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 he
latest census
data tells us that 18% of Americans speak a language other than
English at home. What are we to make of it?
First, realize
that this number is undoubtedly inflated. This is because a family
with a grandmother living in their home who speaks only Spanish
will be included in this particular tally even if the parents are
bilingual and the children speak nothing but English.
Statistical
padding of this sort, inadvertent or otherwise, is not new. During
the 1970's, professional ethnic activists encouraged the U.S. Census
Bureau to count people of Hispanic origin, rather than merely counting
the Spanish-speaking, in order to inflate the numbers of their claimed
constituency.
Too many politicians
look at census figures like these and decide the days of America
as a one-language country are over. Yet demographics do not determine
America's destiny; policy choices do.
The language
spoken in a government office or public-school classroom will have
far more impact on America's linguistic future than the language
a family chooses to speak at its kitchen table. Accordingly, the
most important result of the new census data will be its impact
upon Bush administration decisions about Clinton-era language policies.
Saturday, August
11th marks the one-year anniversary of Clinton Executive Order 13166.
EO 13166 and its accompanying regulations declare that anyone has
the right to demand all services in the language of their choice
from any recipient of federal funds.
Consider the
University of Utah Health Science Center. Last year, the Center
spent $300,000 on translation services. Their efforts did not protect
them from an investigation by the Department of Health and Human
Services' Office of Civil Rights.
This investigation
continues, even though the center has now begun to publish 200 health
brochures on the Internet in 24 languages. This is because EO 13166
potentially requires every recipient of federal funds to be ready
to provide a translation into any language spoken anywhere on planet
Earth — currently 6,800 — at a moment's notice.
The fiscal
impact of EO 13166 in a nation in which large numbers of Americans
speak a language other than English is staggering. Consider an observation
by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich, from his book, Locked
in the Cabinet. At the time, Reich was urging the Clinton administration
to issue an Executive Order on job protection for strikers:
One out of
five employees in America works for a firm paid by the federal
government to provide a wide variety of goods or services . .
. [m]ost of what it [the government] does is done by private,
profit-making companies. So the impact of this executive order
would be far-reaching [emphasis in original].
EO 13166 thus
places at least one-fifth of the American economy under the threat
of costly lawsuits over language rights in addition to its impact
on federal, state, county and municipal governments.
Ultimately,
the census findings on language choice are yet another reminder
that President Bush would do well to repeal EO 13166. An administration
which seeks to maintain a generous immigration policy must also
make an equally firm commitment to assimilation.
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