propositions now on American ballots. Hispanic leaders argue that many of those who use the Spanish ballots are older people who learned English years ago and lost their proficiency. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund found that one-third of the Chicano voters it surveyed said they wouldn't have registered if bilingual ballots had not been available. Many Hispanics who support some bilingual measures resent the suggestion that they seek an entirely bilingual society. "You'd have to be a damned fool not to realize that English is the official language," says San Francisco Hispanic leader Ralph Hurtado. "If you don't speak English, you're a dishwasher."

Larger debate: Unfortunately, the educational issue of how best to learn English-whether bilingually (subjects taught in the native tongue) or through old-fashioned sink-or-swim immersion-has been obscured by the politics of the larger debate. Many Hispanics see bilingual education as a matter of cultural pride and ignore evidence that if it's applied too broadly some students will never learn English. Likewise, many Anglos view the program as a threat to the country-and forget that some instruction in a native language can be a useful educational bridge that helps keep students from dropping out.

In heavily Hispanic South Florida, the issue has become so inflamed that it now spills over into unrelated matters. A requirement that all high-school students take two years of a foriegn language in order to be admitted to state universities has been stymied, at least temporarily, by the state legislature-in large part out of misplaced chauvinism for English. Among those most opposed to bilingualism are blacks, many of whom believe the language barrier has helped lock them out of jobs. "First blacks were told they would succeed if they spoke good English," says State Rep. James Burke. "Then we were told we would succeed if we dressed right. Now they've added another ingredient. All you have to do is learn Spanish." A three-year-old ordinance establishing English as Dade County's official language is in no danger of repeal.

The Hayakawa backlash hasn't spread everywhere. It has missed south Texas, where bilingualism is firmly entrenched, and so far hasn't reached into the White House. In fact, Ronald Reagan may be moving in the opposite direction. Two years ago he attacked bilingual education as "wrong and against American concepts." Then last summer, in a speech before Hispanic veterans' groups, he endorsed the idea. The federal government now spends $139 million a year on bilingual programs. With an election approaching, politicians will have to weigh whether the "Speak \ English" movement is strong enough to risk offending Hispanics, whose political power is now beginning to emerge. But as the San Francisco results suggest, even many Hispanics believe bilingualism may have moved too far. Several states are now moving to an "English as a second language" approach in public schools, stressing mastery of English while recognizing that many students will need special help in learning it. Hayakawa's constitutional amendment may prove unnecessary, if leaders learn the language of compromise.

[From the Washington Post, Mar. 15, 1984]

VOTING IN ENGLISH

(By William Raspberry)

When Floridians went to the polls on Tuesday, voters in five of the state's 67 counties used ballots printed in Spanish as well as English. Maybe this concession to the state's considerable Hispanic population served to increase the number of participants, maybe not.

Whatever, if Sen. Walter D. Huddleston (D-Ky.) has his way, it won't happen again. Huddleston is sponsoring a constitutional amendment to make English the official language of the United States, a move that would require English-only bal-lots.

At first glance, the proposal seems illiberal, mean-minded and punitive. Why not allow Americans to vote in the language in which they are most fluent?

But Huddleston and other backers of English-only ballots insist that meanness has nothing to do with it. English, they say, is one of the things in this ethnically diverse country that binds us together. As former Sen. S.I. Hayakawa put it:

"The language we share is at the core of our identity as citizens, and our ticket to full participation in American political life. We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, of the marketplace, and of the voting booth.'

Hayakawa, who was wrong on any number of important issues when he was in the Senate, is right on this one. I wouldn't go so far as to demand a constitutional amendment to achieve his goal (the amendment process already is in danger of becoming trivialized). But the goal itself makes sense.

Not only does English serve a unifying function; not only does the government have no legitimate role in preserving foreign cultures; not only are multilingual ballots expensive (San Francisco spent an extra $73,389.37 for trilingual ballots and voting materials, according to officials there). English-only ballots also make pragmatic sense. Any American who is insufficiently fluent in English even to mark a ballot, is insufficiently fluent in English to know very much about the candidates and the issues in the election.

I wouldn't argue that no concessions should be made to Americans whose primary language is other than English. Bilingual education, for instance, makes some sense as one approach to the early schooling of children who do not know English-but only if the ultimate goal is fluency in English, without which it simply is not possi ble to participate adequately in American life.

No doubt the federal rules that required multilingual ballots, mandatory bilingual education and other similar concessions to America's newest immigrants were wellintentioned. But such misguided compassion runs a serious risk of making entry into the American mainstream more difficult, not less.

What is at issue is not a return to literacy tests and other devices clearly intended as barriers to voting. The question, really, is whether it makes sense for the government to require vocal instructions, and ballots in language other than English. I think not.

On the other hand, Huddleston's proposed constitutional amendment strikes me as overkill. If he and other supporters of English-only ballots including the California Committee on Ballots in English and the Washington-based U.S. English) are not motivated by meanness, why don't they simply back legislation to repeal there requirement that ballots be printed in languages other than English?

If Floridians decide on their own as long as there's no federal rule requiring it—to print some of their ballots in Spanish, why should Huddleston and Hayakawa care?

[From the Washington Times, Apr. 4, 1984]

AQUI SE HABLA INGLES

Statesmenship has been defined as the ability to both see problems before they become acute and then recommend realistic solutions. By that definition former Sen. S.I. Hayakawa is a true statesman. In 1981 he introduced a constitutional amendment making English the official language of the United States.

It is ironic that it took a Canadian-born naturalized American citizen of Japanese ancestry to recognize the danger to American society of creeping multilingualism. At first glance such an amendment might seem unnecessary. Everyone knows that English is the language of our country. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are in English. The debates in Congress and in state legislatures are in English. Our laws are in English, as are the rulings handed down by all our

courts.

Americans of every ethnic background take justifiable pride in the way this country has absorbed millions of immigrants from every part of the world who came here speaking little or no English. With rare exceptions, it took at most two generations for these people to master the language and become fully assimilated into the American mainstream.

But over the past 10 years or so there has been an accelerating drive to put other languages on an equal basis with English. In 1980, 36 counties in California spent almost $900,000 on bilingual ballots. The major force encouraging the erosion of English is the bilingual education lobby. Although it is principally Hispanic, evidence suggests that is speaks only for itself and not for the larger Hispanic community. Last year, for example, the Miami Herald took a poll in Dade County, which has one of the nation's largest concentrations of Hispanics. Eighty-one percent agreed strongly that "people who live in the United States should be fluent enough in English to use that language in their public dealings."

In Belgium, Dutch-speaking Flemings and French-speaking Walloons are often at each other's throats. Spain and Yugoslavia are tormented by strife and even terrorism between competing linguistic communities. In Canada, Francophone separatism is a continuing threat to national unity.

A common language is one of the great bonds of our national unity. Those bonds should be strengthened and protected. We strongly endorse those resolutions in the House and Senate that are intended to establish English unequivocally as the language spoken here.

[From the Christian Science Monitor, Apr. 20, 1983]

"YOU'LL BE A NOBODY IF THEY DIDN'T MAKE YOU LEARN ENGLISH"

(By Gerda Bikales)

I learned my fourth language-English-more self-consciously than I had learned my first (German), my second language (Flemish), and my third language (French).. As a young child in Nazi-occupied Europe, I had had to learn languages as a matter of survival. But I was nearly 16 by the time I landed in America, more easily embarrassed, more fearful of ridicule, too old to ever acquire the accent of the native.

Arriving without knowledge of English, I nevertheless learned it very fast. So did my friends among the immigrant students in my New York City high school. There were no special classes set up for us, only kind and encouraging teachers willing to make some allowances for a while.

Within a year, I was taking the dreaded New York Regents examinations. I took the foreign language Regents in German and French and received perfect scores that boosted my average in my weaker subjects. I did well in the algebra and geometry exams, which involve little knowledge of English. I got passing grades in English and American history, and 19 months after coming to the United States I managed to graduaté high school with honors, several college acceptances in hand.

My parents had a much harder time. For them, English was a mischievous tongue twister which even I cold not always understand. Yet they tried, and kept on trying. They wanted to become American citizens and had to know some English to pass the test. They also had to know the rudiments of American history, and something about the way American government operates. I had studied these subjects in school, and by the time I was eligible for citizenship I was well versed in them. But my parents had had little formal schooling in their native Poland and had no framework for relating events in American history to anything else. Nor had their prior experience with authoritarian governments prepared them for understanding the U.S. system-of governance. They spent days memorizing facts. I helped by roleplaying the naturalization officer, endlessly quizing them: "Who was the first president of the United States?" "Who makes the laws of the United States?" "What is the Constitution?"

My parents answered by rote. Sometimes they got confused; as when questions were posed differently, such as "Who was George Washington?"

I was not with them when near-disaster struck during testing. In his nervous state, my father could not produce the answers to some of the questions asked. When the examiner realized my father's predicament, he tried to help. He rephrased the questions and gave some broad hints. My father passed, after all.

Once they became citizens, my parents boasted of their achievement, especially to immigrant friends too afraid to apply for naturalization. Like the fish in oft-repeated fishing stories, the difficulty of the test grew with every retelling. My parents registered to vote, followed politics in the foreign language press that was their regular reading, and voted faithfully in primaries and general elections.

Yet in most other ways they were to remain on the fringes of the American mainstream. They lived in immigrant neighborhoods, socialized with immigrant friends. But they expected me to venture forth, the seize the opportunities, to do well in America. I tried to meet their expectations.

My own Americanization proceeded rapidly, far beyond where my parents could follow. After I learned English, I started to speak it at home, and conversation dried up. I had no time for religous observance. I became intolerant of my mother's cooking, which I found unimaginative and heavy.

America had estranged us, as it has generations of immigrant families before us. This was the cost of immigration none of us had taken into account in planning our new life here, and which we paid in tears and pain.

I often think of those years in the country we adopted, and which so generously adopted us. For today's newcomers, there is bilingual education, and voting ballots in foreign languages, and talk about dropping English as a requirement for citizenship.

I asked my parents, now retired, whether these accommodations would have helped us when we were newcomers. They where offended at the mere suggestion. "You would be a nobody if they didn't make you learn English right away," my mother lectured me, "and if we didn't have to work hard for our citizenship, would we appreciate it the way we do?"

I reminded my mother that they would have failed the test, were it not for the kindness of the examiner. She then reminded me of my high school teachers, who overlooked my shortcomings those first few months. And then my mother, who had lived as a refugee in a half-dozen countries, told me: "That's what's so special in America. They want you to learn American ways, but they don't make fun of you when you don't know. They give you a break, and they are willing to help you if you just try."

Right on, Mom!

[From the New York Times, June 3, 1984]

THE MOTHER TONGUE HAS A MOVEMENT
(By Francis X. Clines)

WASHINGTON.-What Darwin termed the "half-art, half-instinct of language" is about to be taken up in Congress. The Senate subcommittee on the Constitution has scheduled for next week the first hearing on a proposed amendment that would designate English as the official language of the nation. The measure, lost thus far in the legislative hopper, has been fashioned as a postscript to the words of the Founding Fathers because some see a threat of bilingualism growing in the land.

The lobbying group behind the movement, a small organization that calls itself "U.S. English" and claims advisory supporters such as Saul Bellow, Norman Cousins and Alistair Cooke, feels that some people already are ahead of Congress on the question. In an initiative sponsored by the group in San Francisco last year, 63 percent endorsed the idea that English should be the only language on ballots and voting handbooks, according to Steve Workings, the legislative representative of U.S. English. The group expects to have the same question on the statewide ballot in California in November, hoping for a nonbinding statement of disapproval of the Federal Voting Rights Act's mandate of multilingual ballots.

Critics are trying to treat the movement as a minor curiosity deserving few words. "Paranoia," is the one used by Representative Robert Garcia, the New York Democrat who heads the Hispanic Caucus. "It's silly," he says. "It's another of the crazy California movements, and that's no coincidence because California has one of the largest influxes of Hispanics and Asians." Mr. Garcia feels the proposed amendment is an elitist symptom of prejudice against politically rising ethnic groups.

Proponents say, to the contrary, that it is designed to stop the erosion of the traditional method by which immigrants are assimilated through the need to learn English. The proposal, they say, is mainly intended to spark national debate. In an election year, however, with politicians from President Reagan on down courting such voting blocs as the Hispanic community, little has been heard about an issue first raised by Theodore Roosevelt. "We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language," he declared.

In introducing the proposed amendment, Senator Walter D. Huddleston, Democrat of Kentucky, spoke of heading off "irreparable damage to the fragile unity that our common language has helped us preserve for over 200 years." Senator Quentin N. Burdick, Democrat of North Dakota, complaining that the Government has been overly accommodating to multilingual programs, argued that English has been forced to "take a back seat in the public schools."

Anyone approaching America these days through such coastal portals as the Hispanic and Asian ghettoes of New York or Los Angeles could make a case for the Hindu proverb: "Language changes every 18 or 20 miles." But Representative Garcia argues that the larger point is that multilingual accommodation has made newcomers far better versed in civic issues than in older times when, he says, lack of fluency in English walled immigrants off from political power." This is a different world now," he says. "New York has two Spanish dailies, four weeklies, a half dozen magazines. Hispanic communities in places like Texas and California are saturated with media and are well informed on the issues." Indeed, in New York as in other states various agencies have recognized the right of citizens to documents and proceedings they can understand. Consumer credit transactions, for example, must be

written in Spanish and in English, and the Labor Department offers translations of hearings on unemloyment benefits.

In response, the movement cites its founder, former Senator S.I. Hayakawa, the California Republican and semanticist: "We can speak any language we want at the dinner table, but English is the language of public discourse, of the marketplace and of the voting booth." Amendment proponents say bilingualism is helpful as a "transitional" means of assimilation, but that the Government's official blessing of it in recent years is challenging the primary of English.

Slow progress is being made, by the accounting of U.S. English, which celebrated in March when Indiana joined Kentucky, Nebraska, Illinois, and Virginia in designating English as the state's official language. The group requires board members to be proficient in a second language to demonstrate that it does not stand against pluralism, only against Government encouragement of language barriers. "We do not want to appear chauvinistic about our cause," says Mr. Workings, who has been studying Spanish even as he plumps for English.

Senator HATCH. I have a terrible problem. I have been asked to be at the majority leader's office by 11:40, and I just do not know what to do, other than to start with your testimony, Ms. Bikales, and if you could summarize, it would be appreciated, but if you cannot, I will have to recess until I can get back, and I have another appointment at 12 noon.

So let us see how far we can go, OK? I do not want to cut you short, because I think this is very important, but if you can summarize, it would be appreciated by the Chair.

STATEMENT OF GERDA BIKALES, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, U.S. ENGLISH, WASHINGTON, DC, AND ARNOLDO S. TORRES, NATIONAL EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, THE LEAGUE OF UNITED LATIN AMERICAN CITIZENS, WASHINGTON, DC

Ms. BIKALES. Thank you.

[Witness proceeds with testimony in French.]

Ms. BIKALES. Now, not wishing to be cited for contempt of Congress

Senator HATCH. You do not have to worry about that. You speak excellent French.

Ms. BIKALES. Having made the point that I think it is better to speak one language, and we can understand each other directly, I will see how far we can go.

I just want to repeat in English at this time that we appreciate greatly this opportunity to participate in what we consider a historic debate on the language future of this nation. It is indeed fitting that it takes place today, for in 3 years, we will be celebrating the bicentennial of the Constitution. This occasion calls for a philosophic reexamination of the true meaning of this durable document which so eloquently articulates the American credo of individual freedom under the rule of law. The ideas they express are imprinted on the psyche of our people, and they are our permanent guarantee that as Americans, we shall never live under arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable rule.

In their wisdom, the drafters of the Constitution made the amendment process difficult. They saw to it that our national charter would not be changed lightly, but only for reasons of genuine national need, through a process of public debate and consensusbuilding. That is what brings us here today in this prestigious forum, to consider an amendment that is both practical and ideological-practical because it will assure that we will continue to