The immigrant experience is central to our national character. It epitomizesthe intergenerational improvement inherent in the American Dream. "Americansby choice" add to the cultural and ethnic diversity we have alwayscelebrated. It is America's unique national trait that from such diversitysprings unparalleled unity and strength of purpose.

For nearly four centuries, natives of other lands have come to Americato build a better future. But unlike their predecessors, today's immigrantsare met with government policies allegedly concerned with the preservationof their ethnic separateness. Chief among these misguided policies is themandate of a multilingual government. By discouraging immigrants and theirchildren from using the English language, this policy has erected a linguisticbarrier that keeps many immigrants from becoming full participants in thesociety they have chosen to join. Whatever its putative intentions, a policyof governmental insistence on a multitude of official languages works insidiouslyto harm the very people it was meant to help.

The use of English is indispensable to immigrants and their childrenwho wish to participate fully in American society and realize the AmericanDream. As we seek to promote the rich and varied traditions new Americansbring, we must simultaneously work to insure that all of us share somebasis for common understanding. Securing both these important goals requiresovercoming the divisive influence of linguistic separatism. English shouldbe and remain the official language of our national government.

English, our common language, provides a shared foundation which hasallowed people from every corner of the world to come together to buildthe American nation. Without it, we might never have achieved the cohesionthat permits Irish American and African American, Asian American and Hispanic.American,to live in peace and prosperity together as in no other nation on earth.

The experience of two other immigrant nations--Canada and Israel--offersus clear lessons on just how powerful a force language can be in eitheruniting or dividing a people. These are lessons we cannot fail to heed.

Canada, our neighbor to the north, bears much in common with the UnitedStates. Our settlement, founding, and national growth share the same timeand place in world history. Our peoples emigrated from the same nativelands. But unlike America, Canada has struggled with the divisive issueof language since its earliest days. Though the British won control overFrench Canada more than a decade before the American Declaration of Independence,they failed then to conquer the destructive force of linguistic separation.The French and English settled throughout North America, but the lesionsof language that live on in Canada are healed in our country. Today, centuriesafter the French settlement of Quebec, the French language serves as areason for the Québécois refusal to become integrated into a Canadian nation.The continued existence of Canada as we know it is very much in doubt.

Canada chose to make both English and French its official languages.It has striven for decades to foster unity through official multilingualism.The evidence is clear: that experiment is a horrid failure. Linguisticdifferences have not promoted national harmony, but rather have dramaticallyincreased Canada's cultural and communal divisions. Twice in recent years,Québécois have demanded and won the right to vote on whether they shouldseparate from Canada. And when they did so most recently, in October 1995,only the barest majority--50.6% of Quebec voters--managed to save the countryfrom the kind of disintegration that we ourselves avoided in the CivilWar. A third vote could be held as soon as next year. Multilingualism hasbecome a dagger pointed at the heart and soul of the Canadian nation.

The largest immigrant-absorbing nation on earth, in percentage terms,is Israel. Millions of emigres from around the world, speaking as manytongues as Babel, have been welcomed there. Israel's founding fathers,in contrast to Canada, have long recognized the centrality of languageto their quest to reestablish a Jewish state in their historical homeland.

The Jews who have returned to the Holy Land shared a common historyand religion, but they brought with them enough different native languagesto threaten all hope of a cohesive nation. While Yiddish, the German-Jewishdialect spoken by East European Jews, at least overcame that group's experiencewith Russian, Polish, or Hungarian, Yiddish was as alien to the Arabicand French-speaking Jews of the Middle East as was Spanish. And Spanishwas just one of the many other languages brought to Israel by immigrantsfrom Spain and Latin America.

Israel has shown the world that the key to uniting a polyglot peopleis to establish a language of mutual understanding. Unlike America, whereour British colonizers left us with an English language that is preponderantthroughout the world, Israel had no obvious choice from among the languagesof its varied citizenry. So its founders revived a tongue whose heritagethey all shared, but which none of them spoke. Hebrew--the language ofthe Old Testament which had survived as the medium of prayer and religiousstudy, but which had virtually disappeared from secular use--became onceagain the vernacular of Israel.

Israel did, and continues to do, much more than simply declare Hebrewto be the country's common language. The Israelis put in place an infrastructureto ensure that each and every immigrant will be able to speak this commontongue to his or her new countrymen, and thus become quickly integratedinto Israeli society. New arrivals, whatever their age, are strongly encouragedto take an ulpan, the intensive Hebrew-language course typically taughtby the immersion method. As soon as possible after their arrival, immigrantchildren are placed in regular Hebrew-speaking classrooms, and given extraHebrew-language instruction to help them catch up with their classmates.Those arriving to take degrees at Israel's universities must prove theirHebrew proficiency before graduation, even if their degrees are in subjects--suchas French, Russian or English--that may be taught in their mother tongues.

Just as in America, those immigrants who arrive later in life inevitablyremain more comfortable with their mother tongue. And just as in America,the culture and society of Israel is hospitable to such people: the Israelipress includes newspapers published in German, Russian, French, Yiddishand many other foreign languages. Although none of these foreign languagesis the official language of Israel, their use is welcomed in a free society.But Israel's insistence on Hebrew as the national language insures thatthe children of immigrants quickly become Hebrew speakers first, and speakersof their parents' language second. Although a parent might wish for herchildren to speak English as well as an American, this does not come atthe expense of embracing Israel's language and customs. Immigrants neednot abandon their ties to the country of their birth. But if they trulywish to become part of the country of their choice, the linguistic bondsto their new country soon strengthen.

Because Canadians have been unable to overcome the linguistic differencesthat separate them into distinct Anglophone and Francophone communities,they may not long remain as members of a single nation--despite the essentialhomogeneity of their population. By stressing a single, unifying language,Israel has built a strong, cohesive society--despite the amazingly diversecomposition of its people.

The lesson for America should be clear. Fortunately, the United Statesalready has a common language. We do not need to overcome centuries oflinguistic separation, or to find a national tongue to bring our diversepopulation together. English is our common language, which has enabledus to become and remain the United States of America. We need only ensurethat we do not lose it by neglect or inaction.

Many people do not realize that, while English is our common language,government at all levels is actively undermining its unifying function.All of the benefits our Nation reaps from our linguistic harmony will belost if ill-advised government policies continue to foment linguistic separatism.

Today, American taxes are being spent so that people who cannot understandor communicate in English can nonetheless receive ballots to vote in Filipino,Vietnamese or Chinese. Federal government job announcements frequentlyinvite applications from people with limited English skills. Immigrantshave even been sworn in as new citizens at a U.S. Government ceremony conductedalmost entirely in Spanish. And bilingual education, which purports toaim at bringing students into full participation in our society, has insteadcondemned them to what the New York Times calls a "bilingual prison."

Under these doctrinaire and disruptive bilingual policies, in too manyU.S. schools children who wish to learn English are given only a few minutesof English instruction each day. Ignoring the time-tested wisdom that "practicemakes perfect," children are taught all day long in the foreign languagethey already speak, rather than in English. And children who should bemoved quickly into mainstream classes are kept in language separation forseven or more years.

Immigrant parents who have expressed serious concerns about this practicehave no recourse. Despite parental fears that bilingual programs do notbring their children fully into the fold of American society, nothing isdone to help their kids. That's why dozens of Latino parents at the NinthStreet School in Los Angeles recently pulled their children out of schoolto protest the education bureaucracy's refusal to teach their childrenin English.

Bilingual education programs often require teaching children in theirnative language and discourage the learning of English. These programsare a shameful example of the damage to our society caused by officialmultilingualism. They are wasteful, discriminatory, and too often producechildren who are illiterate in any language. Yet they are perpetuated bya requirement that 75% of federal bilingual education grant money be usedfor instruction in a child's native language rather than finding the mosteffective means to assist the transition to English. Instead of helpingimmigrants and their children achieve the American Dream, these policiesare condemning generations to isolation--cut off from the boundless opportunityour country offers to those who share the common bond of speaking and writingthe same language, and being understood by their fellow citizens.

A 1995 study by Ohio University economists Richard Vedder and LowellGalloway finds that a lack of English skills has trapped almost 1.5 millionimmigrants in poverty. And the Department of Labor has found that while98% percent of Asian males who are fluent in English participate in thelabor force, fully one quarter of Asian males who lack English fluencyare jobless. The simple truth is that those who cannot function in ourcountry's predominant language are less able to find jobs. As a result,they are cheated of the opportunity for improvement and happiness thatAmerica promises to millions.

Even when non-English speakers are able to find jobs, they can expectto earn a fraction of what others earn. In 1989, immigrant men who lackedEnglish skills earned $233 a week on average, according to the Bureau ofLabor Statistics. Those who spoke other languages but were proficient inEnglish earned $449, and those who spoke primarily English earned an averageof $584 a week. A 1995 study by the Latino Institute has confirmed thatthe ability to speak English can make the difference between a low-wagejob and a high-wage managerial, professional, or technical job.

These facts paint an unmistakable picture. Immigrant communities themselvesrecognize what must be done: according to the U.S. Department of Education,42 percent of new enrollees in adult education are signed up for classesin English as a Foreign Language. Almost all of those enrollees--97 percentof them--were born outside the United States.

The drive for self-improvement these students demonstrate reflectsan understanding of what America itself must not take for granted: thatlanguage is the foundation on which all human interaction rests. In America,where the principal language of interaction is English, its use and activepromotion through government policy can pave the way for unprecedentedopportunity and national prosperity. But just as a common language opensthe door to communication, so too the lack of it erects a barrier not easilyovercome. If the common bond of a national language is neglected and denigratedlong enough, experience teaches that the nation itself will ultimatelysuffer. Such an important key to realizing the American Dream ought notbe kept from those who come to the United States.

As we continue to welcome new Americans to our shores, we must ensurethat misguided national policies do not undermine the important role ofa common language of national understanding. English as the official languageof our government encourages its use by all Americans, so as to securebrighter opportunities and a better future for us all.

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Last updated June 7, 1996