Senate Majority Leader and presidential candidate Bob Dole obviously recognizes a popular slogan when he sees one. Monday, he became the latest advocate for making English the nation’s “official language.”

Official-English bills have been kicking around in Congress for years, and laws or constitutional amendments have been adopted in 22 states, including New Hampshire, Montana and South Dakota this year. The idea is simple and easy to sell. Unfortunately, it’s also a feel-good answer to a largely imaginary problem – that American culture is threatened by non-English speakers. Dole, for instance, said “ethnic separatism” threatens the nation.

Hardly. While 32 million U.S. residents speak a foreign language at home, the vast majority speak English as well. Only 0.8% of the population, hardly enough to be a menace, can’t speak English.

Census data show that nearly 90% of Latinos ages 5 and older speak English at home. And 98% of Latinos surveyed said they feel it is “essential” that their children learn to read and write English “perfectly.”

In fact, the vast majority of today’s Asian and Latino immigrants are acquiring English proficiency and assimilating as fast as did earlier generations of Italians, Russians and Germans. More than 95% of first-generation Mexican-Americans are English proficient, and more than 50% of second-generation Mexican-Americans have lost their native tongue altogether.

What would making English official mean? Dole didn’t say. He hasn’t endorsed any of the proposals pending in Congress.

But others have. The most widely supported, with 180 co-sponsors in the House and 17 in the Senate, would bar taxpayer funding of publications, forms and ceremonies in other languages and call on government to “preserve and enhance the role of English.” A hearing is scheduled Oct. 18.

Two other bills would require all government communications to be in English, terminate support for bilingual education and end the Voting Rights Act requirement that election ballots be available in other languages where there are heavy concentrations of minority-language speakers.

A fourth would write an official-English provision into the Constitution.

State and local experience suggests none of them would achieve anything of value. Even backers are hard pressed to cite positive results, for government is in fact overwhelmingly conducted in English already.

Meanwhile, anecdotal evidence suggests official English invites unexpected trouble. Hundreds of complaints have been filed against employers, shopkeepers, even bus drivers who cited official-English laws – wrongly – as grounds for firing workers or denying service.

A federal law would do no better.

The notion of barring native-language voting help to elderly immigrant-citizens, whom it was designed to help, is downright mean-spirited.

And bilingual education, except for minor financial support, isn’t even a federal issue. Done right, it helps children get started in substantive schooling while also learning English. Most youngsters in the programs move into regular classes in less than three years.

Where it’s done wrong, the states and school districts that control education – not Congress – will have to find an answer. And official English is not it.

In Georgia and Maryland this year, governors rejected political pandering and vetoed official-English bills. In seven other states, proposals failed in the legislature.

Official English is one more law we’re better off without.

Where English is official

Twenty-one states have declared English their official language(1):

Ala., 1990

Ariz., 1988

Calif., 1986

Colo., 1988

Fla., 1988

Neb., 1920

Ark., 1987

Ga., 1986

Ill., 1969

Ind., 1984

La., 1811

Ky., 1984

Miss., 1987

Mont., 1995

N.H., 1995

N.C., 1987

N.D., 1987

S.C., 1987

S.D., 1995

Tenn., 1984

Va., 1986

Hawaii, 1978

1 – Hawaii has two official languages, English and Hawaiian.



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