Language Policy

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Language Policy

• Cohens Chapter 6

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• There was no national language policy in the
  nineteenth century
• Spanish and German immigrants
• The use of German language
• Voting German immigrants votes
• With the growth of Southern European immigrants,
  the political and cultural calculations
  surrounding language policy change

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• 2. After the First World War
• Literacy Test Act 1917 passed by Congress
  requiring immigrants to be able to read English
  before being admitted to the United States.
  Congress passed the act over President Woodrow
  Wilson's veto.
• Special classes for teaching Englsih
• Elimination of the use of other languages in
  public education

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• By the 1920s the establishment of English as a
  dominant national language has been secured
• The reemergence of the politics of language
• The impact of the civil rights movement and the
  Supreme court decision on Katzenbach v. Morgan,
  384 U.S. 641 (1966)
• American citizens from Puerto Rico had the right
  to be provided with ballots in Spanish when they
  voted

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• Congress legislated the Bilingual Education Act
  of 1968 in order to mandate schools to provide
  bilingual education programs. This was the first
  time congress had endorsed funding for bilingual
  education
• Language Politics in 1970s
• Immigration and Language politics
• Lau v. Nichols, 414 U.S. 563 (1974)

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• The San Francisco school system failed to provide
  English language instruction to approximately
  1,800 students of Chinese ancestry who did not
  speak English
•   This failure denies them a meaningful
  opportunity to participate in the public
  educational program and thus violates 601 of the
  Civil Rights Act of 1964
• English as the official Language of the United
  States California Senator Hayakawas proposal of
  constitutional amendment in 1981

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