ProEnglish Advocate

Fall, 2001

In Memoriam
     It is now several weeks since the atrocities at the World Trade Center and the Pentagon took place. ProEnglish joins with all Americans to remember, honor, and grieve for all the innocents who lost their lives on that terrible day.
    We stand firmly behind our president and in full support of our police and military forces as they seek to bring the murderers responsible for this atrocity to justice, and work to make sure that such a treacherous attack on U.S. territory and U.S. citizens never happens again.
     (ProEnglish's is located on the 11th floor of a building that overlooks the Pentagon about a mile away. The horrific aftermath of billowing smoke and fire from the heavily damaged building was clearly visible from our office. It was a sight that will never be forgotten - ed.)

Final Victory for Official English in Utah!
     On Sept. 4th, the same day the ACLU was scheduled to file an appeal with Utah's Supreme Court seeking to overturn a lower court ruling upholding Utah's official English law, the ACLU said it was abandoning its suit. The ACLU's action was a major victory for ProEnglish, which had intervened to defend the law's constitutionality in the lower court, and was preparing to defend it again before Utah's highest court.
     In a face-saving explanation for its action, the ACLU said it was giving up its appeal because the lower court ruling had clarified that non-English speaking residents would not be barred from getting government services. In fact the allegation was a fabrication of the ACLU's from the outset, and was utterly dismissed by the presiding judge.
     In commenting on the ACLU decision to abandon its appeal, ProEnglish executive director K.C. McAlpin said, "We are very pleased that the will of the almost seventy percent of voters who voted for Utah's official English law can now be implemented without any doubt about the law's constitutionality. As ProEnglish said from the beginning, laws declaring English the official language do not discriminate against anyone. Rather than being divisive, having an official language promotes the cause of unity, community, and common understanding among people of different backgrounds."

ProEnglish Intervenes in Michigan Court Case
     On Sept. 10, ProEnglish joined the Center for American Unity to file a brief supporting a court appeal by Janice Barton, a Michigan woman who was sentenced to 45 days in jail for telling a Hispanic police officer "I wish you people would learn English." Barton was also alleged to have used an ethnic slur in a comment to her mother after overhearing the police officer and the officer's parents using Spanish while waiting to enter a restaurant in Manistee, Michigan. The case was originally reported in The ProEnglish Advocate in the fall of 2000.
     In explaining why ProEnglish decided to join in support of Barton's appeal, board chairman Bob Park said, "ProEnglish does not condone the use of ethnic slurs of any kind. But this case is important to us because court records make it clear that Barton was not convicted for using a slur, but for expressing her opinion that people in the U.S. should speak English."
     Although Barton was convicted on a single count of violating a local ordinance barring insulting conduct in a public place, the judge in the case sentenced Barton to 45 days in jail. When asked by Barton's lawyer to explain why he was giving her the maximum sentence allowed by law, the judge replied that Barton was "a bigot." Earlier the judge had characterized Barton's remarks as "fascist" and "Xenophobic."
     Park said there has been an effort by bilingual and multilingual advocacy groups in recent years to characterize any public expression of support for official English as "hate speech." He observed that it is a short hop from there to using PC inspired laws outlawing "hate speech" as tools to suppress anyone expressing support for official English, or for preserving English as our common language.
     The case is now on appeal before the Michigan State Court of Appeals.

Court Rules Parents Can Sue CA Teachers Who Don't Teach English
     In an important decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has held that the parents of school children in California can sue teachers who refuse to implement the 1998 initiative banning bilingual education in that state. The section of the law allowing such lawsuits was viewed as crucial by initiative supporters because it makes schoolteachers personally liable if they refuse to comply with the law's intent, which is to ban teaching in foreign languages.
     Adopted by a landslide 61 percent margin, the initiative says that, "all children in California public schools shall be taught English by being taught in English" and says parents or administrators can be sued if they "willfully and repeatedly" refuse to obey the law. Groups representing the state's bilingual education industry including the California State Teachers Association, went to court to have the provision letting parents sue thrown out charging that the provision was unconstitutional and would have a chilling effect on free speech.
     Except for a few scattered reports, this groundbreaking decision went largely unreported by the media in California and elsewhere. The plaintiffs have not announced if they plan to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Multicultural Ideology - The Real Enemy Within
"Immigrants who come here from around the world with every desire and intention to become Americans may be hi-jacked by those activists who are ideologically committed to keeping them speaking foreign languages, loyal to foreign values and - if possible - taught to feel historic grievances against the country that is welcoming them today.
Magic words like 'diversity' evade the brutal reality of what Balkanization actually means, whether in the Balkans, the Middle East, Rwanda, Sri Lanka or any other place where 'identity' rules supreme, and its price is paid in never-ending streams of blood."
-- from a column by Thomas Sowell, Sept. 13, 2001

Attention Bay State Members: Drive to Ban Bilingual Ed Underway! Your Help Needed:
     The petition campaign to ban bilingual education in Massachusetts and replace it with programs that actually teach non-English speaking children to speak English is now official. "English for the Children - Massachusetts" the local committee sponsoring the petition drive has until December 5th to gather the 57,100 signatures needed to put the issue on the ballot in the November 2002 general election.
     The English for the Children Committee is co-chaired by Chelsea High School principal, Lincoln Tamayo, education expert and author, Dr. Rosalie Porter, and Boston University Professor Christine Rossell. It has received the backing of Ron Unz, the California businessman who previously sponsored successful initiative campaigns to ban bilingual education in California and Arizona. The campaign has also been endorsed by Democratic State Senator Guy Glodis who has fought unsuccessfully for years to get the Massachusetts legislature to reform its bilingual education program in favor of English immersion teaching methods.
     ProEnglish members in Massachusetts who want to help in this petition campaign should contact the following:

Keith Mitchell
Office of State Sen. Guy Glodis
The State House
Boston, MA 02133
(617) 722-1485
kmitchell@senate.state.ma.us

English Immersion Test Scores Rise for 3rd Year in a Row
     For the third year in a row since California's huge bilingual education program was largely ended and replaced by English immersion teaching methods, the reading and math test scores of English learning students in the state's public schools showed marked improvement. Since California's bilingual program was dismantled by a 1998 ballot initiative, the test scores across all elementary grade levels have improved 46 percent in reading and 57 percent in math.
     To appreciate what an impressive achievement this is, you need to know that whenever an "English learning" student scores very well on these tests the student is reclassified as "English proficient" and removed from the pool of "English learners." So what is happening is similar to a baseball team that continues to win even while their best players are being benched after every game. After a while even the most fanatic opponents might suspect that the team's winning ways are due to a superior coaching method.
     One of those opponents, however, refuses to concede because to do so would threaten its very existence. The well-heeled National Association for Bilingual Education (NABE), the major organization representing the bilingual education industry continues to deny that English immersion teaching methods are in any way responsible for the improving test scores. Annual NABE conventions are devoted to finding the right "message" to counteract the mounting evidence from California.
     Imagine the headlines if the test scores of English learning students in California had gone down. NABE and its multicultural allies would have jumped on any decline as proof positive that ending bilingual education was a terrible mistake. Instead the improving test results gave fresh impetus to citizens committees that are organizing petition drives to put initiatives on the ballot banning bilingual education in other states (see related stories).

Illegal Aliens Lack of English 'Already Solved' Says Anti-Tax Leader
According to a report by the Mexican news agency, EFE, Grover Norquist, President of the Washington-based lobbying group called Americans for Tax Reform (ATF), claimed that objections to giving amnesty to illegal aliens based on possible misuse of welfare services or their inability to speak English are wrong because the problems - including language -- have been 'resolved.' No evidence to support the claim by Norquist was given in the Sept.11 report, which reported that several Washington-based conservative groups such as ATF are lobbying Congress to pass a massive new amnesty program for illegal aliens.

Census Documents Big Increase in U.S. Non-English Speaking Population
     Fueled by continuing record levels of U.S. immigration, Census data reveals that almost one in five American residents now speak a language other than English at home. In heavily immigrant California the number is two in five. These startling findings were contained in a national survey of 700,000 households by the Census Bureau in conjunction with the year 2000 Census.
     ProEnglish Board Chairman Bob Park commented "These figures are deeply troubling because they indicate that the nation's capacity to assimilate new immigrants and preserve English as our common language is being overwhelmed by the sheer volume of immigration. Not only that," he continued, "but our ability to teach children English and provide them with a quality education that will give them the chance to succeed in life is being set back further and further by the unremitting flow of non-English speaking children into our public schools."
     Park said it is time for political leaders to start telling the American people the truth. "While poll after poll reveals that education ranks at the top of the public's policy concerns, ninety percent of the crisis in public education is the result of a national immigration policy based the illusion that there are no limits," he said.

Linguistic Consequences of Mass Immigration
"English can no longer be considered the default language of the United States" - Christopher Ho, an immigration lawyer for the Employment Law Center in San Francisco, as quoted in a New York Times story May 19, 2001, about the 2000 Census.

Stump Bill Revoking Executive Order 13166 Continues to Add Sponsors
     H.R. 969, the bill introduced by House Armed Services Chairman Bob Stump (R-AZ) to revoke Executive Order 13166 has attracted 60 congressional co-sponsors and continues to gain support as more and more Representatives hear from constituents. 13166 is the order issued by President Clinton last year that makes translation and interpreter services a protected civil right for most non-English speaking U.S. residents.
     This unconstitutional order, which will impose untold billions of dollars in added translation costs on American taxpayers, was given the force of law without ever having been debated or approved by Congress. The huge cost of complying with this multilingual edict continues to mount as civil rights lawyers and bureaucrats threaten one federally funded entity after another if they fail to hire translators and interpreters for dozens of obscure foreign languages.
     To cite one example: last year the University of Utah's Health Science Center spent $300,000 on translation services and currently publishes 200 health brochures on the Internet in 24 different languages. But that is apparently not enough for federal civil rights enforcers who are investigating the Center for providing inadequate interpreter/translation services under guidelines handed down by E.O. 13166.
     The Bush Administration has thus far turned a deaf ear to pleas to revoke 13166 including formal requests by ProEnglish, the American Medical Association, dozens of state medical associations and physician groups, and thousands of ordinary citizens. As a result, persuading Congress to pass H.R. 969 appears to be the best hope for overturning the multilingual edict.

Official English Bill Gains Support in Congress
      Representative Peter King (R-NY), a strong supporter of official English has introduced H.R. 280, the "National Language Act of 2001." This bill declares that "English shall be the official language of the government of the United States" and mandates that all official business be conducted in English. The bill has already enlisted the support of 39 co-sponsors in the House of Representatives.
      But the legislation faces an uphill battle for consideration in Congress. ProEnglish encourages its members to contact their member of the House of Representatives to make their views known about this legislation [write to The Honorable _____c/o U.S. House of Representatives, Washington D.C. 20515, or call the Capitol Switchboard at 202 224-3121]. People can also contact Rep. King to thank him for his leadership on official English. [Congressional contact information is also available on ProEnglish's website: www.proenglish.org --ed.].
     In addition to Rep. King's bill, Rep. Bob Barr (R-GA) is sponsoring legislation, H.R. 1984, the "English Language Unity Act of 2001" that makes English the official language of the United States, and Rep. John Doolittle (R-CA) has introduced a constitutional amendment, H.J. Res. 16, to do the same thing.

House Requests OMB Estimate of Cost to Implement EO 13166
     Pressed by Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK), the House adopted a resolution that requires the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to report on the estimated cost of complying with Executive Order 13166.
     Despite the good government nature of the amendment to the Treasury and Postal Departments appropriations bill, the Istook amendment barely survived behind the scenes maneuvering by Administration supporters worried that requiring such a report might prove embarrassing to President Bush. The president has refused to revoke the order even though the order was based on a dubious legal precedent that was later overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.
     The Administration's allies are worried that any estimate of the cost of complying with EO 13166 is likely to run into the tens of billions of dollars. The enormous cost is due to the fact that the order not only affects federal government agencies, but virtually all state and local government offices as well as tens of thousands of government contractors and non-governmental organizations.
     The fate of the OMB study on the cost of implementing E.O. 13166 will be determined in joint House-Senate conference committee negotiations on a compromise Treasury-Postal appropriations bill.

Growing Diversity, Lack of English and Assimilation Undermining Nation's Sense of Community
      An Associated Press story appearing in The Washington Times, Sept. 2, reported on the growing disintegration of America's common civic culture. The article discussed the increasing problems police experience trying to enforce laws in fast-growing immigrant enclaves, which are difficult to operate in because the people in them often do not speak English, and whose deep seated cultural values frequently collide head on with U.S. cultural norms about right and wrong.
      "It means the community no longer has the shared understanding of what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior," says Northwestern University Law Professor Paul H. Robinson.
      The issue was brought to the fore by problems police encountered in Citrus Heights, California when they tried to locate a Ukrainian immigrant suspected of brutally murdering six family members, because so few in the city's Ukrainian immigrant community could speak English. The problem is hardly confined to language, however, but springs from the fact that many immigrant cultures encourage practices and customs that are alien to the basic tenets of Western civilization.
      The article cited as one example the Hmong people from Southeast Asia now living in Minneapolis. The Hmong consider it very acceptable for a husband to beat his wife because the husband has paid a dowry to "acquire" the wife and thus she becomes his property. In the case of the Ukrainian suspect in Citrus Grove, police were reduced to pleading for cooperation from members of the largely non-English speaking Ukrainian / Russian enclave there who were very reluctant to talk to the police, even through interpreters, because of deeply ingrained suspicions of police authority.
      The increasing breakdown in the nation's sense of community is the logical result of the anti-assimilation ideology that now pervades many U.S. political and economic elites coupled with continuing record levels of immigration.

Executive Order 13166 Balloons Hospital Costs
     An emergency room physician working in a Denver hospital sent the following first hand account of the spreading impact of Executive Order 13166: (note: sender's name has been withheld - ed.)
     "The incident occurred around the 3rd week of April [2001], at about 9:30 in the evening. We have a growing Russian population here in Denver and this patient was a late 50s/early 60s male who came in with a variety of medical complaints. His wife spoke just enough English to tell us that we were required to provide an interpreter and that if we did not 'soon' we would be 'reported.' She never clarified what she meant by that, but when we were able to get a Russian speaking interpreter through the rather expensive AT&T phone line, they only reluctantly accepted this, insisting we should have a live person and that next time they would make it more of a problem."
     This incident shows how taxpayer-supported hospitals and medical facilities, already overburdened with the high cost of providing free emergency medical care to growing numbers of illegal immigrants, will soon be forced to bear the enormous cost of providing live interpreters and translators for non-English speaking patients thanks to E.O. 13166. Providing AT&T interpreters via telephone alone costs up to $270 an hour. Is it any wonder that medical costs continue to spiral out of control?

Group Plans New Petition Campaign to Ban Bilingual Ed in Colorado
     A Colorado citizens' organization headed by former Denver school board member and liberal activist, Rita Montero, has filed a petition to put an initiative on the 2002 ballot to ban bilingual education in Colorado. Montero became an outspoken opponent of bilingual education when state school officials barred her from removing her own son from the Spanish language instruction program.
     The group, called "English for the Children - Colorado, is backed financially by California entrepreneur Ron Unz, who helped fund initiative campaigns to ban bilingual education that won landslide victories in California and Arizona.
     On filing the petition with the state legislative council, Montero said that although bilingual education was launched with good intentions, the program had long since been taken over and corrupted by militant separatists.
     If the initiative's language is approved, the group will face the daunting challenge of gathering 80,600 signatures of registered voters in order to qualify the initiative for the 2002 election. A similar petition drive was successfully completed in time for the 2000 election, but the related initiative was kept off the ballot at the last minute by a politically contrived legal technicality (see The ProEnglish Advocate Vol. 6, no. 2).