Massive migrations of political refugees during recent decades have produced increasing enclaves of 329 foreign languages and cultures in America's urban areas. But today's migrants aren't jumping into the traditional melting pot of assimilation.
It is not unusual now to see virtually all public indentifications--official and unofficial--in foreign languages within ghettos of Little Tokyo, Chinatown, Korea Town and other ethnic communities. Negative reactions to that growing exclusiveness spawned the English-only movement 30 years ago.
Louisiana (1811) and Nebraska (1920) were early enactors of laws and constitutional amendments mandating English as the official language of local and state governments. Another 23 states have passed similar legislation since 1969, but efforts in 1996 to pass federal Official English legislation in Congress met with success in the House of Representatives and inaction in the Senate.
Congress should readdress the Official English proposal and return America to monolingual government--excepting emergency, safety and health services and judicial proceedings.
Don't build another Tower of Babel in America. (12 MARCH 2000).
