Received: from emout05.mail.aol.com (emout05.mail.aol.com [198.81.10.37]) by literacy.nifl.gov (8.6.8/940311.01ccg) with ESMTP id KAA01346 for <nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov>; Mon, 6 Nov 1995 10:27:23 -0500 From: MMBelanger@aol.com Received: by emout05.mail.aol.com (8.6.12/8.6.12) id IAA01389 for nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov; Mon, 6 Nov 1995 08:09:29 -0500 Date: Mon, 6 Nov 1995 08:09:29 -0500 Message-ID: <951106080927_99060834@emout05.mail.aol.com> To: nifl-esl@literacy.nifl.gov Subject: Re: English Only Gets Hearing in Congress Status: RO X-Status: I would like to respond to a few of the messages posted regarding English only. I apologize if I repeat what has been said; I send and receive messages once per day. Meg points out that her students realize the importance of learning English. Opponents of English Only do not oppose learning English. Everyone agrees that immigrants must learn English. As Alice/Sen. Simon points out, the problem is that legislating English Only does not help anyone learn English. None of the current legislation proposing English Only would appropriate _any_ money for English classes. (I don't even think they _mention_ English classes.) I don't know anything about how much it costs to provide English classes, so I'll stick to paraphrasing the old saying, an English Only law and 50 cents will get you a cup of coffee. So if English Only is not about teaching people English, what is the motive? While they tout the need for national unity, the main proponent of English Only, U.S. English, shares its roots with groups that advocate for restrictions on immigration. U.S. English and the Federation for American Immigration Reform used to be under the umbrella of U.S. Inc. An internal survey done several years ago of U.S. English's (mostly over 60) membership revealed a strong anti-hispanic bias. As for services in other languages, as long as we continue to accept immigrants, there will always be people needing certain services on other languages--either because they are in the process of learning English, or because they haven't yet had the opportunity due to there not being enough classes to teach them. A great source of information on the English Only movement, by the way, is Jame's Crawford's book, "Hold Your Tongue." Maurice Belanger
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