutional amendment making English the nation’s “official language.”

“California is one of the trend-setting states,” Tanton said. “Things that happen there tend to sweep across the country.”



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