California State University Sacramento - Statesman Yearbook (Sacramento, CA)

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MELEE LONE IELTS LEIS SF LEE TNL PE

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xo |]K@) Atel English Only Is Outdated Last Friday, a debate was held on campus over the movement to make English the offi- cial language of the United States. The de- bate centered around the question of wheth- er the United States should become, in law and practice, a country in which two or more languages share official status and are used widely in public life, business, education and government or, whether the primacy of Eng- lish should be maintained. According to con- cerned observers, (such as former Calif. Sen. §.. Hayakawa) for the first time in the Ameri- can experience, a large immigrant group may be electing to bypass the processes of accul- turation and assimilation that turned previous immigrant groups into English-speaking Americans. The group these people are refer- ring to are the Mexican, Puerto Rican and Cuban immigrants whose rapid growth in the United States has been on the increase since World War tl. The purpose of the English Only movement seems to be to do away with the possibility of bilingualism in our country, Opponents of bi- lingualism believe that the pride of national origin was not threatened by the “Americani- zation’’ process in other immigrant groups. They also believe that bilingualism opens the way to a new type of divisiveness in the na- Litelan Economics is another point raised by the supporters of the English Only movement. They contend that money is wasted on such things as bilingual education and separate ballots. However, in opposition to the English Only movement the old faith in America as a melting pot is being relaced by a growing number of people who believe in cultural plu- ralism. To these people, bilingualism in the United States is essential if we are to com- pete as a political and economic power ina world of bilingual and bicultural nations. The United States is probably one of the few countries (if not the only one) in the world in which competency in a second language is not required of school children. Americans are ethnocentric — while traveling abroad, we often expect people in other countries to know English rather than trying to learn their etarelercle (=e in addressing the argument that bilingual education is costly and leads to disunity, we must point out that studies have proven bilin- gual students do better in school. For exam- ple, one such study done at UC Davis found bilingual law students scored higher on their LSAT tests than their monolingual class- mates. For more information on this study and others, interested students and faculty can go to the Cross Cultural Resource Cen- ter. As far as the cost of bilingual ballots is con- cerned, is it not better to have them available than to disenfranchise a growing group of voters? The whole point behind bilingual edu- cation is not to do away with English and not require immigrants to learn our language. The point is for immigrants to learn English while retaining their mother tongue. Not only is the English Only movement really unnecessary, it is particularly distressing be- cause if it does succeed, it is only a hint of things to come. Monolingualism and mono- culturalism are things of the past. It is time for Americans to throw away their prejudices and ethnocentric attitudes and realize that being ‘‘American’’ does not only apply to English speaking citizens of the United States and that speaking one language can only Haniurelelane) 0) clelacblalliicicn Editorial Vote: 6-5 (from may 7, 1986)