U.S. English

U.S. English claims that it is "the nation's oldest, largest citizens' action group dedicated to preserving the unifying role of the English language in the United States." It was founded in 1983 by John Tanton and the late U.S. Senator S.I. Hayakawa (R-Cal.). (1) (2) (4)

Advisory board members include: Jacques Barzun, Saul Bellow, Midge Decter, Mrs. Richard DeVos, George Gilder, Dinesh Desai, Nathan Glazer, Charlton Heston, former Sen. Eugene McCarthy, Arnold Palmer, Norman Podhoretz, Donald Ross, James Schlesinger, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Charles E. Scripps. Chairman of the board and chief executive officer is Mauro E. Mujico.(3)

Closely related to U.S. English, Inc. is the U.S. English Foundation, which has the same advisory board and chief executive officer. The foundation "disseminates information on English teaching methods, sponsors educational programs, develops English instructional materials, represents the interests of Official English advocates before state and federal courts and promotes opportunities for people living in the United States to learn English." Among the objectives of the foundation are: "to help improve the teaching of English to immigrants," "to study language policy around the world," and "to raise public awareness through the media about the importance of our common language." (6)

U.S. English, which claims to have 1.8 million members, says that "the passage of English as the official language will help to expand opportunities for immigrants to learn and speak English, the single greatest empowering tool that immigrants must have to succeed." Its Legal Defense Fund "has been defending the cause of official English in multiple federal and state courts across the nation."

U.S. English projects a moderate, humanitarian image, disassociating itself from the anti-immigration, eugenics, and nativist groups and individuals with which it was closely linked in its early years, while the organization maintains its language restrictionist agenda. The presence of prominent right-wing and neoconservative members of its advisory board, such as Midge Decter, Jacques Barzun, Nathan Glazer, Mrs. Richard DeVos, Norman Podhoretz, and James Schlesinger, situate U.S. English in the right-wing's network of policy advocacy groups.

Origins and Impact

Critics and many supporters call the movement to make English the official language of government and public discourse in the United States the "English-only" movement. However, the leading national organizations-U.S. English, ProEnglish, and English First-insist on the term "official language" rather than "English-only." The movement grew out of the anti-immigration, anti-bilingual education, and anti-affirmative action movements of the late 1970s.

Although the "official language" movement is today largely associated with right-wing organizations, some with close ties to the Republican Party, it emerged not from the New Right but a small sector of environmentalists and population control advocates who by the late 1970s focused on immigration flows as the main threat to environmental and social stability in the United States. John Tanton, the principal force behind the creation of U.S. English in 1983, had founded the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) in 1979 after Zero Population Growth refused to focus on immigration restriction as a top policy priority. When Tanton founded U.S. English in 1983, along with S.I. Hayakawa, he installed Gerda Bikales (who had been working at FAIR) as the organization's first executive director. Today, U.S. English lists Hayakawa as the organization's founder, omitting any mention of Tanton. However, Hayakawa, while a cofounder, functioned largely in an honorary capacity, and although an immigrant himself, Hayakawa was also a controversial figure. A professor of semantics, Hayakawa was a strong proponent of English only legislation, was a strident critic of anti-war protestors when he was president of San Francisco State University, and took many controversial political positions, including defending the U.S. government's policy of interning Japanese Americas during World War II. (4)

U.S. English takes credit for the steady advance of official language bills in state governments. Today, 27 states have legislated that English is the official language, and U.S. English has worked closely with most of the state campaigns since its founding in 1983. U.S. English together with its associated foundation not only engage in education efforts but also have a legal advocacy and research team that promotes official English legislation. (7) One of the most recent cases in which U.S. English was involved concerned a challenge to overturn the official language law in Alabama, which the U.S. Supreme Court rejected by a five to four margin, "which was a tremendous victory for Official English." (8)

According to U.S. English, the following states have English-only laws (7):

According to James Crawford, a scholar who has written extensively on the English-only movement, investigation of the internal documents, funding sources, and institutional ties of U.S. English "reveals a covert agenda: determination to resist racial and cultural diversity in the United States. Consider the close, but frequently denied, connections between language restrictionists and immigration restrictionists. At one time or another, U.S. English and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) have shared a suite of offices, a general counsel, a direct-mail wizard, a political-action-committee director, a writer-publicist, several rich contributors, and Dr. Tanton himself as founder and chairman. Yet each group has repeatedly disclaimed any association with the other." (4)

In a 1986 memo written for anti-immigration activists, Tanton revealed his own anti-Latino and anti-Catholic biases. According to Tanton:

"Gobernar es poblar translates 'to govern is to populate.' ...In this society where the majority rules, does this hold? Will the present majority peaceably hand over its political power to a group that is simply more fertile? ...Perhaps this is the first instance in which those with their pants up are going to get caught by those with their pants down! ...As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?...We're building in a deadly disunity. All great empires disintegrate, we want stability." (5)

The Tanton memo also lambasted Catholicism because of its threat to church-state separation, prohibition of birth control, and lack of environmental consciousness along with the purportedly low "educability" of its base. Tanton also highlighted what he regarded as the limited English skills of Catholic immigrants." As Crawford observed, only this last concern-the use of English-"was respectable enough to broach in the public discourse. Hence the role of US English, in what appears to be a division of labor with FAIR: to use language issues to highlight the cultural costs of immigration, thereby promoting demands for tighter quotas." (4)

When the Arizona Republic published the Tanton memo in 1988, U.S. English was thrown into turmoil. Executive director Linda Chavez, who claimed ignorance of the organization's connections to anti-immigration funding and institutions, resigned. Chavez later founded the Center for Equal Opportunity, which opposes bilingual education and affirmative action programs. At the same time, apparently by prearranged agreement involving the board of directors and Chavez, John Tanton and Gerda Bikales also left U.S. English. Tanton and Bikales later founded a competing official language organization, first known as English Language Advocates and now called ProEnglish.

Although restrictionist movements-whether official English or anti-immigration-generally lean Republican, the early English-only movement was less partisan. Among those who lent their names to the movement in the 1980s were Gore Vidal, Norman Cousins, and Walter Cronkite. However, after the racist and nativist sentiments of the principals of U.S. English became more well-known in the late 1980s, Vidal, Cousins, Cronkite, and other liberals asked that their names be dropped from the group's letterhead. (4)

Today U.S. English, which is the largest official language organization with a budget of $7 million, carefully avoids language that could be construed as racist or nativist. However, its selection of famous quotes, one of which appears on all its web pages, highlights the organization's political proclivities. Theodore Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, Alexis de Tocqueville, Ayn Rand, and Margeret Thatcher are all exalted figures for the right wing. They also quote neoconservative literary star, Saul Bellow, as saying: "A melting pot, yes. A tower of Babel, no." Another literary figure who has in recent years made common cause with neoconservatives, Vaclav Havel, says: "English is the 'language of liberty' for nations emerging from years of cultural oppression."

Other webpage quotes:

Winston Churchill: "The gift of a common tongue is a priceless in heritance and it may well someday become the foundation of a common citizenship."

Ayn Rand: "A country has to have only one official language, if men are to understand one another. It is eminently fair that a country's official language be the language of the majority."

Theodore Roosevelt: "The one absolute certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, or preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities. We have but one flag. We must also learn one language and that language is English."

Funding

U.S. English does not disclose the source of its funding. In the 1980s, it was funded through U.S. Inc., a nonprofit organization controlled by John Tanton that was the source of early support for a network of language and immigration restrictionist organizations.

Individuals

Contact Information

1747 Pennsylvania Ave, NW
Suite 1050
Washington, DC 2006
Phone: (202) 933-0100
Email: info@usenglish.org
Website: http://www.usenglish.org/inc/

(2) "S.I. Hayakawa," U.S. English, Inc.
http://www.usenglish.org/inc/about/hayakawa.asp

(3) "About U.S. English," U.S. English, Inc.
http://www.usenglish.org/inc/about/advisory.asp

(4) James Crawford, "Anatomy of the English-Only Movement," Paper presented at a Conference University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, March 21, 1996
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/JWCRAWFORD/anatomy.htm

(5) John Tanton, Unpublished memo for WITAN IV attendees, October 10, 1986. Excerpted in Crawford's "Anatomy of the English-Only Movement."

(6) Home Page, U.S. English Foundation
http://www.usenglish.org/foundation/

(7) States with Official English Laws, U.S. English, Inc.
http://www.usenglish.org/inc/official/states.asp

(8) Federal Court Cases, U.S. English, Inc.
http://www.usenglish.org/foundation/legal/federal.asp

(9) "Anti-Immigrant Organizations," Political Research Associates
www.irc-online.org/research/directories/immig_grp_undermine.html

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