EXTENSIONS of REMARKS DO WE WANT QUEBEC HERE? V

12994 EXTENSIONS OF .REMARKS June 5, 1990 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS DO WE WANT QUEBEC HERE? v. Nicholas). This concerned a complaint by the 20,000-member Learning English Advo a Chinese that his children were not being cates Drive. HON. WM. S. BROOMFIELD taught English adequately in the local The crying shame is how badly that public schools. One possible remedy listed money serves those it is intended to help. As OF MICHIGAN by Justice William Douglas was teaching jobs tend away from assembly-line work, IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES the children in Chinese. where little language is involved, to comput Tuesday, June 5, 1990 And then the predictable happened. The er screens, pay and working conditions Department of Education was established in depend on educational and English attain Mr. BROOMFIELD. Mr. Speaker, I want to the Carter era and was looking for some ment. Today's anti-English bias, it seems, share with my colleagues an enlightening arti thing to dG. Why not promote bilingualism? sentences too many minority school leavers, cle on the perils of bilingualism. There would be jobs and money in it. So it particularly Hispanics, to a second-class eco Our neighbors in Canada are struggling to didn't take the bureaucrats long to launch a nomic life. maintain national unity under the strain of their vast, federally funded bilingual education Typically, the pols' response is to call for two official languages-French and English. In program. Because by far the largest number yet more money to be poured into a failed of immigrants today come from Spanish program. Fortunately, most Hispanic-Ameri contrast, the United States has been built on speaking countries, Spanish was the logical a foundation of assimilation of diverse nation cans don't buy those arguments. A govern co-language. ment survey asked Hispanic parents to rank alities into a new nationality. Adopting the In many areas of the country where there 70 items in importance to their children's English language has always been an impor are concentrations of Spanish-speaking kids, education. Teaching them English was tant part of becoming an American. bilingual education has in practice turned third, teaching them Spanish was third, too, Before abandoning this important source of into mostly Spanish teaching. "If it is meas but from the bottom. A recent poll by the our national identity, we would be well advised ured against the original intent, to teach San Francisco Chronicle showed that 69% to ask, as does Howard Banks, "Do We Want English to disadvantaged children, it's a fail of Hispanics approved of English being the Quebec Here?" I commend Mr. Bank's Forbes ure. If it had been intended to teach Span official state language in California. ish, it would have been a tremendous suc But the proponents of bilingualism tend magazine article to my colleagues and urge cess," says Bricker. them to affirm the importance of English as to be types who know what is best for other The clearest indication of failure is the people, even if the majority doesn't agree. our common language by joining me as a co high dropout rate of Hispanic high school sponsor of the English Language Amendment, So, would a constitutional amendment, as kids. Since the early 1970s, the dropout rate proposed by ex-Senator Hayakawa (see box> House Joint Resolution 81 . for white children has been tending down and now by Representative William Emer slightly. The dropout rate for black kids has Do WE WANT QuEBEc HERE? son <R-Mo.), solve the problem? It wouldn't more or less halved and is now roughly the hurt. (By Howard Banks> same as for whites. The exception is for His To oppose bilingualism is not the same panics. Their dropout rate is stubbornly thing as opposing the teaching of foreign "The one absolutely certain way of bring high, roughly double that for the other languages. It is merely to insist that to be ing this nation to ruin, of preventing all pos groups, and the trend, if anything, has re American one should understand English-a sibility of its continuing to be a nation at cently been rising slightly. Yet-and here's not very onerous requirement. In any case, all, would be to permit it to become a tangle an apparent paradox-Spanish-speaking some 23 states, from Arizona to Virginia, of squabbling nationalists." So warned Americans have a lower unemployment rate have passed or have pending legislation to Teddy Roosevelt in 1915. than blacks and slightly higher average make English the official language. We have avoided that danger here-which earnings. How come? Bilingualism undermines the very basis on Canada clearly has not (see previous arti A survey by the Civil Rights Commission which this country has been built: assimila cle). We have avoided it in part because of has found that when the differences in edu tion of diverse nationalities into a new na the common use of English by all of the im cational attainment, and especially for pro tionality. Many intellectuals scorn what this migrants that make up America. Adopting ficiency in English, are eliminated, what country represents, and for them bilingual the English language has always been part emerges is that Hispanics do as well as the ism is a handy tool. It is a handy tool, too, of becoming American. Relative ease of rest of the population. A logical conclusion for those looking for ways to pry money out communication in a single language has pro is that the poor language proficiency of of the taxpayer. But, as Canadians have vided a kind of national glue, a common many Hispanics is dragging down their aver learned, it is not a good way to create a na thread to the creation and development of a age economic performance. tional identity or preserve national unity nation that is spread over a wide area and The issue of Spanish-language teachings harbors diverse interests, beliefs and nation of Hispanics is emotion-charged. Merely al origins. raising questions about the efficiency of the BILINGUALISM: A WOLF IN SHEEP'S CLOTHING But a threat to that thread is emerging in so-called bilingual program often leads to Ex-Senator S.l. Hayakawa, 84, is a little the increasingly strident political campaign accusations of racism. Such noises come frail these days. But he clearly recalls why for separate Spanish teaching. Fortunately, mainly from those that benefit most from in 1981 he launched the campaign for a con most Hispanic-Americans don't support the these programs-Hispanic politicians, bu stitutional amendment to make English the idea. A loud minority of Hispanic politicians reaucrats whose careers depend on the pro official language of the U.S. With the im and leftish liberals do. grams, the providers of textbooks in Span plementation of laws like the Bilingual Edu "There are obvious differences [with ish and, maybe, some teachers who retain cation Act, 1974, the U.S. government was Canada], but the parallels are clear their jobs [and sometimes get a bonus] be for the first time encouraging people not to enough," says Kathryn Bricker, executive cause they speak Spanish. learn English. Hayakawa saw what other director of U.S. English. This is the organi It's a big economic issue, too, for these politicians chose to ignore: that this could zation founded by former Senator S.l. Haya groups. A guesstimate by the Education De mark the beginning of the end of the great kawa to pursue his idea of a constitutional partment suggests that when the $160 mil American experiment. Bilingualism was a amendment that would make English the lion cost of the Bilingual Education Act, wolf in sheep's clothing. official language of the U.S. 1974, is added to other programs involved in He is the eldest son of a Japanese couple Bilingual teaching began as an off-shoot bilingual education, the cost reaches $1.5 who lived in Canada. "We were in a neigh of the civil rights right movement in 1960s. billion a year. Each child in bilingual educa borhood with Scots and English. My father It was at first intended to help so-called tion is "worth" around $350 a year to a spoke and wrote good English and I spoke LEP kids [for limited-English-proficient] school. But "once they become fluent in English with my brother and sisters. My get into the main-stream of economic life by English, the school district loses its bilin mother never learned English worth a teaching them English. But it has turned gual funding," explains Sally Peterson, a damn, so we spoke Japanese with her." He into a monster born out of a loosely worded teacher for 26 years at Glenwood Elementa got his master's in English from McGill Uni 1974 decision from the Supreme Court (Lau ry School, Sun Valley, Calif., and founder of versity in Montreal, Quebec, where he paid e This "bullet" symbol identifies statements or insertions which are not spoken by a Member of the Senate on the floor. Matter set in this typeface indicates words inserted or appended, rather than spoken, by a Member of the House on the floor. June 5, 1990 EXTENSIONS OF REMARKS 12995 his way working as a cab driver. "I spoke that the old management styles had to go. ess improvements and the organization's mis French there-when it was necessary," he Management and labor consult each other on sion achievements, to include cost savings remembers. numerous issues concerning staffing, fi and superb customer service, all within a qual So there's no Anglo-snobbism here, and nances, procedures, compensation, discipline, ity work environment.

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